This is a huge lump of a church. With its over-large south aisle and, for now, it’s scaffold-enshrouded west tower, it is not a lot to look at. Yet, it is one of the county’s more interesting churches. It has Anglo-Danish fabric, well-hidden behind that foursquare Gothic exterior, a real collector’s item of thirteenth century door and, perhaps most notably, four impressive monuments to members of the the Mordaunt family. That name sounds familiar, doesn’t it? This being 2023, you are probably thinking of Penny the statuesque sword-carrying heroine of the coronation whose stamina so impressed her Conservative Party colleagues that she was being touted as a future leader. Such is the state of British politics. Sorry to disappoint you (and myself) but it seems her family was from Ireland, not Bedfordshire.
The first church here was Anglo-Danish. Happily this is, for once, based upon evidence not wishful thinking. It’s extent was the three westernmost bays of the nave arcades plus the a small now-subsumed chancel and the very foot of the tower. Above the arches of the south aisle we can still see the remains of the original pre-Conquest windows. The Church Guide suggest AD980 for this church. The Taylors thought it somewhat later.
The western end of the south aisle was built onto this structure in the thirteenth century. The north aisle followed probably in the early fourteenth century, The present tower is Early English with a fifteenth century top tier. The fifteenth century also saw the heightening of the aisle walls and the building of the clerestory.
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