Church Of St Mary

PYRTON CHURCH LANE SU6895 (West side) 13/134 Church of St. Mary 18/07/63

GV II*

Church. Early C12, C15 porch; rebuilt in 1856 by J.C. Buckler. Knapped and coursed flint, limestone ashlar dressings; gabled old tile roof. Chancel with vestry and nave with porch and west bellcote. 3-light geometrical-style east window: chancel side walls each have early C12 roll-moulded lancet: north vestry has mid C19 round-arched windows. 3-bay nave with 2-light curvilinear-style windows, and south porch with pointed moulded doorway and C15 three-light trefoil-headed windows. Early C12 south doorway has hood of grapes, leaves and fruit over zig-zag arch: jamb shafts with scalloped capitals and quatrefoil imposts: mid C19 plank door. 2-light curvilinear-style west window flanked by tall buttresses: bellcote has trefoil-headed lancet over 2 cinquefoil-headed bell openings. Interior: chancel has brass of Thomas Symeon and wife, d.1522, floor slab with figure of priest, c.1340, and alabaster floor tablet to Susanna Ackworth, d.1585. Vestry has wall monument to Thomas Barnard, d.1582. Early C12 chancel arch has hood with flat reeded leaves over moulded arch on imposts decorated with star-in-square pattern; jamb shafts carved with basket weave (south) and interlace (north) have cable necks. Nave has top half of Jacobean pulpit set on C19 platform. C12 font with mid C19 cover, and mid C19 pews, lectern and arch-braced roof: brass tablet by Eric Gill in memory of Alfred St. George Hammersley, d.1929. South porch has some medieval floor tiles, floor tablet to Thomas Pyrton d.1701, early C19 wall tablets (Wiggins family) and C15 arch-braced collar trusses. Stained glass: fine east window, south-east nave window by Clayton and Bell, 1893. The Church was given to Runcorn Priory, Cheshire in 1115: the fine Norman features probably date from this time. Buckler sought to preserve them in his Gothic restoration of 1856. (Buildings of England: Oxfordshire, pp.732-733; V.C.H.: Oxfordshire, Vol.VIII, p.172-4; National Monuments Record).

Listing NGR: SU6874095693