Heythrop is in N Oxfordshire, 3 miles E of CN. The original parish church, dating from the 12thc, was a two-cell structure made up of a nave and a chancel of rendered rubble with freestone dressing. No major changes were made until the 15thc when the roof was raised and a square-headed windows installed. It was never enlarged because Heythrop remained a tiny hamlet. However, when Heythrop House was revitalised in the 1870s, a new church was built nearby as the existing church was deemed insufficient. After the new church was consecrated in 1881, the nave of the old one was demolished. The decorated Romanesque S nave doorway was taken down and reset within the chancel arch. Buttresses were built at the W corners of the chancel, and in the 18thc a bellcote was rebuilt at the new W end. The building has since been used as a mortuary chapel. Several Romanesque features survive, some of which are unique in Oxfordshire. Besides the reset S doorway, the chancel arch itself bears an unusual cable, now exteriorised on the W face, and is flanked by paired blind arcades. Also on the S wall there are two original figurative relief panels.

Heythrop, along with Kiddington 7 miles to the S, was given c. 780 by Offa, king of the Mercians, to Worcester Priory. It was reputedly lost by the priory in the 9thc, and in 1086 was held, as was Kiddington, by Hasculf Musard. Assessed at 5 hides and held as knight’s fee, the manor descended in the Musard family, but as with their other Oxfordshire estates, the connection became tenuous in the late 13thc.

There is no mention of a church at Edrope (Heythrop) in the Domesday book. The presence of a chaplain was recorded by the late 12thc, but the benefice is invariably referred to hereafter as a rectory. In the 13thc a church at Asterleigh, no longer in existence but united with Kiddington, was a dependency of Heythrop, bringing its parishioners there for burial and making payment. This association may have originated in the close tenurial connection between Heythrop and Kiddington from the 8thc. If so, it would indicate early building of the church at Heythrop (VCH).

In 1086 only twenty-three people were recorded at Heythrop, and this number was not equalled again until the 19thc. By the 14thc the village was reduced to a church, a manor house and a few cottages. Reasons for the depopulation might be natural causes or changes in land use, but not the Black Death. Even after Heythrop House was built by Thomas Archer in the early 18thc for Charles Talbot, Earl of Shrewsbury, the situation was unchanged as he and his heirs rarely lived there. In 1738 the incumbent complained how melancholy it was to be sent to St Nicholas to read to the church walls. After a fire gutted the inside of the house in 1831, it remained unoccupied until it was bought by Thomas Brassey, a railway magnate, in 1870. He renovated the house, built estate cottages, a school, and a larger church with a vicarage, claiming that the little church's capacity was outgrown.

Fortunately the church had been drawn by J.C. Buckler in 1822, but his drawings probably do not show the true extent of the neglect it had suffered. Buckler's main view from the SE shows a nave that was higher and wider than the chancel, but little larger. The distant S doorway is situated on a shallow projecting bay at the far W end, with castellation above. Its recessed orders are represented by a series of concentric lines broken by the capitals and imposts. A NW view shows clearly a N nave doorway of four orders, with plain jambs, a lintel and simple diapered tympanum. Two of the orders appear decorated. The relief panel of shepherds is mounted above it. The fate of this doorway is unknown, although the panel was reset.

The original building, referred to as 'Old St Nicholas', is now used as a mortuary chapel, serving the graveyard that is still in use. Both it and the 19thc church now belong to the benefice of Great Tew and Little Tew with Heythrop.

The attenuated church is remarkable for several features unique in Oxfordshire, in particular the paired blind arcades of the chancel arch and the external relief panels.

Single blind niches occur on either side of the chancel arch, above the string course, at St Mary's, Halford, Warwickshire (Kahn, 1980). The arcade is complete on the S side and houses a figure, possibly the Virgin Mary. However, in Worcestershire there are several churches with paired blind arcades. External blind arcades, above a S doorway, are found at Bockleton, Eastham and Stoulton, but Knighton is the only church with paired blind arcades on either side of the chancel arch, as at Heythrop (noted by Bond, 1988). It is believed that these arcades were decorative and did not house figures.

Heythrop shows other parallels to this group of churches in NW Worcestershire. Three of them have low relief panels of similar size and execution: Eastham has three, Hanley William one and Stockton three panels. In each church one plaque depicts the Agnus dei as a horse-like animal, facing right with a cross-headed staff (Pearson, CRSBI Worcestershire site reports). Stratford (in Pevsner, 1968) suggests that one team of masons worked at Stockton-on-Teme, Eastham, Knighton-on-Teme, Martley, and later at Bockleton.

One of Buckler's drawings of St Nicholas from the SE in 1822 shows yet another unusual feature occurring in Worcestershire. The S nave doorway was mounted in a slightly projecting bay, presumably to allow for the recession of its orders. In six out of seven of the Worcestershire churches discussed here, the main doorway is also situated on a shallow projecting bay (Stratford, in Pevsner 1974).

A predominant decorative motif at these churches is the chip-carved saltire, and the sawtooth. At Eastham, Martley and Stockton, two rows of saltires decorate the lateral face of the S doorway, exactly as at Heythrop. The parallels between Heythrop and the Teme Valley churches suggest that a mason worked at Heythrop who was familiar with the Worcestershire sculpture. Motifs like chip-carved saltires are fairly ubiquitous, but the coming together of more individual features, like the blind arcades, sculptural relief panels and projecting bays, is highly significant. In this context, it is tempting to hypothesise that it might possibly have something to do with Heythrop's 8thc to 9thc link, together with Kiddington and Spelsbury nearby, with Worcester Priory.

Sherwood and Pevsner (1974) describe the stranded motif of the hood over Heythrop's chancel arch as a cable, but the strands are not continuous. They alternate in direction like a chevron. There are few precedents for this motif in Oxfordshire, one being on the reset chancel arch at Shenington. But Bond mentions one at Beckford, Worcestershire, on the fourth order of the S doorway, that has two rows of what he calls 'furrowed zigzag'.

Sherwood and Pevsner date Heythrop's doorway to c. 1170, but this seems late for essentially conservative decorative elements. Stratford (loc. cit.) suggests 1125-50 for the Worcestershire churches, and thus a date around 1150 would seem more realistic for Heythrop.