Church of St Oswald is a Grade II* listed building in the West Oxfordshire local planning authority area, England. A C13 Church.
Church of St Oswald
- WRENN ID
- ancient-tallow-scarlet
- Grade
- II*
- Local Planning Authority
- West Oxfordshire
- Constituency
- Witney MP: Charlie Maynard (LD)
- Country
- England
- Type
- Church
- Address
- Church of St Oswald, Swinbrook and Widford
- OS grid reference
- SP 273 120
- Coordinates
- 51.8068, -1.60484
- Source
- Historic England listing
Description
The Church of St. Oswald is a Grade II* listed building located in Widford. It was constructed on the site of a Roman villa, with the nave and chancel dating back to the 13th century and restored around 1904. The church is built from uncoursed stone rubble and features a stone slate roof, along with a stone bellcote positioned between the chancel and nave.
The church has a three-bay nave and a two-bay chancel. On the south side, there is a four-centre-arched doorway at the center of the nave, which has a plank door. Flanking this doorway are trefoiled lancets on both sides of the nave. The chancel also has trefoiled lancets with hood moulds on either side. The north side features a blocked round-arched doorway at the center of the nave and a two-light stone mullion window to the left, with a trefoiled lancet to the right of the chancel. The west end has a three-light stone mullion and transom window, while the east end showcases a three-light window with Reticulated tracery.
Inside, the chancel has a collar-truss roof and displays medieval wall paintings. There is a piscina to the right of the altar and a 17th-century communion rail with flat wood balusters and a moulded wood rail. Fragments of Roman mosaic flooring can be seen to the left and right of the chancel floor, below the current floor level. The nave features a three-bay collar-truss roof, medieval wall paintings, 18th-century box pews, and a hexagonal wood pulpit with tracery panels, likely made from a 15th-century screen.
Local climate
Church of St Oswald receives an average of 790 mm of rain a year. This makes it drier than 58% of listed buildings in the UK. Its exposure to wind-driven rain is lower than that of 59% of listed buildings.
It experiences an average of 36 freeze-thaw cycles a year, more than 65% of listed buildings. Of these, 17 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
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.
this building 1 similar nearby listed buildings