Church Of St Katherine

STADHAMPTON B480 SU5999 (East side) Chiselhampton 11/129 Church of St. Katherine 18/07/63

GV II*

Church. 1762 for Charles Peers. Rendered walls with limestone dressings; old plain-tile roof. Rectangular plan with an eastern projection and a western turret. Walls have chamfered quoins and a stone cornice; the gable parapets are flanked by large stone urn with gadrooned covers and festooned sides. To south are 4 leaded arched windows with projecting keyblocks. The shallow projection to east has a semi-circular parapet. The entrance front has double-leaf panelled doors, with a wooden architrave and cornice, and a square wooden clock turret which rises above 2 small scrolls which terminate the gable. The lower stage of the turret has rusticated quoins and a large painted clock face; the open upper stage has keyblock arches and clasping pilasters supporting a dentil cornice and a pointed concave roof. The eastern gable is terminated by a lead urn. Interior; the roof has a shallow elliptical plaster vault and the south windows are flanked by pilaster on consoles supporting a dentil cornice. The arrangement is repeated on the north with blind windows. The east wall has a shallow segmental-arched recess. The C18 fittings survive complete and incorporate a fine C17 pulpit with heavily-carved arched panels. The oak panelling in the sanctuary recess frames the Creed, Decalogue etc. and is ornamented with carved festoons and Rococo detail below a plain segmental pediment. The turned communion rails enclose the carved C18 altar table on 3 sides and also return westwards to meet the high panelled box peers. A western gallery is carried on wooden Tuscan columns. There are many C18, C19 and C20 wall monuments to members of the Peers family who owned Chiselhampton House (q.v.). The designer may have been Samuel Dowbiggin of London who was responsible for the house. (V.C.H,: Oxfordshire, Vol.VII, p.5; Buildings of England: Oxfordshire, pp.541-2).

Listing NGR: SU5922699229