St Mary the Virgin, Bampton

St Mary the Virgin is a Grade I cruciform parish church on Church View, Bampton, Oxfordshire, in the Diocese of Oxford, a former minster church at the centre of what was long the county’s largest parish.

Overview

Historic England records tenth- or eleventh-century origins in herringbone stonework in the tower and stair turret; a twelfth-century rebuild on a cruciform plan, with Norman work surviving in the tower and transepts; late thirteenth- to early fourteenth-century aisles; fifteenth-century raising of the transepts; the Horde chapel remodelled in 1702; and an extensive restoration of 1868–70 by Ewan Christian, dated on the rainwater heads. Materials are limestone rubble, with stone slate roofs to nave and chancel and lead elsewhere. The west front has a restored early fourteenth-century five-light window and a moulded doorway with ballflower and fleuron ornament, behind a shallow contemporary porch.

The south transept retains a fine twelfth-century doorway with a chevron-moulded arch on carved capitals. Four-bay late thirteenth-century aisles have trefoil-headed lights in threes. The listing and parish accounts place the church on a late Anglo-Saxon minster site; William I granted the church to Leofric, Bishop of Exeter, in 1069. The building remains the parish church of Bampton with Clanfield and is open daily in daylight hours.

Further Information

• Historic England list entry 1053559
• St Mary’s, Bampton