The earliest example of Anglo Saxon churches in Oxfordshire date from 1000-1050 and are St Michael at the NorthGate, Langford and North Leigh.  They all boast Anglo Saxon features such as:

• long-and-short quoins (masonry blocks at the corner of a wall)
• double triangular windows;
• narrow, round-arched windows (often using Roman tile);
• herringbone stone work
• west porch

It is rare for more than one of these features to be present in the same building. A small rounded apse was typical of the Anglo Saxon and Norman churches but these nearly all disappeared into larger chancels in the 13^th Century.

Decorated architecture is characterised by its window tracery. Elaborate windows are subdivided by closely spaced parallel mullions (vertical bars of stone), usually up to the level at which the arched top of the window begins. The mullions then branch out and cross, intersecting to fill the top part of the window with a mesh of elaborate patterns called, typically including trefoils and quatrefoils.   Windows also became larger, increasing the number of mullions between the lights; above them, within the arch of the window.  Exotic forms included the ogee arch, in which the curves of the arch are reversed in the upper part thus meeting at an acute angle at the apex. Larger windows inevitably weakened the walls, which were now supported by large exterior buttresses that came to be a feature. Columns forming the arcades within churches of this period became more slender and elegant, the foliage of the capitals more flowing.  Oxfordshire has some of the finest window tracery in the country, most notably at Dorchester Abbey but it’s also worth looking at Bloxham, Broughton, North Moreton, Hampton Poyle, Ducklington and Chipping Norton if you can.

In Oxfordshire changes during this period included comprehensive remodelling in the new style at Cropredy and Chinnor, the rebuilding or extending of chancels, for example at Great Haseley and Lewknor, the widening or raising in height of side aisles, the erection of spires at Bloxam and the addition of chantry chapels and porches for those churches that didn’t already have them.

The style is spare, simple and monastic in character with little carving The period is reckoned by Pevsner to run from about 1190 to 1250.

The style was developed in Norman France in the mid 13^th Century and quickly spread all over Europe. The most significant and characteristic development of the Early English period was the pointed arch known as the lancet. Pointed arches were used almost universally, not only in arches of wide span such as those of the nave, but also for doorways and lancet windows good examples of which can be seen at Witney and Faringdon and in the splendid chancel at Stanton Harcourt.  Spires began to appear at this time, notably at Witney, Bampton and Shipton uner Wychwood.

The late mediaeval period saw an unequalled development in church architecture in England. Walls became thinner; solid buttresses became more elegant flying buttresses surmounted by pinnacles; towers, often surmounted by stone spires became taller, and more decorated, often castellated; internal pillars became more slender; unsupported spaces between them wider; roofs, formerly safely steeply pitched became flatter, often decorated with carved wooden angels and a bestiary, where they were steep they were supported by carved hammer beams; windows occupied more and more of the wall space; decorative carving more freely flowing. Figures also multiplied, particularly on the west fronts of cathedrals and abbeys.  Finally, where money was available, the nave roof was often raised to create and extra row of windows  known as a clerestory.

By the fourteenth and fifteenth century patterns of church patronage continued to evolved and people outside the aristocracy became increasingly involved in commissioning churches.  The wool trade in Oxfordshire meant there were significant funds available and this money was put to good use in places like Burford and Chipping Norton.

In the aftermath of the Black Death worship become more publicly inclusive, which might well, explain the enlargement of naves and aisles for worship.  In addition the protracted war with France left England isolated artistically – perhaps explaining why Perpendicular  is perhaps the most truly English, and also the longest lived of all the Gothic architectural styles.

Huge population growth in the nineteenth century brought with it a surge in building of all kinds including church buildings. Victorian church architects, many inspired by the writings of Augustus Welby Northmore Pugin, were great Gothic revivalists.  This enthusiasm coincided with the writings of Newman, Keble and Pusey, the founders of the Oxford Movement, calling for a recognition of the Catholic heritage of the Anglican Church and was further evolved by the Arts and Crafts movement under John Ruskin and then William Morris.  For church architecture this meant the inclusion of decorative polychrome brick or stonework as can be seen at Keble College in Oxford.

William Morris’s influence on church architecture was also primarily decorative particularly through the use of stained glass a particularly good example of which can be found at Bloxham.  Perhaps of all people however he should be credited with the concept of protection rather than restoration.

The enormous number of new churches included works by many of the great architects of the day such as GE Street at Milton under Wychwood, Gilbert Scott at Leafield, TL Pearson at Freeland and A. Bloomfield at St Barnabas, Oxford.

The 150 years after the Norman conquest saw a huge programme of church building and the parishes created mostly survived to the present day.

The Romanesque style, usually called Norman in England, is a development of the Anglo Saxon.  The churches were massive in relation to the space they enclosed, their walls pierced by windows with semi-circular arches. Internal vaulting used the same shaped arch. Unsupported roofs were never very wide and windows are relatively few and small.  Carved decoration is distinctive and can be concentrated in doors, chancel arches, corbels and capitals and on fonts.  The great Norman church at Iffley is one of the finest Norman parish churches in England. On a much humbler scale the little church at Broughton Poggs has hardly been touched since it was built in the 12^th Century .  Splendid Norman doorways and tympana can also be seen at Church Hanborough, Great Rollright and  Kencot

The Perpendicular style began to emerge circa 1350.  It was a development of the Decorated style of the late 13th century and early 14th century, and lasted into the mid 16th century.   The mullions and transoms in Perpendicular churches are  vertical and horizontal allowing huge windows, often filled with stained glass.   Another feature is that doorways were often enclosed by squared mouldings and the spaces between the moulding and the door arch – called spandrels were decorated with quadrifoils etc. Ornate stone ceilings, using fan Vaulting, made for huge unsupported spaces.

One of the defining features of Perpendicular is the four-centred arch, which can be seen in the East window at Ewelme.  Other examples of Perpendicular architecture is New College chapel built in 1379-86, the chancel of Adderbury, the nave at Chipping Norton, the Milcombe chapel at Bloxham and splendid “needle” spires at Kidlington and Church Hanborough.

The Reformation, in particular the Act of Supremacy and the break with the Catholic Church, had catastrophic consequences for parishes throughout the country.  Much was destroyed or sold; wall paintings were lime washed, statues and panel paintings defaced, and Roods literally turned into firewood. In fact out of the thousands of Roods that existed in England prior to the Reformation only four remain (none in Oxfordshire). That said, change was not all bad.

The Book of Common Prayer saw the replacement of Mass in Latin with Holy Communion in English and, because people could now understand what was being said, saw the replacement of images with words, most notably over the chancel arch.  Worship was more inclusive so the nave became a bigger focus for the congregation and the installation of pews became more common.

Churches in Oxfordshire did not have it easy in the seventeenth century. During the Civil War in the 1640s for example, parliamentary troops partially destroyed the church at Faringdon and at Radley.  The eighteenth century was also a period of neglect and deterioration.  In Oxfordshire only a few new churches were built most notably at Shrivenham, Chiselhampton and Wheatfield.  The process of alteration and renovation continued however at Dorchester, Warborough and Deddington all gained a tower.

During these centuries there was great activity amongst the Non Conformist churches.  The Baptists spread rapidly during this period and Hook Norton and Cote are good examples of their typical chapels.  Quaker Meeting Houses proliferated and there were many Meeting Houses built including Burford and Charlbury in the 18th Century. John Wesley founded Methodism in the early part of the 18th Century, though many of their chapels date from the early 19th Century and later.  The Catholic Relief Acts of the 1790s saw some limited building, but their main expansion came with full emancipation in 1829.