In 1823 the Rev. Oliver Raymond was instituted into the Rectory of Middleton, a village which although very near Sudbury in Suffolk, just sneaks over the boundary into Essex. On 9 November 1841, Queen Victoria gave birth to her first son, Albert Edward (the future Edward VII). Almost immediately he was given the title Prince of Wales, and Raymond marked the occasion by planting an avenue of trees which became known as the Prince of Wales Avenue.

Partway along the avenue Raymond (1794-1889) erected a ‘handsome entrance gate’ of brick and flint, inset with older carved stone which is thought to have been salvaged from local church rebuilding projects. The fragments carry a star, emblem of the De Veres of Hedingham Castle, so the stone is said to have been salvaged from a church under their patronage, but no firm evidence has yet been found.

Around the arch is the inscription: PLANTED BY OLIVER RAYMOND LLB RECTOR OF THIS PARISH IX NOV MDCCCXLI THE DAY OF HRH THE PRINCES BIRTH.

By the time Barbara Jones saw it in the middle of the twentieth century, the arch had become a picturesque ruin. It is not clear if this was as a result of natural decay or of vandalism, but the arch was certainly the haunt of those intent on carving their names in the stone, with graffiti evident today from within the first decades of the arch being completed.

Raymond remodelled his parish church of All Saints and improved the graveyard. In September 1853, a newspaper report likened the burial ground to a ‘miniature Pere-la-Chaise‘. Raymond had apparently removed years of accumulated soil and trimmed back the overgrown cypresses and laurels to create a park-like setting.

A contemporary poem entitled ‘Middleton Church-Yard’, questioned why a burial ground should only display ’emblems drear to view’, and praised the planting of flowers at Middleton:

Then there let many a flower unclose
Its blossom to the Spring,
There let the Lily and the Rose
Round them their odours fling.

Raymond had built a new rectory, in white brick, where he and his family lived. The rooms were hung with a number of works by Raymond and his family, and he also built up a substantial art collection of Old Masters and works by contemporary artists, including local boys Thomas Gainsborough and John Constable.

In 1853 the ‘picturesque little church’ and the rectory were described as amongst the ‘most attractive objects in [the] neighbourhood’. Two decades later a visitor wrote that ‘around this bijou of a church Mr Raymond has lived to see noble oaks arise, planted by his own hand, and vistas flourish, looking over a great extent of country’.

Church and rectory were approached along a drive which curved past an ‘ornamental sheet of water’, seen in the engraving above. In Raymond’s own words, the view from the rectory across the pool was ‘unusually imposing and picturesque’.

In January 1881, in ‘blinding sleet’, a cab driver swerved on the Rectory’s drive and skidded onto the frozen pool, where the ice gave way. The driver and horse were rescued, but the partially submerged vehicle had to be hauled out the following day.

Raymond quickly erected a string of pedestals by the lake, each topped with an urn and connected by iron fence-panels.

One pedestal carries a carved inscription reading CAVE STAGNUM – beware of the pond. A ‘time-stained’ notice, in which Raymond explained his actions, was reportedly discovered by a workman in the 1950s: it read ‘To prevent a future accident of the kind this Barrier was erected by Oliver Raymond, L.L.B., R.D. Rector of the Parish of Middleton, Essex, February 17 1881. GOD save the Queen!’.

Raymond died in 1889, having lived in Middleton as curate from 1818 and then as Rector from 1823. His children erected a new reredos in the church in memory of his seventy years as priest in the parish.

The rectory is today a private home but the church and pool can be seen. The arch stands on a public footpath across the field from the lane leading to the church. Remnants of the avenue survive.

The Rev. Oliver Raymond was a younger son of the Raymonds of nearby Belchamp Hall, where another curious arch was erected and architectural fragments were reused.

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