Guilden Morden has a far-seen church, a conspicuous object from White Hill, over Barrington, twelve miles away. It is a fine building, with an unusually spacious tower of Northamptonshire stone, and a Saxon font. But it is chiefly interesting for the remarkable development of the fourteenth century rood-screen, which on either side expands into a small "parclose" or pew, enclosed to the height of twelve feet by rich decorated tracery, ornately painted (the original pattern having survived sufficiently to be restored). On the west panel of the northern parclose may be discerned the figures of St. Erconwald and St. Edmund, both members of the royal line of East Anglia. The former was a brother of St. Etheldreda, the foundress of Ely, and became a much-beloved Bishop of London in the seventh century. The latter was the hero king martyred by the Danes a century later, the chosen friend of our great Alfred, of whom so lovely a picture has been left us by the old chroniclers:-- "From his earliest years the truest of Christians, he showed himself of such promise that, by the unanimous will of all his folk, he was not so much chosen as rushed into the kingship over them. For his very look was worthy of this high estate; so bright was it with the calm beauty of holiness and of a conscience like the sea at rest. Kind was he of speech and courteous to all; the grace of Humility came natural to him; and amongst his comrades he kept his place as their Lord with wondrous meekness and no touch of pride. For already the Saint bare in his face that which he was afterwards, by God's will, to show forth; seeing that as a boy he had pressed with all his might into the Way of Righteousness, which, as God's pity foreknew, would end for him in the Way of Martyrdom.... And walking in the King's Highway, he turned aside neither to the right hand, by being puffed up with his own merits, nor to the left, by yielding to the faults of human weakness. To the needy was he a cheerful giver, to the widows and orphans the kindest of Patrons; ever keeping before his eyes the saying of the Wise Man: "Behold they have made thee Prince; but be thou among them as one of themselves."[180] [Footnote 180: Chronicle of St. Neots.] [Illustration: _Cottage at Steeple Morden._] These parcloses seem to have been made to serve as confessional boxes, devices which were very rare in England before the Reformation. "Shrift," of course, was universal; but neither priest nor penitent were shut from view. The former sat in a chair, usually at the altar rail, while the latter knelt beside and facing him. In these parcloses the priest's head as he sat on the seat would be visible to those in the church, but the kneeling penitent would be hidden. That such was the purpose here would appear from the lines in old English lettering painted upon their sides:--