From "The King's England - Berkshire"
by Arthur Mee, published by Hodder and Stoughton 1939, reprinted Sept 1947.
ALDWORTH. Here the Flemish family of the De La Beches, who came over with the Conqueror to seek their fortune, built a castle on the slope of the downs. The castle is gone, but their tombs remain in the church, making a remarkable show for this village among the leafy lanes, which can boast also a well 270 feet deep and a yew 600 years old which measures 28 feet around the trunk.
There is 14th century work left in the church, and the plain tower and perhaps the font are 13th.The pulpit and the reading desk are Jacobean, and the three older bench-ends have huge poppyheads carved with curious animals and birds. For 300 years the villages have sipped from the same chalice, and for 300 years the sanctus bell has sounded every Sunday morning.
It is the De La Beche tombs which bring us here, as they are said to have brought Elizabeth riding on her horse from Ewelme. They seem to fill the church, and the figures that cannot crowd under the canopies along the aisles lie under the arcade. There are nine of them in all, battered stone figures of knights and ladies, the men so tall that the villages speak of them affectionately as the Giants, and have for generations nicknamed three of them as John Long, John Strong, and John Never-Afraid. There was once a John Ever-Afraid, but he had vanished from his recess in the wall.
The figures, poor in craftsmanship compared with their grand pinnacled canopies, are so much alike that it is thought they were all made together at some time in the 14th century, when the family died out in the male line. Chief of the six under the canopies is Sir Philip, a real giant, with a mantle over his embossed leather armour to show that he was valet to Edward the Second, and squatting at his feet is a dwarf, for he was always attended at court by a dwarf to show off to the best his own great height (seven feet). His daughter, Lady Joan, has her head on a pillow under another canopy, and here are four ancestors, Robert who was knighted in 1278, Sir John with his feet on a lion, another knight clutching his sword, and the last minus his head and his limbs. On one side of the arcade tombs lies Lady Joan's brother John (who built up the south aisle) and his wife Isabella, a graceful though headless figure. A hound sleeps at her feet, and two little dogs curl up under he husband's legs, out of the way of the lion at his feet. He served under Edward the First in the war against Bruce, but led the Barons to rebel in their turn, and spent most of his last years in prison in consequence. Sir Nicholas, who lies under another arch, was tutor to the Black Prince and also spent some time in prison, his crime having been that the king found him away on family affairs when he should have been attending to his duties as Constable of the Tower.