Church Of St Britius

The Church of St. Britius is a late 12th-century church located in Brize Norton, Oxfordshire, with significant additions and alterations in the early 13th century, a late 13th-century west tower, and a restoration in 1868 by G.E. Street. The walls are primarily of coursed limestone rubble, covered by a gabled stone slate roof. The church comprises a chancel, a nave with a north aisle and chapel, and a west tower.

The east window is of geometrical design with three lights, situated south of a similar mid-19th-century window. The north wall features a Norman window, an early 14th-century three-light window, an early 13th-century lancet flanked by worn corbel heads, a pointed, chamfered doorway with a hood, another early 14th-century three-light window, and a late 14th-century three-light west window with reticulated tracery. The south side of the chancel has a plain Norman doorway with a chamfered hood, flanked by a mid-19th-century three-light window in a 13th-century style and a plain 14th-century transomed window within a blocked 13th-century opening, retaining the original rere-arch. The nave has an early 13th-century lancet and a mid-19th-century lancet. A late 12th-century, round double-chamfered arch porch with shafts and moulded capitals stands on the south side, with a fine Norman south door featuring roll moulding and chevron decoration on shafts with cushion capitals—one featuring a carving of two birds—and a tympanum displaying a Tree of Life carved within a chequer pattern.

The mid/late 13th-century tower is three-stage, with string courses, lancets, and two corbels to the left side. It has two-light belfry openings with plate tracery and a corbel table decorated with stars and carved heads, also incorporating billet decoration. The nave roof includes a sanctus bellcote.

Inside, a cusped rere-arch is situated above the south-east window, the sill of which has been dropped to create sedilia with carved stone armrests. A portion of a Norman string course and two paired blocked Norman windows, beneath a dogtooth-carved hood, are visible on the north wall of the chancel; a double-chamfered pointed arch leads to the north-east chapel. A double-chamfered chancel arch displays head corbels. A 15th-century rood screen features moulded nuns’ nuntins and traceried heads to the open panels, complemented by a mid-19th-century brattished cornice and painted decoration. The nave contains a mid-19th-century painted pulpit and lectern, a late 12th-century Norman font with blind arcading and a late 19th-century base, a late 13th-century hollow-chamfered archway to the tower, and an early 13th-century four-bay north arcade with double-chamfered arches set on heavy round piers with moulded capitals and square bases. The church has mid-19th-century roofs and fittings. Monuments consisting of 17th- and early 18th-century ledger stones are found within the chancel.

The north-east chapel houses a shallow arch over a stone effigy of the knight John Daubyngy, who died in 1346, set within a sunken tomb. The effigy displays a carved head and shoulders, and crossed feet, sunk into the tomb, with a shield and crest set above a stone “blanket.” The church is unique as the only one in England dedicated to St. Britius, a 5th-century French saint.