Booton / Boton / Botuna / Botune / Bowton / Tortuna / Tortune

Blomefield (1805-1810) writes: "B[oton], Called also Botune, Tortune, and Bowton, was in two parts or manors at the Conqueror's survey [...] and the church had 9 acres of glebe [...] The Church is dedicated to St. Michael the Archangel [...] The tower is square, and hath four bells in it; the chancel is tiled, and the nave and north porch are leaded"; the font here is noted indirectly: "On a brass by the font, Orate pro anima Rogeri Sehelyng, cuius anime tr. Orate pro animabus Johanniz Chelyng et Elizabethe uxoris eius quorum animabus propicietur Deus Amen. Orate pro anima Johanne nuper uxoris Johannis Shyllyng Senioris. Hic jacet Johannis Cartere, cuius anime propicietur Deus. Amen." Blomefield (ibid.) names "Matthew de Redham" as first recorded rector, in 1308. [NB: for the 15thC font originally from Booton, moved to Norwich, and to Attleborough in 1975 cf. Index entry for Norwich No.31] -- The present church is modern, described in The Churches Conservation Trust web site [www.visitchurches.org.uk/Ourchurches/Completelistofchurches/Church-of-St-Michael-the-Archangel-Booton-Norfolk/] [accessed 27 May 2013]: "the creation of one man - eccentric clergyman Reverend Whitwell Elwin - a descendant of Pocahontas of Hiawatha fame. A friend of Charles Darwin, Elwin not only raised the funds for the building, he also designed it – without the help of an architect - borrowing details from other churches throughout the country. Some of his models can be identified; the west doorway was inspired by Glastonbury Abbey, for example, but the slender twin towers which soar over the wide East Anglian landscape and the central pinnacle which looks almost like a minaret, seem to have sprung solely from his imagination. The result is a masterpiece. Inside, he filled his fairytale creation with angels all modelled on the rector’s young female friends!.The wooden carved angels holding up the roof are the work of James Minns, a well-known master-carver whose carving of a bull’s head is still the emblem on Colman’s Mustard. The delicately coloured stained glass windows also show angels as a series of musicians with flowing hair and pretty faces. Edwin Lutyens, the distinguished architect who married the daughter of one of Elwin’s oldest friends, said the church was "very naughty but built in the right spirit"."