Its interest is centred near its little crossroads. One lane leads to a disused mill. From another a lime avenue leads to the beautiful timbered Elizabethan manor house of 1591, built by the Ventris family who came here some years earlier. Its panelled interior has a direct link with the civil war; there are bullets still embedded in the wall, and an inscription beside them tells how Sir Charles Ventris was "by Oliver's party shot at, as he was walking in this room, but happily missed him". Nearby, a dignified 18th century brick facade to the old rectory (the rear is earlier) recalls an-other Bedfordshire family, the Williamsons, who were clergy as well as estate-owners. The early 19th century rector, Edmund Williamson, though an active parish priest, shared in the pursuits of his gentry neighbours, and a letter to his schoolboy son tells how he had been shooting and shot 14 brace of partridges, five of hares, four couple of rabbits, a brace of pheasants, and a snipe.

The church too is at the crossroads, and before we go in we note near the south-west corner a stone to the country poet, Robert Bloomfield, recording his death in 1823: "Let his wild native wood-notes tell the rest." The grave is kept in order by the pupils of the Robert Bloomfield School at Shefford. A delicate lad, born in Suffolk, Bloomfield was sent to London to learn shoe-making, and there wrote poems of the countryside he remembered. A Suffolk squire helped him to publish The Farmer's Boy, and 26,000 copies were sold in less than three years. But he sank into poverty and depression, and became an invalid. His last years were spent in the hamlet of Shefford, where the rector, Williamson, befriended him.

The church has a south arcade of about 1300, and the chancel is of only slightly later date, and has a piscina and two niches for statues. Under the tower is a mediaeval screen; and parts of an-other have been skillfully used to make the unusual pulpit. Over the reading desk are two tiny brasses to William Carlyll and his wife, 1489. The communion rails are 18th century. To the north, marked by yet another screen, is the 17th century chapel built by the Osborn family of nearby Chicksands, for burials were made here both from Shefford and Chicksands. The north aisle of the church was rebuilt when the Osborn chapel was made. In the chapel are two altar tombs and impressive wall tablets to Sir John, 1628, and Sir Peter, 1653; Sir Peter was the father of Dorothy, and the inscription reminds us that he was for 28 years governor of Guernsey (but does not add that in the Civil War he sturdily de-fended it against parliamentary forces). An inscription records that these tablets were put up in 1655 (under the Commonwealth) by Henry Osborn, that brother of Dorothy's who caused her so much trouble by his well-meaning desire to see her suitably married.