Places of Interest

All Saints Church

Kempston West End. It was here that William the Conqueror's niece Judith built a church whose walls still stand; they stand by the river at the end of a lane of white poplars from the main road.

The row of old cottages next to the church were once the parish workhouse, and an avenue of limes leads us to a 15th century porch with a mass dial on its walls and a vaulted roof from which quaint heads are looking down. Over the porch is the priest's room, reached by an outside stone stairway. The sturdy tower has massive walls three feet thick which the Conqueror's niece may have seen building; it was the 15th century which raised it to its present height and set the weathercock in its place.

We enter the church by a door which the village folk have been opening and shutting for at least 500 years, and find ourselves in the presence of a distinctive piece of Norman and medieval England - Norman arches at each end of the nave, 13th century arcades, a 14th century font with saints carved round its sides, and clerestory windows of the 15th century. Near the font is a memorial stone, supposed to be that of an old Crusader, which was found last century under the floor of the porch, with a skeleton beneath it. Both the doorways to the old roofloft are still existing, together with the stout beam which bore up the loft before the Reformation and now helps to bear up the modern loft above the modern chancel screen.

The church of All Saints, standing near the banks of the river Ouse, about a mile from the largest part of the village, is a building of stone, in the Norman and Decorated styles, consisting of chancel, nave, aisles, south porch and a western tower of Norman date, originally containing 6 bells, two of which were cast in 1603 and 1619: in 1893 three of these were recast and a treble added by Walter G. H. Harter esq. of The Bury: the roof of the porch, which is stone groined, was opened and cleaned in the year 1838, and an external staircase was built in the year 1837: in repairing the floor of the porch in 1840, a monumental slab, bearing a remarkably formed cross, was discovered, which is now placed outside, against the west wall: three feet below this slab a skeleton was met with, but there was no trace of any coffin: the Decorated east window was restored and filled with stained glass, as a memorial to N. Fitzpatrick M.D. his wife and daughter; the family are interred in a mausoleum by the north wall : the chancel possesses some beautifully carved oak benches, ornamented with poppy-heads, and a handsome bench, the gift of the Rev. Henry Clutterbuck, patron and vicar from 1835: the carved oak reading desk and Perpendicular pulpit were furnished by subscription: there is a Decorated font, supported by four shafts; the sides have canopies, alternately surmounting mutilated figures : there are no monumental remains of interest, except a memorial to the "seven sones" and ten daughters of William Carter, placed here by direction of his wife, Marie, in 1605 : two panels from the rood-screen, preserved for some time in the vestry, exhibit ancient paintings of "God presenting Eve to Adam," the "Temptation," "God Pronouncing the Curse," and the "Expulsion from Paradise;" these have now been cleaned, glazed and framed, and hang on either side of the arch at the west end of the church: there is also an ancient "Book of Homeleys." The register dates from the year 1570.

[Kelly's Directory - Bedfordshire - 1898]

Set at the confluence of the mill race with the main river and approached along an avenue of lime trees, this church occupies a Norman site and still incorporates parts of the original building. The massive stone walls of the lower part of the western tower date from the early twelfth century although the Norman upper part was rebuilt three hundred years later when the vaulted church porch was added. This has a scratched mass-dial on its wall and an upper room, or parvise, reached by an exterior stone stairway. The actual church door is contemporary with the porch having been in use now for some five hundred years. The church interior shows original Norman arches at the east and west ends of the nave with Early English arches between. Above these rises the fifteenth century clerestory. The carved chancel screen is surmounted by a modern rood loft; but the cross beam of the original rood loft still remains as do the doorways and the staircases which climb up within each side of the chancel arch to reach it. The font, with figures sculptured around its bowl, dates back six hundred years. Other features of interest include some panels preserved from the medieval chancel screen still displaying their original colourings in painted scenes from the Garden of Eden; also an ancient grave stone which is believed to be that of a Crusading knight. A wall tablet commemorates Henry Stuart who was a nineteenth century Member of Parliament for Bedford. On his mother's side he was a descendent of William Penn, the well-known Quaker and founder of Pennsylvania in North America, and he also claimed a royal descent from the Stuart kings.

[The Guide to Kempston Urban District - 1970]

River Ouse

The area has some nice river side walks and there are plenty of footpaths to make for a good day out walking in the surrounding countryside for this church is set in fields next to the Gt. River Ouse.

War Memorial

The Kempston War Memorial sits at the junction of Bedford Road, High Street and St John's Street. It commemorates those who had given their lives during the World Wars.