Fetcham / Feceham / Feecham / Fecham

There are three entries for Fetcham [variant spelling] in the Domesday survey [http://opendomesday.org/place/TQ1555/fetcham/] [accessed 16 December 2015], none of which mention cleric or church in it. The 1549 inventory carried out under Edward VI [quted in https://stmaryschurchfetcham.files.wordpress.com/2011/05/history-of-fetcham-church-by-john-mettam-23-3-97.pdf [accessed 16 December 2015], does not mention the font directly but lists among the contents here "Item. ij font clothes of lynen clothe", therefore indicating the presence of a font in the church at the time. The Victoria County Histowy (Surrey, vol. 3, 1911) notes: "The west wall and the upper part of the south and probably of the east wall of an early nave still remain, and belong perhaps to the beginning of the 11th century, the walls being of plastered flint-work, with quoins and dressings of thin red bricks, no doubt Roman, set in wide mortar joints. [...] About 1150–60 a south aisle was added to the nave, and towards the end of the same century the tower was built. The present chancel dates from the early years of the 13th century; and the transept seems contemporary with it. The north arcade of the nave is work of c. 1300"; there is no font mentioned in the text of the VCH entry, but an interior plan of the church shows a font at the west end of the north aisle, which makes sense since the main entranceway is through the porch on the north side; the same plan shows part of the west wall of the nave as pre-Conquest. No font is mentioned in the National Heritage listing for this church [Listing NGR: TQ1497755625]. A history of this church written by John D. Mettham (1993) is posted in the St Mary's Church Fetcham web site [https://stmaryschurchfetcham.files.wordpress.com/2011/05/three-essays-on-the-history-of-st-marys-church-by-john-mettam.pdf] [accessed 16 December 2015]: "The old, 1632, stone font appears beside the central column of the North arcade [...] The Victorian font of 1868 had by then [1872] replaced the 1632 font but it was not yet in its present position just inside the door". An interior plan of 1993 by Mettham (ibid.) shows the 1868 font at the west end of the north aisle, in the same location as does the ca.1911 plan in the VCH [cf. supra]. Elsewhere in his history of this church Mettham (ibid.) states that the 1632 was reinstalled in 1977, but his later notes report: "Nothing is known about the font which was displaced in 1632. From the Vestry Book, 1842, is learnt that 'The Rev. John Craig be allowed to remove the marble font which he placed in the church in 1837 ... and the Archdeacon has ordered that the old font be used'. Presumably the latter refers to that of 1632, and this is to some extent confirmed by the description of the font later, as 'old, small plain and massive' [sic]. The present font dates from 1868." The present font, which is assumed to be the one noted in Mettham above, appears to be a rather atypical design for 1868: a small octagonal basin with plain vertical sides, a chamfered underbowl, an octagonal pedestal base and an octagonal lower base, all parts plain. It has an octagonal wooden cover, flat and with a knob finial, of modern manufacture.