Church Of St Mary

Church of St Mary, Cogges, Witney

A church of late 12th and early 13th century date, remodelled around 1330–40. It is built of coursed limestone rubble with old rendering to part of the south wall of the chancel, and has gabled stone slate roofs. The plan comprises a chancel with north chapel, an aisled nave, and a west tower.

The chancel is fitted with clasping corner buttresses and an early 14th-century curvilinear three-light east window. The south side has label moulds with head stops over 15th-century two- and three-light windows, and a 15th-century doorway fitted with an 18th-century door.

The early 14th-century north chapel features three fine sculpted heads above two early 14th-century two-light windows with elaborate curvilinear tracery, and three further two-light windows to the north. The north side of the nave has two early 14th-century two-light windows and a hood mould over a blocked 14th-century door. The south aisle contains a late 13th-century trefoiled lancet, a label mould over an early 14th-century two-light window, and a 15th-century three-light west window with panel tracery. The early 13th-century south porch has a round-arched hood mould over a pointed arched doorway; the south door is pointed with roll-moulding and moulded imposts. The early 14th-century north-west tower has two-light windows and a stone flight of steps leading to a painted arched doorway; squinches support an octagonal upper stage lit by lancets.

Interior features include an east window with early 14th-century responds fitted with ballflower capitals to the rere-arch, and an early 14th-century double piscina. The chancel roof is 14th-century with three bays and scissor-braced trusses. The north chapel has a two-bay hollow-chamfered arcade with a trefoiled piscina on the east respond. It contains a fine and unusual frieze of grotesques, animals, and corbels depicting men and animals playing musical instruments, with rosette and ballflower decoration to the window architraves; the roof, probably 15th-century, features quartered moulded beams. The chancel arch, early 14th-century with double-chamfering, opens to the nave, which retains a 12th-century tub font on a 14th-century octagonal base. The nave roof is 15th-century with three bays and tie-beams. The south arcade is transitional early 13th-century with double-chamfered pointed arches set on a round pier with scalloped capital. The north arcade is 14th-century with three bays and double-chamfered arches on octagonal piers. The north aisle has an archway to the tower and a 15th-century roof with moulded beams; the south aisle has a similar restored roof.

Monuments include a tomb chest between the chancel and north chapel bearing a very fine early 14th-century effigy of Margaret de Grey with angels supporting the pillow; the tomb sides feature sexfoiled circles enclosing blank shields and symbols of the Evangelists. The chancel contains a late 17th-century wall monument to the Crutchfield family in local Baroque style. The north chapel houses a fine Blake memorial to William (died 1695), Sara (died 1701), and Francis (died 1681), comprising three marble busts in an architectural frame with scrolled pediment, together with wall tablets to two Francis Blakes, died 1691 and 1681. The east window of the north chapel retains early 14th-century stained glass with foliate decoration in the tracery lights.

The church originated as a two-cell late Saxon structure. It is probable that monks from the adjacent Priory used the north aisle for their own services. The north chapel was built, probably in the 1340s, by Lord Grey for his mother, Lady Margaret. The Blake family owned Manor Farm in the parish.