Church Heritage Record 627136

West tower. Nave with north and south aisles with porches, south chapel, chancel, north and south vestries.

Nave with aisles 20m (65ft) long, 22m (80ft) wide, chancel 13m (45ft) x 5.6m (18ft).

Prehistoric

There are a number of scattered findspots of Stone Age flints along the rivers, and Bronze Age tools are known in the area, though none in the immediate vicinity of the site, but stray finds from all these periods are possible.

Roman

Part of a possible Roman road from Bloxham to Adderbury has been recorded to the east of the village. A 4th-century Roman Mosaic was found during the removal of an old sewage drain from beneath Webb House. 1 mile north-west of the town centre is a Romano-British inhumation burial ground and possible settlement site with evidence of walling, coins, pottery, an iron hammer, a plough share, a knife with a bone handle and a brooch. The site dates from the 1st to the 5th century. It was excavated in two phases from the 1920s and 1960s. There have been other find in the area and finds of this period in the churchyard are therefore possible.

Anglo-Saxon

The village name is thought to derive from the Old English Blocc's Ham (the home of Blocc). The manor was part of the lands owned by the Earls of Mercia, and Bloxham was the Head of a Hundred, and therefore already an important place by the 11th century.

A church is mentioned in 1067, so must have existed before the Conquest. Suggestions that this was a Minster site cannot at present be confirmed, but the site was clearly an important foundation from the beginning. This earlier building may have been demolished to make way for a new Norman church.

Norman

In 1067, following an unsuccessful rebellion by the Earl of Mercia which saw his lands and possessions forfeited to the Crown, King William I “the Conqueror” granted the church and rectory  to Westminster Abbey. In 1086 the Domesday Book recorded the village as Blochesham. It seems to have been a double settlement at this time, with the core of the village to the north, and the church and rectory to the south. Much of this original shape and the Medieval street plan can still be discerned today.

The earliest surviving parts of St. Mary’s are late 12th century but only fragments remain from this period, notably the south door and north chancel door (relocated here by Street).

Henry II granted patronage of the church to Godstow Abbey around 1180, which led Westminster Abbey to complain to the Pope. Godstow was allowed to retain the church, provided it made an annual payment to Westminster Abbey. The earliest parts may date to a new build in the immediate aftermath of this episode.

There was also a small Benedictine foundation with a chapel in Bloxham Wood, endowed by King Stephen but of earlier origin. This act may have been the origin of the idea that Stephen founded a chantry chapel at Bloxham to say prayers for his mother, which would have been the earliest such in the country, but for which there appears to be no evidence.

Medieval

The church appears to have been extended with aisles in the 13th century and parts of the nave are of this period. In the 14th century St. Mary’s was again extended, altered and ornamented with a great deal of fine stone carving. The north and south aisles were widened; the shallow north transept constructed, and porches added; and most notably and expensively, the west tower with its commanding spire was built.

In the early 15th century the fine Milcombe chapel was added, the mason being probably Richard Winchcombe, as well as the clerestory of the nave. The splendour of this and the general high quality of the architecture may reflect wool money (the patronage of wealthy merchants) as well as royal interest.

Post-Reformation

After Henry VIII’s dissolution of the monasteries in the 1530s Bloxham parish church returned to the patronage of the Crown, which granted it to Eton College in 1547.

The roofs of the north and south aisles were reconstructed in 1686. The spire was repaired several times in the 18th century, which also saw reordering and refurnishing of the interior with box pews, none of which has survived.

19th century

In 1864-68 the leading Gothic Revival architect George Edmund Street restored St Mary’s. The ICBS gave a grant which was for “a new organ chamber, part-rebuilding of north porch, reseating and general repairs”. Street provided a new pulpit, chancel ensemble and long bench pews elsewhere, and relocated the font and many monuments. The walls were stripped, revealing wall paintings. A heating system was also provided with channels and grilles in a new tiled floor.

20th century 

Bloxham saw some modest expansion and had a railway station on the Banbury and Cheltenham Direct Line, opened in 1887. It was closed to passengers in 1951 and shut entirely in 1963, and the station demolished.

Major repairs to the church were undertaken in 1924-25 (supported by ICBS) by Forsyth & Maule, and again in 1956 by Lawson & Partners. Electric lighting was provided.

In 1975 the new south vestry was built by Alcocks. In the 1980s a fairly major reordering took place during the incumbency of Rev Dr Edward Condry.  The mobile nave altar was replaced by one newly commissioned from Nick Hodges (of Wroxton) who also made a matching small altar for the Milcombe Chapel. A new altar rail replaced the existing temporary one and a Hornton stone semi-circular apron was constructed.

The Milcombe Chapel floor was raised and carpeted. A new screen was commissioned for the Milcombe Chapel, designed and constructed by Nick Hodges. The choir had at one time used the Milcombe Chapel as a choir vestry and the screen had previously been removed and re-erected in the north-west corner to form the present choir vestry.

Two lighting corona were added, one in the Milcombe Chapel and one over the font, and the font cover was counterbalanced. Lights were installed over the nave altar. A chamber organ built by Stephen Taylor was cased by Nick Hodges.

To commemorate the Millennium the spire was floodlit with an HLF grant, and a tapestry screen of 114 panels made by villagers has been placed across the entrance to the tower. 

The Tower

The fine west tower of five stages has angle buttresses with niches, string courses to all stages and louvred lights to the bell stage. At the fifth stage the tower forms an octagon under the spire; the broaches are marked by corner pinnacles. The octagon has a cornice of blind tracery, the spire has canopied lucarnes.

The belfry stage has a pair of lancets to each face. The middle stage below is blind. Large pointed recess in the stage below with two tall lancets, under this the west doorway which has three orders of wave moulding, hollows filled with ballflower, leaves and birds and large carved heads in place of capitals. The hoodmould has seated figures.

North aisle

The north aisle has a 4-light west window has unusual tracery with carved figures; 3-light window west of porch has a form of reticulated tracery; North porch and doorway are early 14th-century, with wave mouldings. East of the porch two 3-light windows have reticulated and geometrical tracery; 5-light Perpendicular east window.

South aisle

The south aisle has a 4-light geometrical west window with a six-sided star to head with symbols of the four evangelists. At the hub is the head of Christ; 3-light geometrical window to left of porch.

South chapel

The Milcombe Chapel has 4-, 5- and 7-light rectilinear windows externally divided by buttresses with pinnacles. The straight parapet has flamboyant gargoyles; mutilated niches flank the east windows of the south aisle and chapel.

Chancel

The chancel has a 4-light east window, other windows 2-lights with intersecting Y- or geometrical tracery, with the exception of the three-light south-west window and adjacent low-side lancet.

South Porch

The 14th-century south porch has a 2-bay ribbed stone vault. The inner doorway is early 13th century, just pointed but with chevron around the arch, one order of engaged colonnettes and carved heads on the consoles to the hoodmould. The floor is of quarry tiles with lozenge patterns picked out in black and yellow.  The porch has a priest’s room above with fireplace and window into the church, a third floor was added in the 15th century, all reached by an internal stone stairway, which is steep and narrow.

North Porch

The north porch is single storey and dates to the 14th century, with a pointed moulded outer doorway and tiled floor.  Over the inner pointed doorway is a wall painting of St. Christopher carrying the Christ-child, a mermaid and a kneeling figure.

The Nave and Aisles

In the interior, the walls are mostly bare stone having been stripped by Street, with the exception of the surviving wall paintings. Better lighting might make more of these and the architectural features, such as the fine carvings at high level. The general feel (though not the liturgical focus) is still dictated by Street’s work, despite considerable changes in the late 20th century.

The aisles have 4-bay nave arcades with double chamfered arches, the north piers are round with moulded capitals, the south piers of quatrefoil section, one has a stiff leaf capital. There are signs of a west gallery, and a blocked rood doorway on the north side of the chancel arch.

There is a quarry tiled floor in the nave and aisles, with geometric patterns picked out in black and grey down the alleys with some patterned tiles (gold lions rampant). The floor is uneven in several places as it deteriorates. The patterns relate to the previous (presumably) fixed position of the pew benches.  These are of very good quality, of oak with shaped ends and moulded back rails.  These have been reduced in number and are now moveable, but their extreme length and commensurate weight makes this difficult in practice.

Between the south aisle and the Milcombe Chapel are two delicately moulded flattened 4-centred arches supported on an elegant slender pier, typical of the work of Richard Winchcombe as can be seen in the chancel at nearby Addebury. There is a late 20th-century light wooden screen across this arcade.

The North Transept

The north transept off the north aisle has an arcade of two arches to the north aisle, carried on a diamond shaped pier. The capital has a band of carved heads, and there are more heads to the base.

The Millcombe Chapel

The chapel is a remarkable example of mature Perpendicular Gothic architecture, its huge windows flooding the chapel with light and with delicate carved arcading around the walls.

Roofs

The north aisle roof and most of the south aisle roof are still mostly of the 14th century, though restored; the Milcombe chapel, chancel and nave roofs were renewed in 1866 during the Street restoration.

The East End

The responds of the 12th-century chancel arch were re-used in the 14th-century rebuilding, the arch is pointed and double-chamfered like the aisle arcade. The entrance to the rood loft can be seen on the north side. On the wall over the chancel arch is the remnant of a doom painting. The fine filigree rood screen across the arch dates to the 15th century, and retains painted panels, restored.  There is now a nave altar on a semi-circular stone dais in front of the screen.

Beyond the screen the elaborate choir stalls were designed in 1866 by Street. The doorway in the north wall is a re-set 12th-century tympanum with fish scale pattern; it leads to Street’s vestry and organ chamber. There are also re-used Romanesque carvings to the rere-arches of the south windows. Victorian sedilia of four bays on the south side with marble colonettes. Elaborate High altar and reredos carvings (see below), and marble and tiled floor, again part of Street’s fine scheme.