Walton was described in 1806 in "Magna Britannia" as follows:
WALTON, in the hundred and deanery of Newport, lies about three miles to the north of Fenny-Stratford. There were anciently two manors in this parish, one of which was, about the year 1200, in the family of Rixband, afterwards in the Hunts, from whom it passed by marriage to the Longuevilles. It was purchased of the latter by Bartholomew Beale, whose son Charles was husband of Mrs. Beale the painter. About the latter end of the seventeenth century Sir Thomas Pinfold bought this manor either immediately of the Beales, or of some persons who had not long before purchased it of them. It is now the property of Charles Pinfold esq. of Ayot St. Lawrence, in the county of Herts. The other manor was anciently in the family of Grey, and came to the crown in exchange in the year 1520. In 1627, it was granted to Williams and others, of whom it was soon afterwards purchased by Mr. Beale, since which time the two manors have been united.
In the parish church is the monument of Bartholomew Beale, lord of the manor, who died in 1660, put up in 1672, by his sons Charles and Henry, at the expence of 45 l. as appears by an extract from Mrs. Beale's pocket book, printed in Lord Orford's anecdotes of painting, where by a mistake this monument is said to be at Walton upon Thames, in Surrey. The medallions of Mr. Beale and his wife, in bas relief, are placed in circular niches, and do credit to the artist, Thomas Burman, of whom little is known, but that he was the master of Bushnell, who attained much greater celebrity as a statuary. In this church is the monument also of Sir Thomas Pinfold, chancellor of the diocese of Peterborough, and commissary of St. Paul's, who died in 1701, with his medallion, by Nollekens, and an epitaph of Elizabeth Pixe, who died in 1617, which reminds us of Bishop Lowth's celebrated epitaph on his daughter :
"Elizabetha vale, mea Lux, mea vita, quousque
Jungitur in coelis, filia chara vale."
The rectory is in the alternate presentation of the crown, and of Mr. Pinfold, as lord of the manor.
