Oxfordshire, once part of the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Mercia, has always
been a wealthy county. Its landscapes vary from the chalk and beechwood
Chiltern Hills in the south to the limestone uplands of the Cotswolds in
the north-west, which give very fine building stone. The land supports
arable and sheep farming, and is watered by the River Thames and its
many tributaries. All this is reflected in the variety of its church
buildings, architecture that is not necessarily grand but is
exceptionally beautiful and atmospheric. This book looks at a small,
representative selection of buildings and their contents, some proudly
in towns, others settled into their rural landscapes. Since church
buildings were almost always modified over the centuries, any that date
from the Middle Ages are apt to contain features from several periods.
Some have been chosen because they still show their Anglo-Saxon origins.
Some are here for their surviving wall paintings, some for remarkable
tombs. Work of exceptional Gothic Revival architects is included, as are
one or two twentieth-century buildings. Nonconformists are represented
by the eighteenth-century Baptist Chapel at Cote and the contemporary
Quaker Meeting House at Burford. Illustrated throughout, Churches of
Oxfordshire will be of interest to local historians, residents and
visitors to the county.
