Cuddesdon is 6 miles SE of Oxford. There is good evidence that the original church was built before 1117. It was rebuilt and enlarged c. 1180 on a cruciform plan with a chancel, nave, side aisles, transepts and a central tower. Nave aisles were added in the mid-13thc. In the 14thc. most aisle windows were replaced, and a window in the N wall of the N transept was added. The chancel was rebuilt in the late 14thc or early 15thc, perhaps in 1375-6 when the accounts of Abingdon Abbey include payment for Wheatley stone, available nearby.
The church retains many richly carved late Romanesque features, including the main W doorway, of three orders, with free-standing chevron and dogtooth over the round-headed arch, and a slightly simpler version in the re-used S doorway. There are pilaster buttresses with angle shafts and capitals on the corners of the W end of the original nave. Angle shafts alone also recur on the N transept, which also carries part of a corbel table, continuous with that of the nave. Nave corbels are now interiorised within the S and N aisles, together with round window heads and further pilasters. There is a stair turret at the NW angle of the tower with lancet windows and angle shafts.
In the interior, the main feature is the tower crossing arches, pointed and of two orders. The W arch is richly decorated on its outer face, whereas those of the E, S and N arches are plain with angle rolls. Each arch has two pairs of nook-shafts on inner and outer faces, those on the W half of the crossing all carrying capitals that are individually decorated, whereas those of the E half all carry fluted capitals. Inner faces of all crossing arches are carved with chevron and roll mouldings. The interior W wall of the nave carries a half-roll stringcourse, and there is an opening to the rood loft. There is a plain Romanesque font.