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Kings Walden

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Church History

"Church is a contrast in styles, inside and out: mortar-caked and weather-beaten Perpendicular tower on a Victorian flint nave and chancel; an orange and purplish brick mid 16th-century vestry having wooden 'Gothic' window tracery and looking disconcertingly like a Victorian schoolroom. A brightly-lit nave featuring Early English arcades with robustly carved scroll, fleur-de-lis, cartouche and scalloped capitals. A gaudy chancel where the floor tiles colour-match the fair-ground blues and reds on a 15th-century screen. The Victorian stone pulpit effectively mixes naturalism with late Gothicism. In a dour Baptist chapel at Breachwood Green is a 1658 pulpit from which John Bunyan preached."
[From Hertfordshire (a Shell Guide), R. M. Healey, Faber & Faber, London, 1982]
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Church Records

The Parish Registers for the periods:-

  • Baptisms - 1558-1957
  • Marriages - 1558-1985
  • Burials - 1558-1951
  • Bishop's Transcripts - 1604-1855

are deposited at Hertfordshire Record Office, County Hall, Hertford, SG13 8DE. [D/P112]

Entries from the Marriage Registers for the period 1558-1837 are included in The Allen Index at Hertfordshire Record Office.

The period 1558-1885 is covered by the IGI.

Transcripts of the parish registers for the period 1558-1899 are deposited at the Society of Genealogists, 14 Charterhouse Buildings, Goswell Road, LONDON, EC1M 7BA.

The following records for churches in the ancient parish of Kings Walden are also available at Hertfordshire Record Office, County Hall, Hertford, SG13 8DE.:-

  • Preston [D/P112]
    • Marriages - 1909-1985
    • Burials - 1900-1911
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Description & Travel

"Parish of switchback scenery on a Chiltern spur. The hills are patched with woods, and nearer the tiny village, the hedge ditches are bright with comfrey and holly hedges sculpted into miniature tree forms. A calm broken by an occasional boom from Luton airport. Church overlooks a placid world of yew hedges, trim lawns and exotic shrubbery surrounding the spanking-new neo-Georgian pile that replaced a heavy late Victorian mansion on the site of an Elizabethan manor. Beyond the formal grounds a romantic parkland of giant oaks circled by nettles extends eastwards and ends in lodges. Peculiarly gloomy lime-tree avenue to house."
[From Hertfordshire (a Shell Guide), R. M. Healey, Faber & Faber, London, 1982]
You can see pictures of Kings Walden which are provided by:

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Gazetteers

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History

There is an excellent web site on the history of the village of Preston.

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Maps

You can see maps centred on OS grid reference TL160235 (Lat/Lon: 51.897982, -0.315511), Kings Walden which are provided by: