Church of St Nicholas is a Grade I listed building in the Oxford local planning authority area, England. First listed on 18 July 1963. A C13 Church.

Church of St Nicholas

WRENN ID
hallowed-railing-briar
Grade
I
Local Planning Authority
Oxford
Constituency
Oxford East MP: Anneliese Dodds (Lab)
Country
England
Date first listed
18 July 1963
Type
Church
Address
Church of St Nicholas, Elsfield Road, Old Marston
OS grid reference
SP 527 088
Coordinates
51.77613, -1.23722
Source
Historic England listing

Also on this page: flood risk · radon risk · weather exposure · detailed attributes ↓

Description

The Church of St Nicholas is a church dating back to the 13th century, with significant alterations in the 15th and 16th centuries. It is constructed of limestone rubble and ashlar, with stone-slate and lead roofs. The church includes a nave with aisles, a chancel, a west tower, and a south porch.

The chancel, dating to the 15th century, features a moulded plinth and side windows with two cinquefoil lights, labelled with carved square stops. A Tudor-arched priest's door has carved foliage in the spandrels, and the east window has three lights with Perpendicular tracery. The south aisle was rebuilt in 1562 and has a steep-pitched roof, a moulded string under the eaves, a reset 15th-century window in the ashlar south wall, and two uncusped two-light windows. The north aisle, with a stone-slated roof, has two-light windows, and to the east, a window with three graduated cinquefoil lights. The clerestory is punctuated by two-light windows. The 15th-century tower has two-light belfry openings and corner gargoyles below a crenellated parapet; the west window has three lights with Perpendicular tracery.

Inside, the church has a 13th-century chancel arch and nave arcades, four bays to the north and three to the south. The chancel has an elaborate 19th-century arch-braced collar-truss roof. The 15th-century nave roof has cambered tie beams and moulded purlins, while the north aisle roof is of similar design. The five-bay south aisle has a roof with queen-post trusses, moulded tie beams, and curved windbraces. The porch features a four-centre arched entrance with wrought-iron gates, sheltering a reset Decorated doorway. The chancel floor is paved with medieval encaustic tiles. The church contains numerous 15th and 16th-century bench pews in the nave, and return stalls in the chancel with medieval poppy-head bench ends. Other furnishings include a 17th-century communion table and turned rails, a 17th-century hexagonal pulpit with arched panels and a tester, and a 17th-century screen in the tower arch with pierced flat balusters. Stained glass includes fragments from the 15th century in the heads of windows and some old geometrical glazing in one chancel light, alongside 15th-century panels inserted into the east window. Traces of medieval wall painting survive over the chancel arch. A significant monument is a large alabaster wall monument to Richard Croke (died 1683), with an elaborate frame and double pediment.

Local climate

Church of St Nicholas sits in a drier-than-average part of the UK, with an average of 730 mm of rain a year. This makes it drier than 78% of listed buildings in the UK. Its exposure to wind-driven rain is lower than that of 73% of listed buildings.

It experiences an average of 36 freeze-thaw cycles a year, more than 61% of listed buildings. Of these, 16 follow at least 1 mm of rain in the preceding 48 hours. Average temperatures at this location have risen by 0.3°C per decade since 1991.

Averages for 1991–2020; temperature trend 1991–2025. Figures describe the wider area (a grid cell of roughly 10 km), not the individual site. Contains modified Copernicus Climate Change Service information 2026.

More on this building

Sign in or create a free account to unlock:

  • No EPC on record for this property
  • No sale records on file
  • No related consent applications matched
  • Detailed attributes — period, style, materials, features
  • Flood risk assessment
  • Radon risk assessment
  • Weather exposure and heating demand — rain and frost month by month and year by year, wind direction, solar and humidity
Create free account

Matched applications, energy data and sale records are assembled automatically and may contain errors. Flag incorrect data.

Similar buildings

The closest matches to this building from all 493,000 UK listed buildings, by architecture, period and materials.

Nearby listed buildings

  1. Old Marston War Memorial Grade II 37 m
  2. Church Farmhouse Grade II 89 m
  3. Alan Court Grade II 96 m
  4. Long Farm Grade II 101 m
  5. Cross Farmhouse Grade II 106 m
  6. Manor House and attached front wall Grade II 115 m
  7. Cromwells House Grade II 129 m
  8. The Three Horseshoes Grade II 158 m
  9. The White Hart Grade II 165 m
  10. The Orchard Grade II 206 m