War Memorial, All Saints Church at Marsworth

Image: © Gerald Massey Taken: 2 Oct 2009

Marsworth is a village in Buckinghamshire, about two miles north of Tring and six miles east of Aylesbury. The village, whose name is Anglo Saxon in origin - Mæssanwyrth meaning 'Mæssa's enclosure' - grew significantly at the end of the 18th Century with the construction of the Grand Junction (now Grand Union) Canal, which passes through it. There are records of a church in Marsworth since the 12th century. All Saints Church was further extended in the 14th and 15th centuries. Despite further restoration in the first part of the 19th century by 1880 the church was in a deplorable condition and the newly appointed vicar, the Rev. F. W. Ragg, with the help of local men whom he trained in stonework, set about restoring it over the next 25 years. The stone-carving that resulted is much in evidence within the Church, particularly that which surrounds the beautiful East window in which are represented scenes from the lives of Saints Augustine, Aidan, Bede and Hugh, and which bears the dedication: "This window, the work of F W Ragg was filled with glass chiefly by members of Trinity College Cambridge, in sympathy with the labour he bestowed for the good of Marsworth on the fabric of this church 1882-1891." He lies in the churchyard in which there are also a number of Polish graves, a reminder of the camp of 900 Polish refugees that existed at Marsworth in the 1950s.

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