Nettlebed / Nettlehed

No individual entry found for Nettlebed in the Domesday survey. A font here is described in 'Church notes...' (1887) in the context of some "notes [that] were taken between 1835 and 1840": "Font, a plain Norman cylinder". There is entry for a "Font Approximately 1 Metre to South of Church of St Bartholomew" listed in Historic England [Listing NGR: SU6983786733]: "Font. Probably Romanesque. Stone. Circular. Straight sided." The entry for this parish in the Victoria County History (Oxford, vol. 18, 2016) notes: "A church at Nettlebed probably existed by that date or very soon after: a Norman font and fragments of a 12th-century tower may survive from the medieval building, [...] which was presumably established by the Crown, by an unknown tenant or feoffee, or by Dorchester abbey. [...] Nettlebed seems to have enjoyed full parochial rights, including baptism and burial. [...] The surviving Norman font suggests that the church had baptismal rights from the outset [...] Little survives of the medieval church, which was almost entirely rebuilt in 1845–6. The base of the present tower (now rendered) may retain some 12th-century stonework, and a Norman tub font (in the churchyard) is probably original."


[NB: the village name appears historically as either Nettlehed or Nettlebed depending on the source, though modern use is Nettlebed].