Houghton, pronounced how-tun, Conquest is an ancient settlement pre-dating the Domesday Book.
“The Conquest family, whose long tenure in the parish was to give it so distinctive a name, are first mentioned in a document of 1223–4, when Geoffrey Conquest was concerned in a suit about land in Houghton with Isabel de Hotot, his mother-in-law, who had made waste and sale in a wood in the parish contrary to the interest of Geoffrey.” (A History of the County of Bedford, 1912)
The church is late 13th century, Grade I Listed. The frescoes mentioned in all the guides, particularly a sixteen foot depiction of St Christopher, are today all but invisible. There is a fine double piscina and a Conquest tomb chest in the chancel as well as this brass.
Also on the north wall of the chancel is this alabaster monument to Dr Thomas Archer, put up in his lifetime in 1629. He is shown preaching with a cushion lying in front of him and a book in his hand.
The hexagonal font with “cusped and crocketed ogee arch-heads in the panels” (Pevsner) dates from the 13th century.
And I cannot recall seeing such a memorial as this before.
The war memorial in the graveyard is a simple column with the names and regiments of the dead from two World Wars.
What is rather unusual is a late addition beneath the names of those who died in WW II. A single name, obscured by the poppy wreath, commemorates the death of a Private in The Catering Corp in the Korean War. I think of it as being American soldiers (M*A*S*H) but 60,000 British served too.
