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Friday 11 December 2015

War Memorials of Wallington in Hertfordshire

Wallington is a small village in Hertfordshire, near the town of Baldock. Nearby villages include Rushden and Sandon. It is within the civil parish of Rushden and Wallington. The Church of St Mary is a Grade II Listed Building lying at the southern end of the village. The nave, west tower and windows date from the mid-15th Century. The chancel was rebuilt in 1864. [1]

Church of St Mary, Wallington, Hertfordshire

The Icknield Way Path passes through the village on its 110 mile journey from Ivinghoe Beacon in Buckinghamshire to Knettishall Heath in Suffolk.

The church contains a rectangular WW1 remembrance tablet in a moulded marble frame with lettering in black.

WW1 remembrance tablet - St Mary's Wallington

To the Glory Of God
And in Remembrance of

Ambrose, E. E.,
Edwards, W.,
Haggar, G.,
Fisher, W.,
Scoote, B.,
Haggar, B.,
Ward, A.,
Ridley, C.,
Ward, T. W.,
Ridley, T.,
Who died, and of
Turner, B. J.,
Bonfield, A. E.,
Ward, F.,
Draper, F.,
Wilmot, H.,

Who also served abroad in the
Great War 1914-1918

Wallington is also special for another reason as Eric Arthur Blair (25 June 1903 – 21 January 1950) resided here from 1936 to 1940 at a cottage at 2 Kits Lane, known as "The Stores". He also spent occasional weekends there (when he was otherwise mainly in London) until he gave up the lease on the cottage in 1947. Eric Blair is better known by his pen name George Orwell and it is thought that his experiences here in Wallington contributed to his writing during 1944 of his famous novella Animal Farm (1945). The farm in the village is, as in the book called Manor Farm.

He had married his first wife Eileen O'Shaughnessy at St Mary's church on 9 June 1936.

Orwell's cottage in Kits Lane, Wallington, Hertfordshire


The Herts County Council commemorative plaque on Orwell's cottage in Wallington


[1] Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wallington,_Hertfordshire)

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