Church of St Leonard

Church of St Leonard

A substantial parish church standing on the south side of The Square in Eynsham. The building comprises a late 13th-century chancel and south aisle, with a nave, north aisle, and west tower dating from around 1450. The church was restored in 1856 by William Wilkinson and again in 1892 by H. Drinkwater.

The exterior is built of coursed limestone rubble, with squared stone used for the west tower. The roofs are of gabled stone slate over the main structure and Welsh slate over the aisles. A late 19th-century Perpendicular-style east window has been inserted.

The chancel, of three bays, retains its late 13th-century character with two-light windows and a pointed chamfered priest's doorway to the south. The north side contains a similar window and a mid-19th-century vestry with lancet windows. The late 13th-century south aisle features buttresses and a succession of windows: a two-light east window with a quatrefoil in the head; a two-light window with unusual cusped heads; another two-light window with cinquefoiled heads; a late 15th-century studded door in a square-headed surround with quatrefoils carved in the spandrels; and a late 15th-century three-light window with panel tracery. The three-bay late 15th-century north aisle is distinguished by a fleuron frieze, offset buttresses, and three-light windows with panel tracery.

A crenellated two-storey south porch contains a two-light square-headed window above a four-centred doorway with 18th-century panelled double-leaf doors. A pointed moulded south doorway also survives. The late 15th-century clerestory is of four bays and features gargoyle rainwater spouts with label moulds over two-light cinquefoil-headed windows. A late 15th-century five-light west window with panel tracery lights the nave.

The west tower, of three stages with string courses and buttresses, has slit lights to the stair-turret. A three-light west window and belfry windows are set within the tower, and gargoyles project from the string course beneath the crenellated parapet.

The interior of the chancel preserves a mutilated late 13th-century statue niche to the east, a trefoiled piscina to the south, and an early 18th-century communion rail with turned balusters. A mid-19th-century arch-braced roof has been inserted. A mid-19th-century chancel arch separates the chancel from the nave, which retains its king-post roof supported on 15th-century head corbels.

A late 17th-century bolection-panelled pulpit (upper stage only) stands in the nave, alongside a 15th-century octagonal font with traceried panels and a frieze of angels. A three-light Perpendicular window serves the north chapel. Five-bay nave arcades are constructed with moulded capitals on oblong piers with concave mouldings; a concave-moulded archway gives access to the west tower.

A 15th-century bench at the west end of the nave features traceried end-panels. Other fittings are of the 15th and 19th centuries, with some later replacements. Three recesses survive in the south wall of the south aisle. The south aisle roof, of mid to late 19th-century date, is supported on 15th-century head corbels, while the 15th-century north aisle roof features moulded beams and braces.

Fragments of a 14th-century Life of St. Catherine are preserved as wall painting on the north wall of the chancel. The adjoining window contains stonework painted with red-ochre bands.

The church contains numerous monuments. The chancel holds a wall tablet to James Preston, d.1805, and another to John Esher and Mary Bartholomew, d.1724, 1752, and 1762, set in an architectural frame. Further 18th and 19th-century wall tablets include monuments to John Rogers (with a broken pediment and shouldered architrave), Anne Bedwell, d.1728 (with cherubs flanking a portrait medallion), and John Rogers, d.1714, located in the nave. The north aisle contains reset brasses to John Martin, d.1610, Richard Martin, d.1617, and vicar William Emmot, d.1584.

The stained glass includes memorial windows in the chancel dating to 1902 and 1930. South aisle windows include glass of 1918 and fragments of 14th and 15th-century glass to the west, including a representation of St. Thomas. Other windows retain their original leaded cases.