Occasional Magazine Vol.2 No.3 (April 1917)

The Reference to Milford Church in Domesday Book by Rev. W. S. Sykes. The Victoria County History of Hampshire had asserted that, although there may have been a church in Milford in Saxon times, the notion that it still existed when Domesday Book was compiled is erroneous and arose because of an error of transcription by the clerks. The paper gives a closely reasoned refutation, dismissing particularly the thesis of a clerical slip. The author considers the precise meaning of Domesday’s entry for Melleford (Milford), comparing its Latin phraseology with comparable mentions of churches elsewhere. He argues that the hereditary aristocrat Aluric, holding land from the King, was either rebuilding or enlarging a mission church, one not fully consecrated and having no defined parochial district. Otherwise his applying for burial rights would have been unnecessary. He believes a Saxon church existed till at least 1107, the new Norman church being built between then and 1150.