St Andrew’s,
Toddington
21 January 2004
Although we regularly walk
past the local parish church, St Andrew’s, we have only rarely been
inside. We decide to put that right
today. First, from the churchyard, a
view of the manor – on a gray day!
Toddington Manor, completed in 1840, was built by Charles Hanbury-Tracy,
the 1st Lord Sudeley, to his own design – he was a keen amateur
architect and later chaired the Parliamentary Select Committee which chose the
present Palace of Westminster
The late
19th Century church was constructed by the third Lord Sudeley, and
is out of all proportion to Toddington’s modest requirements and its expense
led to the financial downfall of the Sudeleys |
Its plan
is cruciform, giving two side chapels, one of which is dominated by the
memorial tomb of the first Lord Sudeley and his wife, Henrietta, which,
indeed, it was designed to accommodate |
The
marble effigies of the noble pair |
An
unnamed memorial bust salvaged from the original church on the site, |