Alfred Newton partridge. Birds became an abiding interest. Those included the great bustard ("Otis tarda"), Montagu's harrier ("Circus pygargus"), ravens, buzzards ("Buteo" sp.), redpolls, wrynecks ("Jynx"), which are small woodpeckers that specialise in feeding on ants. "The vast warrens of the 'Breck', the woods and water-meadows of the valley of the Little Ouse, and the neighbouring Fenland made an ideal training-ground for a naturalist". This enthusiasm Newton shared with his younger brother Edward: the two carried out bird observation when they were together and corresponded when they were apart. In 1846 Newton went to a tutor in Biggleswade for a few months,
Great and Little Kimble represented saints (the church is dedicated to All Saints). They include St Francis preaching to the birds and a large figure of St George, but not all can be identified. There seems to have been a doom on the west wall, where a devil is pushing two women into the mouth of Hell. There is a small chapel in the Tudor style, built in 1922, to the west of the railway bridge at Little Kimble. Great Kimble has a special claim to fame as the parish where John Hampden refused to pay his ship-money in January 1635/6. King Charles I,