Church Heritage Record 627218

5-bay aisleless transeptal nave with stump of crossing tower and apsidal  chancel. South porch.  Covered link from the vicarage leads to south door.

[Approximate] Nave 24m (75ft) x 8m (25ft),  chancel 5.5m (18ft) long and wide.

The parish church of St Frideswide’s was built in 1872 to the north-west of Osney island near the turnpike on the road into Oxford. The population and town of Oxford was increasing rapidly, with the new suburb of New Osney developed just to the east and north of the church from the 1850s. The area was originally in the parish of St Thomas the Martyr but in the patronage of Christ Church due to the Osney abbey connection (hence also the dedication to St Frideswide), and a chapel was built on Oseney in 1868. It was replaced by a chapel dedicated to St Nicholas that remained in use until 1892. A second chapel was built in 1860, dedicated to St Frideswide the patron saint of Oxford. This was later replaced by the present parish church of St Frideswide’s, not on the same site.

The church was designed by the leading Gothic Revival architect Samuel Sanders Teulon of Westminster, London, and built by the local firm of Honour & Castle. The foundation stone was laid in 1870 and the church was consecrated on 10 April 1872. The design differs from the original in that the intended spire was never built, much of the intended external carving was never carried out, and benches were replaced with chairs, all perhaps a cost issue. Teulon died in 1873, so this is one of his last commissions.  A renewed attempt to finish the church with designs for a very odd tower by H G W Drinkwater drawn up in 1878 was never carried out, he did however design the vicarage and connecting passage.  A later design by John Oldridge Scott also never happened.

In 1950 the living of Binsey was transferred to St Frideswides.  The temporary capping of the central tower was replaced in 1986. The new roof is of steeper pitch than the old one, and the side-turret for the bell was also heightened.

The archaeological potential of the site is low; it is outside Osney island and the immediate environs of Osney Abbey, on the turnpike road out of Oxford. The site has local ecological value, it has a number of mature chestnut and other trees and is within the Osney Town Conservation Area.

This is a compact and powerful design, and a good example of Teulon’s later work; Betjeman called it “Teulon’s neat little job”. The style is 13th-century with a definite French flavour (not untypical for Teulon), not Romanesque as stated in the brief listing description.  The fact that the crossing tower was never given a spire as planned and capped off means that it has less townscape impact and vertical emphasis than intended, but arguably gives the church a more compact appearance.  Iron cross finials to the tower cap and west end attempt to compensate a little for this lack of a spire.  

The chancel apse fenestration is 2-light plate tracery with quatrefoil heads except the east which is a 3-light, paired lancets to the nave, the west window has two 2-lights flanking a niche with a cinquefoil round window in the gable above. The transepts have lancets low down, south gable with similar round window, gablets mark the transition to the nave and on the north side below a round window a catslide roof; a huge east buttress connects to the tower stair turret. The overall impression is of a hulking, powerful building.

The church can be entered via a gabled passageway with narrow lancets which links with the north door, there is a potentially very useful office room at the far (south) end of this. Access to the passageway is from a pointed door in the west wall. The other point of entry, the south porch has outer and inner pointed arches and Victorian doors, there are plans to make this dark and rather forbidding entrance more inviting.

Almost in contrast to this louring external impression the spacious white-washed interior is well kept and welcoming, the High Church tradition is obvious, with a Big Six and shrines. There are wooden painted angels fixed to the aisle walls, one under each window, these have been brought from elsewhere. Seating is chairs, a somewhat unsettling mixture of old and new, the originally planned pews were never installed, presumably due to the lack of funds which also prevented the tower being finished.

In the north wall of the nave is the ornate "Alice Door", carved by Alice Liddell, a daughter of Henry Liddell, the Dean of Christ Church, Oxford, made famous through Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. This depicts St Frideswide in a boat, and was originally designed for St Frideswide in Poplar in London, another foundation of Christ Church, demolished following war damage.

Plain pointed crossing arches rising from oversized corbels and similar chancel apse arch, a low stone screen pierced with quatrefoils with inset crosses delineates the crossing, beyond within which are good quality choir stalls.  The north transept is used as a Lady chapel. The organ and the sacristy occupy the south transept, the organ pipes are displayed on the south tower wall above, the console reached by a stone staircase let into the wall, originally intended to continue upwards to the belfry before the money ran out. Arch-braced king-post roofs, good geometric patterned tiled floors, possibly by De Morgan (Pevsner), an important Arts-and-Crafts influenced Victorian ceramics firm.