Little Staughton Church Monuments

 
Pathfinders memorial - copyright All Saints Little Staughton

This article was written by Jeannette Atkinson and Brenda Foster

There are two small wall-mounted monuments on the south side of the chancel: one to 24-year old Eleanor Gery (1765) and the second to William Hugh Wade-Gery (who died in 1870) and his wife Anne Beckingham.

The vaults in the chancel are mostly dedicated to the Wade and Gery families and the children (Wade-Gery) of Hugh Wade and Hester Gery (the co-heiress of Bushmead Priory). Notable is the vault of William Gery (father of Hester). He was a former High Sheriff and it recounts his loyalty to Charles I (1925-1649) and the royalist cause during the Civil Wars.

There is a War Memorial in the south aisle to those villagers who were lost in the two World Wars of the twentieth century. A stone plaque is inscribed ‘In memory of those members of 109 and 582 Pathfinder Squadrons’. An RAF Book of Remembrance can be found within the church. It contains all the names of 258 personnel lost from Little Staughton airfield during the Second World War.