Wimpole

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Wimpole is a village and civil parish in South Cambridgeshire, England, about 8½ miles (14 km) southwest of Cambridge. It is sometimes sub-divided into "Old Wimpole" and "New Wimpole". People from it include the Independent minister John Conder. It is the site of the country house of Wimpole Hall (and its accompanying Wimpole's Folly).

[edit] Parish church

Its parish church of St Andrew (still in use within the Orwell Group of Parishes, holding services on the first and third Sundays of each month) is next-door to the Hall and was once part of the Hall's estate (whose east service wing nearly abutted it at one point). It contains the family tombs of some of its residents, such as the Earls of Hardwicke, and a stained glass window commemorating Thomas Agar-Robartes, eldest son of Thomas Charles, 6th Viscount Clifton and Mary, Viscountess Clifton of Lanhydrock, Bodmin, Cornwall. A medieval church on the site was demolished (except for most of the Chicheley Chantry or Chapel dating to 1390, which survived despite thus being open to the north side of the body of the nave during the 1749 construction work) in 1749 to build the present nave and chancel.

The chantry's name dates to when the estate was owned by Henry Chichele and his relations' descendents. However, it was actually founded by the previous owner of the estate, Sir William de Staundon (Master of the Grocer's Company, and Lord Mayor of the City of London in 1392 and 1407) in c.1390. He and his his first wife Elizabeth are buried at Wimpole. Both the church and chantry were remodelled in Neo Gothic style in the mid 19th century, and then restored again straight after the Second World War, in 1993/4 and in 1997.