Editing Harefield (section)

===St Mary the Virgin Church===
[http://www.harefield-bells.com/ St Mary's Parish Church] (off Church Hill) is Harefield's oldest building and an important focal point for the Harefield community. A priest is first mentioned in the manor of Harefield in the ''[[Domesday Book]]'' (1086). In the late 12th century the [[advowson]] was given to the [[Knights Hospitaller]]s, although the [[Newdigate Baronets|Newdigate family]] later became patrons of the church. The church building has some [[Middle Ages|medieval]] features, but was restored and altered in 1768, and again in 1841.<ref name="Church">[http://www.aim25.ac.uk/cgi-bin/vcdf/detail?coll_id=15136&inst_id=118&nv1=search&nv2= Church records]</ref>

The church cemetery contains the graves of over 100 soldiers of the [[First Australian Imperial Force]] who died at No. 1 Australian Auxiliary Hospital (Harefield Park Hospital) after being wounded in [[World War I]]. The hospital became Harefield prior to [[World War II]]. Each year on [[Anzac Day]] a commemoration service is attended by local dignitaries, representatives from the Australian and New Zealand governments, local school children and many retired servicemen.  Following the church service the congregation move to the cemetery and form around the Anzac memorial. The last post and reveille are played, followed by a wreath-laying ceremony. Local school children also place flowers on the well-kept grave sites.

The church holds the tomb in which [[Alice Spencer|Alice Stanley, Dowager Countess of Derby]] was laid to rest in January 1637. Dowager Stanley was a [[Spencer family|Spencer]], from [[Althorp]] in [[Northamptonshire]], of the family to which [[Diana Princess of Wales]] belonged. She was the widow of [[Ferdinando Stanley, 5th Earl of Derby|Ferdinando, 5th Earl of Derby]], who had been poisoned because of his closeness to the throne of England. Very soon after Ferdinando's murder in 1594 Alice had to move out of [[Lathom]] and [[Knowsley, Merseyside|Knowsley]] in Lancashire. She came to live at Harefield Place in considerable splendour. The house stood to the south of the present church and parts of its moat and brickwork can still be seen.

[[Alice Spencer|Alice, Dowager Countess of Derby]] was also Dowager Viscountess [[Brackley]]. Her second husband [[Thomas Egerton, 1st Viscount Brackley|Thomas Egerton, Lord Ellesmere]], an eminent lawyer and [[Lord Chancellor of England]], had died in 1617. But the Derby title was the one she preferred to be known by, and it is the one by which she is described on her funeral monument, which is surely one of the finest of its time anywhere in England. The mourning daughters beside the tomb are not meant to be lifelike representations of her actual daughters, Anne, Frances and Elizabeth; they conform to a stereotype often observed on grand monuments of this kind. But the figure of Alice Countess of Derby is probably closer to historical reality. She wears the coronet of a Countess, not a Viscountess, and at the foot of her tomb is a coroneted eagle, a reminder of the Stanleys' armorial crest. This commemorates their descent from the Lathoms, which was the foundation of their fortunes.

Sir Michael Shersby, MP for Uxbridge from 1972 to 1997, is buried in the churchyard along with his widow Lady Barbara.