Church Heritage Record 627503

Irregular cruciform plan with 4-bay nave, transepts and chancel, porch and west tower.

Nave approximately c 12m (38ft) x 5m 16ft), chancel 8m (26 ft) by 4m (13 ft).

The site lies near the Ridgeway, and archaeological features and finds of any period could be preserved within the curtilage. Several Bronze Age and Iron Age tombs, settlements and hill forts are known in the area, including Hardwell Castle and a little further away Uffington Castle, and the White Horse which gives its name to the hills here. 

Compton is recorded as early as 955 when King Edred gave to Alfe 8 hides in Compton which he passed to Abingdon Abbey. By 1086 William Fitz Ansculf was holding the 5 hides at which it was then assessed. The overlordship followed the descent of his manor of Bradfield, of which the manor was a member. William de Beauchamp was holding it in the second half of the 13th century, and it had acquired its distinctive name by 1281 after which it followed the descent of the earldom of Warwick until the 15th century, after which it changed hands frequently. 

The present house is a two-storied building erected around 1600 by Sir Henry Poole of Sapperton House in Gloucestershire, and embellished in the 17th and early 18th century. It stands in a wooded hollow on the hillside to the south-east of the church, and it is surrounded by a filled rectangular moat crossed by a brick bridge. The plan is rectangular, enclosing an oblong courtyard. The House is Grade I listed, the gates listed Grade II.

There was a church at Compton Beauchamp in 1086, when it was endowed with half a hide; it was valued in 1291 at £10. At this date the advowson was held by William Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick. From this time it followed the descent of the title till the death of Henry Duke of Warwick in 1446, and from the 16th century it followed the descent of Knighton Manor. From 1846 the patronage was in the hands of the Earls of Craven, before Samuel Gurney became the Squire in 1924, see below.

The chancel and the north and west walls of the nave, together with the tower or the lower part of it, are apparently of late 13th-century date, though only two windows of this period at the west end of the chancel remain, the other chancel windows possibly indicating a 14th-century extension of this. The north transept is of the early 14th century, and the south wall of the nave and the original south transept of the 15th century. The latter was entirely rebuilt in 1911, when some 12th-century fragments were found.

In detail; as built in the 13th century the church consisted of chancel, nave and west tower, and probably a south aisle to the nave. The evidence for this is the broken fragment of wall projecting towards the south at the south-west corner, and evidence of the foundations of a south wall, noticed when the south transept was rebuilt. In the 14th century the north transept was added, the chancel probably extended with new eastern windows inserted. In the 15th century the south aisle seems to have been taken down, the south transept built and the nave widened, its south wall being built south of the former arcade, thus throwing the tower, the axis of which is in a line with that of the chancel, out of centre. This accounts for the clumsy articulation of the present, Post-Medieval chancel arch of timber and lath, which also twists on its axis.

The Medieval chancel arch, assuming that it existed, was taken down and the walls of the nave raised to their present height, and the porch was apparently added at the same time (it has since been considerably restored in the early 20th century). The south wall of the nave was built up against that of the chancel without bond, forming a very weak corner, since strengthened to some extent by rebuilding the south transept. Before its rebuilding the south transept had been considerably altered, apparently in the 18th century, when a wooden window was inserted and a lower ceiling put in. The nave roof is recent and probably dates to the restoration in 1911, but the line of the older roof can still be seen at a lower level at the west end, to the north of the tower.

The chancel was decorated in 1900 and again in 1967, but the most recent major phase of change was either side of the Second World War, when Samuel Gurney became Squire of Compton Beauchamp and commissioned Martin Travers to decorate the church in his favoured “Anglo-Catholic Congress style”. 

Repair works were undertaken in the 1960s and in 1993, but the church has begun to suffer from damp since this time, apparently due to simple problems like blocked gutters and inadequate ventilation.

This is a handsome church, which has been covered in whitewash, that is now peeling away in several places and covers what would be attractive mottled Cotswold stonework. The asymmetry of the plan and the proportions immediately suggest a complex development. The nave gable reaches to the tower eaves, and the chancel roof is lower than the nave.

The west tower of two unequal stages is built of sarsen rubble with decorative chalk bands, string course at the level of the eaves of the old nave roof before the raising of the side walls, and two 2-light windows with trefoiled lights under a square hood mould, perhaps of the 15th century.  Traces of stucco lined to represent ashlar on the tower were noted in the VCH. The marks of a sundial remain on the south side, again according to the VCH. The tower terminates in a pyramidal stone slated roof. No buttresses to the tower or elsewhere.

The nave has a square-headed 15th-century window of two cinquefoiled lights on either side near the west end, the north doorway to the porch has a plain chamfered pointed arch. The south doorway, now blocked up, is probably of the 15th-century, with hoodmould. A section of the north wall between the porch and tower has earlier masonry beneath the windows.  The north window of the north transept is a 3-light with cusped intersecting tracery, above which there is a stone coat of arms with bull and shields, and a cross finial. The east window is a 2-light with cusped Y-tracery. The west wall is blank.

The south transept was rebuilt in 1911, using much of the original stonework.  The 1911 arched doorway within a 16th-century style square-headed moulded frame with labels reproduces an original feature, the approach to the church from the manor-house being on that side. The square-headed south window of two round-headed lights is of early 16th-century date. It is part of what was a larger window, probably of three lights, its eastern jamb being really a mullion. There is a small single light in the gable. The again similar 2-light west window of the transept is of 1911, replacing one of wood recorded here.

The chancel has a pointed east window of three trefoiled lights with reticulated tracery and external hood mould, good 14th-century work. In the north wall, near the west end, is an original lancet, rebated for a shutter outside, and further east a square-headed window of two trefoiled ogee lights, which may be of late 14th-century date. In the south wall is a similar 2-light window opposite, and at the south-west angle an original low-side lancet window, rebated all round outside.

The gabled porch butts against the north transept.  The outer and inner doorways are pointed and chamfered, the outer with a hoodmould, above it is as with the transept a stone plaque with shield and again a cross finial.

Moving into the nave the interior is plastered and whitewashed, but with intricate painted decoration in the chancel.

There is a Lady Chapel behind doors at the west end in the tiny tower space by Travers, c 1934. The tower arch itself is chamfered towards the nave, with hollow-moulded imposts and rounded hoodmould. Victorian or later elongated oval Royal Arms above the arch, faded and damaged.

Looking east, the nave has a 4-bay late 19th-century arch-braced roof, painted white. Red and black chequer pattern quarry tiles in the nave and transepts with some carpet, larger, older tiles, much worn, in the tower space. There are ranks of plain but attractive softwood benches with moulded ends on a woodblock base. Attractive brass candelabra above the north transept arch and in the sanctuary, simpler candle holders and two fine candle stands flanking the altar (all perhaps designed by Travers) have been rendered obsolete by distinctive electric lights with tubular shades.

The arch to the north transept is of two chamfered orders, the outer carried down to the ground and the inner springing from moulded corbels. The arch to the south transept is similar, except that the corbels are set higher. The transepts are not exactly opposite each other, the arch on the south side being further to the east and slightly wider.  The screens to both transepts are by Travers c 1947, with distinctive wavy slats to the lower panels.

The south transept has a grille within a frame against the east wall with a brass moulding depicting Edward the Confessor, again by Travers, who also designed the oak vestment chests and cupboards here c 1947. Bric a brac has accumulated behind this in an old recess reproduced here in the 1911 reconstruction, most of the old stones being re-used; possibly a blocked window. Scratched on the sill is a Latin inscription in small script characters, difficult to decipher.  There is a carved stone head of Christ set in the north-east corner, according to the adjacent sign brought from the church of SS Sergius and Bacchus in Constantinople. Altar with Travers frontal.

An altar slab was found in the south transept and is now preserved in the north transept as part of a stone altar incorporating the relics of SS Vitalis and Victorinus; details of their translation in 1927 are given on an adjacent framed scroll. On the west wall is a large painting with a plaque recording it as a depiction of the Great Shepherd (sic) by Joseph Noel Paton (1821-1901), a popular and still well regarded Victorian painter born in Scotland who painted in a pre-Raphaelite style as here. Otherwise there are modern chairs here for its use as a chapel.

Traces of a rood-stair east were recorded in 1835-40, and a small pointed rood-window high up in the wall to the east of the north transept arch still exists. The junction between the nave and the chancel is awkward, for reasons already described. The chancel ceiling is plastered and has two plain cambered tie-beams, a third painted and with infill above of lath and plaster taking the place of a chancel arch. Mounted on it above the chancel arch is a painted Rood by Travers c 1933. The Commandments, Lord’s Prayer and Creed mentioned here by the VCH are missing.  In the south corner adjacent is a small bust of St Swithun blessing and holding a model of the church, also by Travers. 

The chancel has a 13th-century pillar piscina with a circular shaft with moulded top and base, and adjacent a simple stone bench sedilia against the south wall with moulded arm rests, a rare survival of such.  The floor of the chancel has been raised at the east end and the piscina clearly disturbed.  There are 18th-century ledger slabs relating to the wall tablets described under monuments below. The floor is otherwise of encaustic tiles, with stone steps to the sanctuary.

The vine mural around the chancel walls was painted c 1900 by Lydia Lawrence of the Kyrle Society; the birds, owl, bat and insects were added in c 1967 by Anthony Baynes and T L B Huskinson.