We know little about these two vicars, who held office during the last throes of the Stuarts under the Catholic James II and the Glorious Revolution under William and Mary. Curtis reports that one of Mountford’s first acts was to conduct the funeral of his predecessor Samuel Newton, who had left 20 shillings in his will to have a sermon preached.
Although it is not recorded in St Andrews, Curtis states that Mountford had already been curate to Newton for some years and had married a Hempstead girl. He says that Mountford continued to live in Hempstead after his appointment, employing a curate Thomas Buck (an old boy of Walden Grammar School and a Cambridge graduate) to care for Great Sampford.
On Mountford’s death in 1690, he was succeeded by Samuel Sampson of Chigwell, a graduate of Queens’ College, Cambridge: Sampson died in office in 1701. From the fact that Thomas Buck is shown as curate at Hempstead from this date, we can deduce that Sampson chose to live in Great Sampford instead. It may or may not be significant that the Harvey family, who had the gift of the living, had their family seat at Rolls Park, Chigwell.