Church Of St Mary

The Church of St Mary is a building with a history spanning from the pre-Conquest period to the 18th and 19th centuries. Early elements and fabric date back to the early 13th century, with significant alterations in 1743 commissioned by Norreys Bertie, and a Victorian restoration in 1885 by R. Phene Spiers. The church is constructed from limestone rubble with ashlar dressings, and comprises a nave, a south porch, and a west tower.

The nave is wide, featuring four bays and a plain parapet rising from an ashlar band. It possesses round-arched side windows featuring 19th-century plate tracery. Lead rainwater heads with elaborate cartouches displaying arms and inscriptions "NB/1743" are prominent. The east wall of the nave is largely blank, except for a shield of arms, and retains evidence of a former chancel that was demolished in the early 19th century, with much of the stonework appearing to be reused. The south porch, of the 19th century, has a round-arched entrance below an unglazed rose window, and shelters a large south door with a particularly fine stone doorcase. This doorcase includes an eared architrave, a pulvinated oakleaf frieze featuring a lion mask, guilloche strips, and lion-mask consoles supporting an enriched triangular pediment.

The three-stage west tower likely incorporates pre-Conquest fabric. It includes a blocked doorway on the south side, and to the west, a similar doorway and small window (now cut by a lancet), along with a small opening at the second stage. The bell-chamber stage has paired lancets within semi-circular outer arches, and a 15th-century parapet featuring blind quatrefoils, angle gargoyles, and the bases of pinnacles.

Inside, the plaster doorcase features an egg-and-dart architrave, a frieze of arabesques springing from a scallop shell, and consoles supporting a modillion cornice; it aligns with the style of the nave, whereas the outer case presents a late 17th-century aesthetic. The plasterwork shares stylistic similarities with contemporary work at Kirtlington Park and may be the work of Roberts of Oxford. A chamfered Transitional tower arch has a 19th-century hood mould. Notable furnishings include a 12th-century tub font with arcaded sides, a large altarpiece by Pompeo Battoni, a large wrought-iron cross (possibly 17th-century Spanish), two carved medieval bench ends from a redundant 19th-century reredos, and two detached carved stone heads. Monuments present include a small brass of 1743 and a series of fine black marble ledgers from the 17th and 18th centuries, commemorating members of the Norreys Bertie family, each bearing heraldic cartouches. The building contains stop-chamfered spine beams with run-out stops.