The spiritual and physical heart of Bedford, Saint Paul's Church, with its imposing Victorian exterior, dominates the town centre. The first, pre-conquest church on the site was dismantled to provide material for constructing the castle in the early thirteenth century, and its late medieval replacement forms the core of today's building. The tower and spire were reconstructed in 1868 on a grander scale than the originals, although they retained the same shape as their predecessors. The scenes above were captured before the addition of the north aisle in 1884.  Bedford-born benefactor William Harpur is buried in the church: a brass commemorates him as "knight, alderman and late Lord Mayor of the City of London". Other fittings inside the church include a stone pulpit restored in 1929, a rood screen by Bodley, and a brass to Simon de Beauchamp, recorded by Leyland. In the graveyard one notable, eroded tombstone commemorates Patience Jonson who bore twenty-four children before her death at the age of thirty-eight.