Having lived and worked in Bedfordshire for the past sixteen years, I have visited every church in the County in the course of my work. While on the staff of the Bedfordshire County Record Office I have been responsible for surveying and listing all the church records, and I am fortunate that this has enabled me to develop an intimate knowledge of the churches and their history.

It is my hope that in preparing these volumes I may be able to pass on some of this knowledge for the benefit of people interested either in specific churches or in the subject generally. I should like to thank the Society for publishing this book. I also wish to thank Gordon Vowles, the General Editor, and my colleagues on the Editorial Group for their constructive comments and suggestions throughout its gestation period.

Formal acknowledgment is due to the authorities and owners who have allowed the publication of their material. The 1822 glebe terriers are published here by kind permission of Lincoln Diocesan Record Office. Archdeacon Bonney’s church notes were among the manuscripts transferred to the County Record Office from the old Bedford Library, while Bonney’s visitation notes appear by kind permission of the present Archdeacon of Bedford, the Ven. Malcolm Lesiter. Sir Stephen Glynne’s Bedfordshire church notes are published by kind permission of Sir William Gladstone. Thanks are also due to Geoffrey Veysey, the Clwyd County Archivist, for providing information on the notes and for allowing me to quote from his article about Sir Stephen Glynne. The sources of illustrations are acknowledged separately.

Material for this volume has been gathered from several record repositories and institutions. My first debt of gratitude is to my colleagues in the Bedfordshire County Record Office, but I must also thank the staff at the British Library, the British Newspaper Library, the library of the Society of Antiquaries of London, the Bedfordshire County Library Service, Lambeth Palace Library, Cambridge University Library, Lincolnshire Archives, and the Hertfordshire County Record Office for their help and advice.

Thanks are also due to all those who have typed parts of the text including Deborah Blake and Ellen Collier, but especially to Pauline Newbery on whom the main body of the work has fallen.