Church Heritage Record 627109

West timber bell tower, nave with south porch and north transeptal chapel, no aisies, chancel.

The present building is basically twelfth-century with a thirteenth-century north transeptal chapel and fifteenth-century windows and a fifteenth-century timber bell tower at the west end. H.J. Bruton reported on the church in 1859, as a result of which it was restored under the direction of G.E. Street in 1859-60 at a cost of about £600, the Incorporated Church Building Society contributing £40; Street rebuilt the chancel and renowed the roofs. Bruton repaired the tower in 1884 and works to the chancel were undertaken in 1932 together with the addition of the sacristy.

Being a long, low aisleless building, with a small west bell-tower, the church makes little impact on its surroundings, but it is nevertheless attractively situated and forms a key feature in its village. The bell-cote stands on the west gable of the nave, supported internally by a timber structure (rare in Oxfordshire); each of its shingled walls has a pair of narrow lancet-shaped openings with louvres and the roof is in the form of a tiled pyramid on the apex of which is a weathercook on a pretty iron vane. The west wall of the church is rougheast with diagonal buttresses of exposed stonework at the corners which seem to have been added by Street in 1859 or perhaps by Bruton, who "strengthened" the tower in 1884. The west window is a single lancet light. The north wall of the nave is pierced also by a single lancet but in the south wall the two windows have been later enlarged, now consisting each of two trefoil-headed Perpendicular lights under a square label. There are remains of fine mass dials on the south-east corner of the nave. The timber south porch is roughcast externally but internally shows massive braces round the entrance and a mediaeval roof with stout tie-beams to each pair of rafters. The floor was retiled in the ninteenth-century and the benches each side were renewed. The doorway is Norman, with original internal arch, jambs and imposts but the lintel is modern and the external arch is missing. There is a mass dial on the west jamb.

Towards the east end of the north nave wall is a low aisle like projection in the position of a transept, without a separate entrance but lit by lancet windows; part of this represents a mediaeval north chapel and part a sacristy built by local labour in 1932 to designs by Geoffrey Webb. The older part is roofed in lead and the newer with tiles.

The chancel appears to have been almost entirely rebuilt in 1859, with a very steeply-pitched roof which rises higher than that of the nave. The single lancet with trefoiled head in the north wall remains from the old chancel, but the three-light east window with intersecting Geometric tracery is all a replacement. The south wall has two windows similar to those in the south nave wall (save that one has ogee-headed lights) and at the eastern angle are low diagonal buttresses with steep shoulders. Both east and west gables are crowned by stone crosses.

The church is entered through a door which dates from Street's restoration and down several stops into the rather dark nave. The windows are few in number and small in size and in addition several have stained glass. The nave floor is laid with nineteenth-century tiles and the walls are painted white; Street also removed a plaster ceiling from the roof so that the timber structure may now be clearly seen. Each pair of rafters has a cross beam with braces and at the wall-head are irregularly spaced tie beams (one against the chancel wall and three others). At the west end the timber framing of the tower may be seen with stout vertical posts and ties and simple arch braces. The lower part is screened by eighteenth-century panelling from box pews to form a small chamber.

In the north nave wall a round-headed doorway with chamfered arch and jambs and plain imposts leads to the sacristy, directly opposite the south doorway by which the church is entered. Towards the east end of both north and south walls are vestiges of round-headed window openings, that on the south now superseded by one of the Perpendicular windows and that on the north by the two unequal arches opening into the north chapel. These, though now much renewed, are evidently Early English in date with a round pillar with moulded capital standing between them. The larger arch is now filled by the organ and the smaller gave access to the blower's seat. Beside the pulpit is a small piscina in a square recess, evidence of an altar by the rood screen.

The chancel arch is Transitional Norman, slightly pointed with plain responds and square imposts. The chancel itself seems internally, as externally, all of Street's work with white walls and simple stone details round the windows, the roof design copied from that of the nave (the line of the old roof may be seen over the chancel arch). The furnishings were renewed in 1930 when the floor was lowered (now having one step at the chancel arch and a footpace for the altar) and the altar was brought forward and surrounded by "English" riddels and curtains. Street's communion rails and stalls, however, remain. The south window sill comes low as sedilia and beside it is a piscina with a cinquefoil drain under a trefoil-arched recess.