MAIDSTONE - All Saints Church

All Saints Church Maidstone from the Southeast.
© P.E. Blanche 2000

The West end of All Saints Church with the flooded River Medway in the background. © PE Blanche 2000

The grave of William Shirley, founder of the Royal Society of Arts. © PE Blanche 2000

This is a large Church which befits the County Town of Kent and stands next to the old Archbishop's Palace on the banks of the River Medway. In the book about Kent by Arthur Mee, the dimensions of the Church are given as 116 feet long by 93 feet wide, having a tower of 80 feet at the West end. Unfortunately, when I last visited Maidstone and took the pictures you see here, there was renovation work in progress on the East end of the Church and I could not get inside. It means that I will have to return here on a Sunday when the probability is that I will be able to find the Church open so that I can photograph the interior.

The Church has resisted parting with its Church and Parish records for many years but just recently, perhaps because of the dangers and risks of flooding that Kent has experienced at the end of the year 2000, they have kindly forwarded their records to the Archives at Canterbury for copying. This will be of great relief to many genealogists who had not only been worried about the safe preservation of copies of these records but had also had difficulties in tracing their ancestors having to rely solely on Bishop's Transcripts. It is expected that the copying of the records will be completed sometime in the Spring of 2001.
(Feb 15th, 2001 - I understand that the copying of these records is now complete)

Of particular interest inside the Church are brasses of the Beale and Beeston families. American visitors will be drawn to a wall tablet to the memory of Lawrence Washington, the brother of an ancestor of George Washington. His tomb is situated below the wall tablet.

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