The Corpus of ROMANESQUE SCULPTURE in Britain & Ireland
Oxfordshire (now)
Parish church
St Edburg’s is the town church for Bicester in E Oxfordshire. The large 12thc. church had been cruciform, with a chancel, nave, transepts and a central tower. In the 13thc. the chancel was enlarged and the S aisle was added. A N aisle was added in the 14thc., with octagonal piers inserted in the N wall of the nave. The central tower was taken down in the 15thc. and rebuilt at the W end. The removal of the W crossing arch at the same time allowed for a longer nave. The church now comprises a chancel, clerestoried nave, transepts with N and S aisles, a vestry (former N chapel), a W tower and a N porch. Of the Romanesque church, three arches of the original crossing remain. Traces of a chevron stringcourse remain on the transept walls, and on the now interiorised N nave wall between the arcades.
Parish church
Aisleless nave with chancel and S transept. The nave, with its carved S doorway, is of c.1200, as is the chancel arch. Curiously, although the S transept appears to be a mid-13thc. addition, its entrance arch has scallop capitals.
Parish church
A complete late 12thc. church of aisleless nave, chancel and W tower, the last with round-headed lower windows but lancets in its upper storeys. There was an internal restoration in 1850, when the chancel floor was raised to the level of the nave floor. More recently, a vestry has been built on the N side of the nave, enclosing the N nave doorway which now gives access to the vestry from inside the church, and which is therefore no longer visible from the exterior. Nevertheless it has here been treated as an external doorway. A photograph taken circa 1900, before the building of the vestry, has kindly been supplied by Peter Moore.Late 12thc. sculptural work is found on the S and N doorways of the nave, the Priest's doorway on the S side of the chancel, and the chancel arch.
Parish church
In the mid-C12th the Borough of Woodstock was founded by the king, and it is presumed that the present church was established at this time. It was created within the parish of Bladon as a chapel of ease. It is known that a S aisle was added in the C13th, and a bell tower, mentioned in 1279, stood on the N side of the church. This was rebuilt or raised in the C15th, but taken down as unsafe in the C18th. A new tower and N aisle were built in the classical style by John Yenn in 1784-6. The medieval church was almost completely rebuilt by A.W. Blomfield in 1878. Today the S doorway, richly decorated with two continuous orders of chevron, is the only Romanesque survival.
Parish church
Binsey is a small village by the River Thames about 1.5 miles NW of Oxford. Although this little church is now within Oxford City, it is hidden away along a narrow wooded lane, half a mile N of Binsey village. Its earliest datable stonework is the round-headed S doorway of the late 12thc. It is uncertain whether the porch was built at the same time (as suggested by Sherwood and Pevsner), or added in the 13thc remodelling (as posited by Clark). The church has always been a two-cell structure and much of it was rebuilt, at least from waist height, in the 13thc. The present church comprises a chancel, a nave and a central bell-cote. The S doorway is the surviving main Romanesque feature, and the plain font probably also dates to the 12thc.
Parish church
Charlbury is a large village in NW Oxfordshire, 6 miles S of Chipping Norton. There was originally a smaller Romanesque church on this site. It was greatly enlarged in the 13thc. by the extension of the chancel eastwards, and by the addition of a tall W tower, a S aisle, and N and S chapels. The S chapel runs the whole length of the chancel as well as the nave. There was a major repair and refit by G.E. Street in 1856. As the church is so wide relative to its length, the seating is now oriented with the altar at the W end where it is visible to worshippers from the side aisles as well as the nave. The only surviving Romanesque features are the three round arches of the N nave arcades with responds and a single pier.
Parish church
St James church, built of the local ironstone, serves a small hamlet hidden away in the Tew valley in N Oxfordshire. It is small, comprising a short chancel, nave and narrow N and S aisles, and a SW tower, of which the lower stage forms the entrance porch, and the W door opens into an adjoining schoolroom. The earliest evidence in the building is the scant remaining C12th work. The Romanesque bases of two of the S arcade piers show that it comprised a nave and aisle of three bays, presumably with a chancel. It was remodelled in the C14th and the tower was built into the W bay of the S aisle in the C17th, forming a porch and reusing the C13th S door.
Parish church
St Mary's is an exceptionally complete Romanesque structure, consisting of an unaisled chancel and nave separated by a central tower. It might originally have had an apsidal E end, but at some time in the 13thc the chancel was extended to the E, so the original termination is gone. The W facade is of 3 storeys: an elaborate doorway flanked by blind arches, then a storey lit by a large oculus, and in the gable a triplet with a blind arch above. The nave also has lateral doorways; that on the S side justly celebrated for its decoration. The vaulting of the chancel and especially the shafts supporting it, as well as the two tower arches, are also enriched with sculpture. Elaborately decorated windows are found on the W facade, and on the lateral walls of the nave, tower and chancel. The font is 12thc., as is an abandoned bowl in the churchyard.
The nave roof was lowered in the 17thc, and a crenellated parapet was added. This reduced the height of the W gable, cutting off the outer 3rd-storey windows below capital level. In 1823 the gable was rebuilt by Robert Bliss, and in 1844 the roof was raised to its original pitch by R C Hussey. Thus the blind window at the apex of the gable and the frieze below it are entirely 19thc work. The large oculus in the centre of the 2nd storey of the facade was inserted by J C Buckler in 1856-57, replacing a Perpendicular window. He was assisted in his restoration by an outline of an original oculus in the masonry. Apart from the work on the W front there was a general restoration of the church in 1844. In the 1970s the top storey of the tower was refaced, involving replaing much of the carved and moulded stone. In the 1980s a shelter coat of limestone spray was applied to the exterior sculpture, and this was renewed in 2017 by Sally Strachey Ltd.
Parish church
St Mary's, Witney, is a large cruciform church with a fine central tower and spire, visible from afar and dominating the S end of the Green at the centre of this country town. Mostly of coursed limestone rubble, the church now comprises a chancel, an aisled and clerestoried nave with a NW chapel and a two-storeyed N porch, and clerestoried transepts with chapels and W aisles. The late 11thc. or early 12thc. church probably consisted of aisleless nave and chancel, of which blocked single splay windows survive high in the nave walls. Fragments of string course also survive, formerly on the nave exterior but now interiorised in the aisles. There is only tenuous evidence of an early central tower. It is more likely that the thick W wall, now ostensibly 13thc., is the remains of an early W tower, similar to that excavated at Bampton. If so, the nave retains its original dimensions. The four-bay N aisle and porch were added in the late 12thc., and the latter has outer and inner doorways with round-headed arches, the outer possibly rebuilt. There are a number of re-used fragments of Romanesque masonry, including chevron and a single beakhead.
Parish church
Wood Eaton is a quiet village off the beaten track, yet it is only 5 miles NE of Oxford, and 2 miles from Islip. Holy Rood church comprises a chancel, nave, S porch and a W tower. The main fabric of the present chancel and nave probably dates from c. 1250 (VCH). There is a plain font that might be Romanesque.