All Saints, St. Paul’s Walden
A rare virgin.
The battlemented body of the church streams east from the chunky little tower, with the Tudor south chapel continuing the line of the single south aisle added to the Norman nave in the fourteenth century. Most of the windows to the south are Perpendicular in style, with only one retaining Decorated tracery, but the tower reveals Early English lancets from the west, and the north side of the nave was given early Decorated windowsaround 1320. The chancel was built in the thirteenth century, but its windows are now large round headed and Georgian. The bright, open interior of the nave holds no surprises, but there is one panel of stained glass of around 1320 in the aisle, showing the crowned Virgin and child in the brown, green and red glass fashionable at that time, a rare find for this county. The pews have been replaced by chairs, an untidy modern fashion, and the crisply carved font stands on the raised top of a vault. When we turn to the east, both the chancel arch and that to the Hoo chapel have screens, but of very different natures. The chapel is Tudor, with square headed windows divided by the simplest of lights; the only figurative memorial is here, and is of the pattern much repeated in the 1630s showing kneeling figures at a prayer stool, though a close look reveals a child holding a skull hiding in its mother’s skirts. Across the entrance from the aisle stands the simplest of Perpendicular screens with rectangular openings rather than arches, whilst beside it in the nave is a frothy Georgian confection in green and white, a colour scheme that is carried throughout the chancel.
A rare virgin.
The battlemented body of the church streams east from the chunky little tower, with the Tudor south chapel continuing the line of the single south aisle added to the Norman nave in the fourteenth century. Most of the windows to the south are Perpendicular in style, with only one retaining Decorated tracery, but the tower reveals Early English lancets from the west, and the north side of the nave was given early Decorated windowsaround 1320. The chancel was built in the thirteenth century, but its windows are now large round headed and Georgian. The bright, open interior of the nave holds no surprises, but there is one panel of stained glass of around 1320 in the aisle, showing the crowned Virgin and child in the brown, green and red glass fashionable at that time, a rare find for this county. The pews have been replaced by chairs, an untidy modern fashion, and the crisply carved font stands on the raised top of a vault. When we turn to the east, both the chancel arch and that to the Hoo chapel have screens, but of very different natures. The chapel is Tudor, with square headed windows divided by the simplest of lights; the only figurative memorial is here, and is of the pattern much repeated in the 1630s showing kneeling figures at a prayer stool, though a close look reveals a child holding a skull hiding in its mother’s skirts. Across the entrance from the aisle stands the simplest of Perpendicular screens with rectangular openings rather than arches, whilst beside it in the nave is a frothy Georgian confection in green and white, a colour scheme that is carried throughout the chancel.
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This was refurbished after 1762 by an unknown Palladian designer, perhaps James Paine, much lighter in feel than the Baroque just going out of fashion. Stucco decoration covers the walls and barrel vaulted ceiling and the pretty design of the screen is repeated on the east wall, though in 1947 the central panel of this reredos was opened up for an unsuitable window by Hugh Easton. This is too bright and in your face, and the status quo ante should be restored, though Raymond Erith’s colour scheme of 1972 is a great success.
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It is a shame that most of the Georgian fittings have been lost, excepting the grand candelabra hanging at the entrance to the chancel with an eagle amongst the branches. The church makes the most of one link with celebrity, and never lets you forget that George VI’s wife was baptised here, the Bowes-Lyon family being descended from a successful London grocer who bought a local house. This baptism is remembered on a wall tablet, in the guide book and by a commemorative column in the churchyard erected by local royalists. There are links with the Austen family, and Jane may have visited the parish: this sort of village pride would have been right up her street.
No longer open every day, check the web or ring the rector on 01462 434017. The church is off the B651 in the centre of the village.
No longer open every day, check the web or ring the rector on 01462 434017. The church is off the B651 in the centre of the village.
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