Great location with stunning views, a pleasing, if not Suffolk fireworks, for Herts an indoor fireworks exterior and there's a bit of everything inside - particularly the chancel screen, the Hugh Easton E window (not to everyone's taste but for me it worked) and a Christopher Webb window alongside a C14 Madonna & Child in the south aisle; what's not to like? It's definitely, to date, in the top five of the county.
ALL SAINTS. A sizeable, low, all embattled flint church. The W tower not high, with a higher SE stair-turret and angle buttresses. The N wall of the nave is so thick as to suggest an older age than the early C14 windows. The S aisle arcade of five bays has octagonal piers also with early C14 capitals and double-chamfered arches. Of the windows only one (with Kentish tracery) goes with that date. The others are Perp, as are the upper portions of the tower and the nave clerestory and also the S chancel chapel (see its blocked arcade to the chancel, with stone piers consisting of semi-octagonal shafts in the main axis and hollows in the diagonals).
The chancel itself is the great surprise of the church. It was remodelled in 1727 by Edward Gilbert of Bury Street, London, and The Bury, St Paul’s Walden. It is separated from the nave by a gorgeous, if decidedly worldly, screen with columns, carrying bits of entablature and arches, and candelabra on top of the cornice. Inside, the chancel is vaulted and stuccoed. On the S wall is a very discreet memorial to the founder, a relief of an urn with putti and E. G., Obiit 1762. - FONT. Octagonal, Perp, with frieze of leaves and embattled top. - SCREEN. Two sections of one light each, l. and r. of the entrance. Each light has a depressed ogee arch and some tiny Perp ‘panelling’ above. - STAINED GLASS. A beautiful Virgin of the early C14 in the tower W window. The figure of the Virgin is mostly brown and olive-green, the child is clothed in red. - E window (Strathmore Memorial Window) by Hugh Easton, 1946. - PLATE. Flagon and Standing Paten, 1680. - MONUMENT. H. Stapleford d. 1631 and wife, small epitaph with the usual kneeling figures (S chapel, W wall).
St Paul’s Walden. It is a proud little place, with a distinction never dreamed of when our century began. As long as we live we must remember August 4. as a tragic day, the day of the beginning of the Great War, but it was on the last August 4 in the 19th century that the church bells here were ringing for a happy event with a significance that none could have imagined then.
A little daughter was born at the great house of Walden Bury to the Earl and Countess of Strathmore. One daughter had been born to them 18 years before, Violet Hyacinth Bowes-Lyon. She lived here through her happy childhood, a girl as beautiful as the hyacinths and violets that inspired her name, and when she was 11I years old, in 1893, they laid her in this churchyard. There is a tablet on the wall within showing two small figures holding a wreath.
Seven years passed, and there was born in this same house another daughter, Elizabeth Angela Marguerite. She, too, grew up here through her happy childhood, baptised at the same font as her sister, kneeling in this little church to say her childish prayers, riding her pony through the long avenue that leads to the church from her father’s house. “Lord bless you, I can see her now,” said one of the old villagers, “galloping across with the groom behind all out of breath, and her laughing.”
There was a sad day in her life in 1930 when she stood by the grave of the sister she had never known and saw her brother John laid there to rest. But seven years before that there had been a happy day when she married the Duke of York, and in seven years to come there was to be a day of dazzling glory, for Elizabeth Angela Marguerite Bowes-Lyon was crowned Queen of England in Westminster Abbey. She has unveiled a tablet recording the fact that in this parish she was born, and in this church she was baptised and worshipped.
The church stands with the cottages about it on high ground, approached by a long avenue of great trees from the hamlet of Whitwell on the borders of the River Maran. (We should see the village hall at Whitwell, for it has a timbered storey with 17th-century dormer windows.) The village has two fine parks, Stagenhoe, with 130 acres crossed by avenues of limes and chestnuts and adorned with a great lake, and Walden Bury, with the avenue running to the church where the Queen Mother used to ride her pony. The church is 600 years old, with a bold square tower and a lofty nave; there is an old stone coflin in the shadow of the tower; the gravestone of John Bowes-Lyon in a corner of the churchyard; a gravestone with an aeroplane carved on it in memory of Rodney Clarkson; and a cross with a Calvary in memory of Tristram Valentine, a vicar here, the cross being the last work designed by the famous architect G. F. Bodley.
Though the church is mainly 14th century, the chancel was rebuilt in 1727. It has a barrel roof, and a round arch which is nearly filled by a striking classical screen of the 18th century. Between the aisle and the chapel is a more modest screen with delightful Tudor ornament. The fine pulpit matches the 18th-century screen. The font is 15th century, and near it is a 14th-century coffin lid. In a big table tomb lies Peter Nicol, a clerk in the household of George III, and on the wall of the nave is a monument decorated with war trophies to Captain Fothergill, who fought with Wellington in the Peninsular Campaign, “the first in danger, in retreat the last.” High on the wall of the chapel is a quaint 17th-century monument of Henry Stapleford and his wife, facing each other as they kneel at a prayer desk, with a little daughter holding a skull behind her mother. Henry was an oflicial of the households of Queen Elizabeth I and the first two Stuart kings. The east window of the chapel has the Annunciation, but the most interesting glass in the church is a fragment in rich yellow and crimson; it is 600 years old, and is in a little window of the tower. There are six bells in the tower, one the Coronation bell subscribed for by the villagers.
A little daughter was born at the great house of Walden Bury to the Earl and Countess of Strathmore. One daughter had been born to them 18 years before, Violet Hyacinth Bowes-Lyon. She lived here through her happy childhood, a girl as beautiful as the hyacinths and violets that inspired her name, and when she was 11I years old, in 1893, they laid her in this churchyard. There is a tablet on the wall within showing two small figures holding a wreath.
Seven years passed, and there was born in this same house another daughter, Elizabeth Angela Marguerite. She, too, grew up here through her happy childhood, baptised at the same font as her sister, kneeling in this little church to say her childish prayers, riding her pony through the long avenue that leads to the church from her father’s house. “Lord bless you, I can see her now,” said one of the old villagers, “galloping across with the groom behind all out of breath, and her laughing.”
There was a sad day in her life in 1930 when she stood by the grave of the sister she had never known and saw her brother John laid there to rest. But seven years before that there had been a happy day when she married the Duke of York, and in seven years to come there was to be a day of dazzling glory, for Elizabeth Angela Marguerite Bowes-Lyon was crowned Queen of England in Westminster Abbey. She has unveiled a tablet recording the fact that in this parish she was born, and in this church she was baptised and worshipped.
The church stands with the cottages about it on high ground, approached by a long avenue of great trees from the hamlet of Whitwell on the borders of the River Maran. (We should see the village hall at Whitwell, for it has a timbered storey with 17th-century dormer windows.) The village has two fine parks, Stagenhoe, with 130 acres crossed by avenues of limes and chestnuts and adorned with a great lake, and Walden Bury, with the avenue running to the church where the Queen Mother used to ride her pony. The church is 600 years old, with a bold square tower and a lofty nave; there is an old stone coflin in the shadow of the tower; the gravestone of John Bowes-Lyon in a corner of the churchyard; a gravestone with an aeroplane carved on it in memory of Rodney Clarkson; and a cross with a Calvary in memory of Tristram Valentine, a vicar here, the cross being the last work designed by the famous architect G. F. Bodley.
Though the church is mainly 14th century, the chancel was rebuilt in 1727. It has a barrel roof, and a round arch which is nearly filled by a striking classical screen of the 18th century. Between the aisle and the chapel is a more modest screen with delightful Tudor ornament. The fine pulpit matches the 18th-century screen. The font is 15th century, and near it is a 14th-century coffin lid. In a big table tomb lies Peter Nicol, a clerk in the household of George III, and on the wall of the nave is a monument decorated with war trophies to Captain Fothergill, who fought with Wellington in the Peninsular Campaign, “the first in danger, in retreat the last.” High on the wall of the chapel is a quaint 17th-century monument of Henry Stapleford and his wife, facing each other as they kneel at a prayer desk, with a little daughter holding a skull behind her mother. Henry was an oflicial of the households of Queen Elizabeth I and the first two Stuart kings. The east window of the chapel has the Annunciation, but the most interesting glass in the church is a fragment in rich yellow and crimson; it is 600 years old, and is in a little window of the tower. There are six bells in the tower, one the Coronation bell subscribed for by the villagers.
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