Church of St Mary

Church of St Mary, Charlbury

A parish church of significant historical importance, with work dating from the 12th through 16th centuries. The building underwent major restoration in 1856 by George Gilbert Street, with further work to the chancel in 1874 by C. Buckeridge, commissioned by John, Duke of Marlborough. The church is constructed of coursed limestone rubble with ashlar dressings, and has sheet-metal and concrete plain-tile roofs. The plan comprises a chancel with north and south chapels, aisles, nave, west tower, and south porch.

The 13th-century chancel retains a restored lancet to the north, though the five-light east window features Decorated tracery. The transeptal north chapel contains a two-light 13th-century north window with a shafted mullion and a concave-sided lozenge in the head (comparable to St Matthew, Langford). Its buttresses, parapet, and segmental-headed east window date to the 15th or 16th century. The south chapel, known as the Pudlicote Aisle, is equal in size to the chancel and post-dates it, with a similar 14th-style east window restored around 1875. Tudor-arched south windows of two wide lights with plain tracery match those in the south aisle and may date to the 16th century, though often attributed to 18th-century simplification. A buttress on the south chapel bears a painted sundial dated 1776.

The south porch likely dates to the 16th century and contains a Tudor-arched doorway with an ancient panelled door. It shelters the fine trefoil-headed 13th-century south doorway, which features a roll-moulded arch rising from shafted jambs. The north aisle retains a lancet to the west but was widened, probably in the 15th century. It has two four-centre-arched windows to the north with casement mouldings and altered tracery. The nave clerestory has plain mullioned windows to the south, while the north side has two windows with cinquefoil heads.

The unbuttressed tower is 13th-century in its three lower stages, with no dividing string between stages two and three. The bell-chamber stage is crenellated and dates to the 15th century, with traceried openings. The earlier bell chamber contains paired roll-moulded lancets, and small lancets appear at stage two, along with a very tall lancet above the Tudor-arched 15th or 16th-century west doorway.

The interior reveals considerable complexity. The chancel features a 15th or early 16th-century arch-braced collar-truss roof with two rows of windbracing. The two-bay arcade to the Pudlicote Aisle is 14th-century, though largely restored or rebuilt in the 19th century. The 13th-century arch to the north chapel survives, as do similar arches opening from both nave aisles, indicating that a matching transeptal chapel formerly existed to the south and that both aisles were originally narrower. All three arches have stiff-leaf capitals but have lost their shafts. A fine trefoil-headed piscina with stone shelf, now positioned near the east end of the Pudlicote Aisle, may have been reused from the former transept.

The north chapel has a richly-moulded 15th-century roof. The chancel arch, probably largely 19th-century, rises from moulded corbels. The three-bay south nave arcade consists of two chamfered orders on circular columns and is 13th-century, probably nearly contemporary with the tall tower arch, though the latter's responds have been altered. The 12th-century north arcade features plain round arches with scalloped capitals and circular columns in the two westernmost bays. The eastern bay, potentially slightly earlier, has square masonry piers and may mark the site of 12th-century transepts. The south aisle has a 15th or 16th-century roof rising from fine corbel heads, while the north aisle roof is probably a 19th-century copy.

The tower contains a wooden spiral stair of around 1700 with turned balusters. The church contains early 20th-century stained glass in three windows. Monuments include two early 18th-century Baroque wall tablets commemorating the Jenkinsons of Walcot and an elaborate memorial to Viscountess Hereford (died 1742) incorporating a draped urn on a sarcophagus. Among the fittings are a large late medieval chest and a pedestal poor box.