• Home
• Cherwell
  • List of villages
  • Recommended villages to visit in Cherwell
  • Photography dates
• South Oxfordshire
  • List of villages
  • Thames-side villages
  • The Oxfordshire Chilterns
  • Recommended villages to visit in South Oxfordshire
  • Photography dates
• Vale of White Horse
  • List of villages
  • Thames-side villages
  • Recommended villages to visit in Vale of White Horse
  • Photography dates
• West Oxfordshire
  • List of villages
  • Recommended villages to visit in West Oxfordshire
  • Photography dates
• Information
  • Useful links
  • "Midsomer Murders" film locations
  • Link your website to Oxfordshire Villages
  • Weather forecast and traffic
  • Licenses and acknowledgements
  • Contact me

The church of St. Denys in Stanford in the Vale consists of a chancel 40 ft. by 20 ft. 4 in., with north vestry, nave 62 ft. 3 in. by 20 ft. 3 in. with north aisle 64 ft. by 11 ft. 8 in., north and south porches and west tower 12 ft. 9 in. square. These measurements are all internal.

There was a church here in the late 12th century, and of it the two nave doorways remain, apparently reset in their present positions. The west tower was added early in the 13th century, and in the first half of the 14th century the church was otherwise almost entirely rebuilt, the north aisle, vestry and north porch being added. Early in the 15th century the bell-chamber was added to the tower, and the south porch was built in the same century. In the 16th century the nave clearstory was raised and new windows inserted. The building has been restored in modern times.

The chancel has a four-light pointed east window of the 14th century with very good tracery, almost 'Kentish' in type. In the north wall is a two-light window of the same date, with a pointed head, and further west a deeply moulded priest's door and a small door to the vestry, now blocked by the organ, and both of the 14th century. In the south wall are two windows similar to that on the north, and a third window of three lights with good 14th-century net tracery. South of the sacrarium is a 14th-century piscina with a shelf over; the moulded bracket rests on a leaf and the head projects, is shouldered, and supports a semi-octagonal tabernacle, each side having panels, traceried heads and crocketed gables, and shafts and pinnacles at the angles. The squareheaded opening is rebated for a shutter and the cornice is embattled. Below the north window is a double square-headed locker. The 14th-century chancel arch is of two chamfered orders dying on to semi-octagonal responds; it was pointed, but is now distorted. In the north wall is a skew passage or squint to the north aisle; it opens into the chancel by two depressed arches resting on a central octagonal shaft forming a sort of window; the west end has a doorway. The rood-loft was approached by a stair north of the chancel arch and entered by a door in the north aisle; the stair above is inclosed in a rounded projection towards the chancel resting on a moulded corbel, domed above, and having a small pointed light commanding the high altar. Indications of the position of the rood beam remain on either side of the chancel arch. The chancel roof, of low pitch, has moulded main timbers with curved ribs to the principals, resting on moulded corbels.

The nave has a 14th-century north arcade of three bays, with octagonal piers and responds and pointed arches of two chamfered orders dying on to them. Above the columns are three clearstory windows of the same date, and each of a single trefoiled light with chamfered rear arch; they now open into the aisle, and higher up are the later clearstory windows, each of three plain square-headed lights. At the east end of the south wall is a single 14th-century light placed low, probably to light an altar under the rood-loft. Further west are four windows, the first of the same date, but restored, square-headed and of two lights; the second, a 14th-century clearstory window as on the north; the third, a large squareheaded window of the 15th century and of four lights, placed immediately over the porch, and the fourth a two-light window of the 14th century with a pointed head. The south doorway has a late 12th-century pointed arch of two orders, the outer moulded and resting on side shafts with scalloped capitals and square abaci and the inner order chamfered. The nave has a low-pitched tie-beam roof with curved braces and pierced traceried spandrels partly restored. Many of the corbels are carved with grotesque heads. The north aisle has in the north wall a 14th-century window of three lights under a square head. Further west is a similar window of two lights, and the north doorway, reset in its present position, is of about 1190, with a pointed head recessed in two orders, the outer moulded and resting on side shafts with foliage capitals and square abaci. Beyond it is a two-light window similar to that further east. In the west wall is a 14th-century window of three graduated lights, and on the east wall is a large stone bracket. The vestry is a continuation of the aisle, and is lighted by a square-headed window of the 14th century, much restored, in the east and north walls.

The west tower is four stages high, the three lower being of early 13th-century date and the top one a 15th-century addition. The tower arch, of three chamfered orders, has a modern impost moulding. In the west wall is a 13th-century lancet with a trefoiled head. The second stage has a tall trefoiled lancet in each face, and the third stage has on each side a two-light window with a quatrefoil in the pointed head. Above this is the moulded corbel table of the early parapet. The bell-chamber has a two-light pointed window of the 15th century in each face and an embattled parapet with large gargoyles at the string level. On the east face the weatherings of an earlier high-pitched roof remain. The 14th-century north porch has a plain pointed outer archway and a two-light window in each side wall; the roof is high-pitched. The 15th-century embattled south porch has a four-centred outer archway with a square label, quatrefoiled spandrels and shield stops, each bearing a fetterlock, rose and ragged staff. In each side wall is a square-headed two-light window, and in the angles are vaulting shafts with moulded capitals and bases; the vault, however, was never completed.

In the chancel is a fine brass with a demi-figure of a priest to Hogus Campedene, rector (d. 1398), with four shields bearing the evangelistic symbols. On the south is a slab to John Heigham (d. 1632), late marshal of the hall to James I and Charles I. In the north porch are three 13th-century coffin lids with crosses of varying forms, and another lies in the churchyard.

The fittings include a Jacobean semi-octagonal pulpit with arcaded panels richly carved with vine pattern and cartouches bearing fleurs de lis, roses, &c. The wooden font case of the same date is octagonal, panelled and carved, with a steeple cover finished with a ball. The 17th-century communion table with turned legs is now in the vestry.

In the tracery of the chancel windows is a considerable quantity of 14th-century glass, including in the east window figures of seraphim and other fragments, in the first two south windows the heads of tabernacle work, borders, &c., and in the third south window three shields of England, Zouche and Clare. In the fourth window on the south of the nave the tracery is filled with 15th-century glass.

There are six bells; the treble, third, fourth, fifth and tenor cast by Henry Bagley in 1738, and the second by Mears & Stainbank in 1883. There is also a ting-tang dated 1763.

The plate includes a cup and cover paten (London, 1585), the latter inscribed 1585, a stand paten (London, 1711) inscribed 'Stanford Church,' a large flagon (London, 1752) inscribed 'This Flagon is dedicated to the use of the altar in the parish church of Stanford in the Vale for ever by Joseph Cox, Esqr. and Kathe Sophia his wife as an humble testimony of their unfeign'd thanks to Almighty God for the recovery of their three children Thomas Sophia and Charlotte from the smallpox by inoculation anno 1752,' and a modern paten.

The registers previous to 1812 are as follows: (i) baptisms 1558 to 1654, marriages 1564 to 1656, burials 1558 to 1656; (ii) all entries 1650 to 1712, burials to 1690 only; (iii) all entries 1713 to 1763, marriages to 1754 only; (iv) burials 1678–9 to 1774; (v) marriages 1754 to 1793; (vi) baptisms 1764 to 1812; (vii) burials 1774 to 1812; (viii) marriages 1794 to 1812.

Historical information about the Church of St. Denys is provided by 'Parishes: Stanford in the Vale', in A History of the County of Berkshire: Volume 4, ed. William Page and P H Ditchfield (London, 1924), pp. 478-485. British History Online http://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/berks/vol4/pp478-485 [accessed 8 March 2023].

The Church of St. Denys is a Grade I listed building. For more information about the listing see Church of St Denys, Stanford in the Vale - 1048607 | Historic England.

For more information about the Church of St. Denys see Parishes: Stanford in the Vale | British History Online (british-history.ac.uk).