Over Whitacre / Witacre

There are two entries for [Over] Whitacre [variant spelling] in the Domesday survey [http://domesdaymap.co.uk/place/SP2491/over-whitacre/] [accessed 17 December 2014], but neither mentions cleric or church in it. The Victoria County History (Warwick, vol. 4, 1947) notes; "The advowson of the church of Whitacre was given in 1203 by Jordan de Witacre to Christine, prioress of Markyate, co. Beds. [...] It was confirmed to the priory in 1280 by John de Clinton as the chapel of Over Whitacre. [...] It was still appropriated to Markyate at the time of Henry VIII's valuation, but no vicarage had been endowed [...] and the chapel is said to have been served by a stipendiary. [...] The parish church of ST. LEONARD was built in 1766"; there is no mention of font or baptismal registers in the VCH entry. The entry for Over Whitacre in William Dargue's A History of Birmingham Churches . . . from A to Y [http://ahistoryofbirminghamchurches.jimdo.com/parishes-in-the-diocese-of-birmingham-outside-the-city/coleshill-st-peter-st-paul/over-whitacre-st-leonard/] [accessed 17 December 2014] notes: "Although no evidence of this early church building survives above ground, an item of the old church’s furniture is now to be found in Holy Trinity church at Sutton Coldfield. The 12th-century stone font from Over Whitacre was thrown out when the church was rebuilt in 1766. It was certainly thought of as crude and inappropriate in a neo-classical building. The font was taken to a local pub, either the nearby Owl Inn (now gone) or downhill to the Bull at Furnace End. There it was used as a mounting block for 90 years, but it was rediscovered in 1856 and presented to Holy Trinity. Made of local sandstone, the bowl of the font is decorated on the lower half with an arcade of intersecting Norman arches. The top half has four large heads which projecting prominently from each side of the bowl. Carved in the green man tradition these grotesque heads have large staring eyes and from the sides of their mouths straps curve downwards and then up to meet between the heads in pairs of leaves."