Page:Archaeological Journal, Volume 2.djvu/157

Rh The tower is plain Perpendicular without buttresses, in three stages, divided by strings; on the west side is a small figure in a sunk panel in the parapet. The tower-arch is now blocked up, but ought to be re-opened.

is of lead, circular, standing on a massive stone base; it is of transition Norman character, almost Early English, ornamented with, small circles of foliage, and with a row of small figures under pointed arches. There are two other leaden fonts of similar character in the immediate neighbourhood, at Dorchester and Warborough, but this at Long Wittenham is the latest of the three.

The pulpit is Elizabethan, and the seats are partly old and partly modern.

Long Wittenham, or West Wittenham, according to Lysons, "was sometimes called Earl's Wittenham, probably from the family of Plessitis, Earls of Warwick, who inherited the manor from the Sandfords." The greater probability is that its ancient name was derived from Walter Giffard, Earl of Buckingham, one of the commissioners for the Domesday Survey, who granted the church and tithes to the alien priory of Newinton-Longueville in Buckinghamshire.