It has always been my intention to pay my respects and visit the last resting place of Robert Bloomfield in Campton Bedfordshire having visited the place of his birth and youth, Honington and Sapiston in Suffolk back in the summer of 2013.
We almost made it a reality some months ago when passing through Shefford, Robert’s last place of residence, but my geography let me down and I was too lazy to re-program the Satellite Navigation.
This time I was determined not to make the same mistake as dear old John Clare regretting forever a missed opportunity, not that I had anything like his excuse.
Therefore we set off one bright Sunday morning in April 2014,with a meticulously planned route down to the last hundred yards we soon found ourselves outside All Saints Church in Campton as the last of the congregation were tumbling out of the Palm Sunday Service.
All Saints Church and graveyard Campton was the burial ground for the village of Shefford until the present century as Shefford only had a chapel at ease. Today Campton and Shefford are divided today by the busy A507 road .
All Saints Church, Campton, Bedfordshire.
Memorial Plate to Robert Bloomfield in All Saints Church
Robert Bloomfield last resting place sitting to the north west of the church.
Robert is buried next to Thomas Inskip of Shefford
who was friends of both Robert Bloomfield and John Clare.
John Clare on Robert Bloomfield:
“He is the most original poet of the age and the greatest Pastoral Poet England ever gave birth to” John Clare.
Photographic Ramblings 