• 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

St. Peter's Church in Cassington is built of rubble, now rendered, with ashlar quoins; it comprises chancel, aisless nave with north and south porches, and central tower. A blocked doorway in the north wall of the chancel may have led to a medieval vestry. The church was built in the early 12th century and much of that structure, including the lower stages of the tower, the walls of nave and chancel with four consecration crosses, the stone groined vaulting in the chancel and four windows, three on the north of the nave and chancel and one on the south, survives. The font is also of the early 12th century. Part at least of the tower had to be rebuilt in the mid 12th century. In the earlier 14th century the church was remodelled, an upper stage and spire being added to the tower, new windows inserted in nave and east wall of the chancel, and the north porch built. The work was probably financed by the Montagu lords of the manor whose arms survived in a chancel window in the 17th century. The same window contained the arms of England, perhaps implying that the benefactor was William Montagu, earl of Salisbury from 1344, who between 1341 and 1349 was married to Joan of Kent, granddaughter of Edward I. The south porch, timber-framed with an arcade of trefoiled arches on each side, was added in the 15th century, as was the rood screen whose frame survived between the tower and chancel in 1982. Plain, medieval bench ends in the nave, claimed as late 13th-century and amongst the oldest in the country, may also be 15th-century. Early in the 15th century a doom was painted or repainted at the east end of the nave, and late in the same century other paintings, probably of St. Barbara and St. Margaret, were added in the splays of the east nave windows. All the paintings were much decayed in 1982. Also in the early 15th century windows were inserted in the south wall of the tower and chancel, and the nave and south porch were re-roofed.

The chancel was said to be ruinous c. 1520, but was presumably repaired soon afterwards. The north and south doors were replaced in the 16th century: both survived in 1982, the south one decorated with a 16th- or 17th-century painting of the implements of the Passion. Repairs to the spire, steeple, and tower were ordered in 1757, and repairs, including reroofing the nave and repairing the steeple, were carried out between 1805 and 1810. Despite that work, it was alleged in 1841 that Cassington church was in a worse condition than any other in the deanery: the pews and reading desk were in a poor state, and the low floor of the ringing chamber cut the chancel off from the nave making services read at the altar inaudible. Repairs, including the removal of the ringing chamber floor and the restoration of the tower arches, were carried out in 1841 and 1842. Between then and 1846 stained glass from Christ Church was inserted into the windows, and late 17th-century altar rails may have been erected. The architect was H. J. Underwood. During the work late 15th-century paintings were discovered on the tower walls and on some of the roof timbers. 

In 1876 and 1901 the church was restored, largely on the initiative of the vicar Godfrey Fausset. The work included rebuilding the top of the tower, renewing the floor, repairing the chancel walls and roof, renovating the seats and placing canopied 17th-century stalls from Christ Church under the tower, and removing ceilings in nave and chancel. In 1901 the nave roof and windows were repaired, the north porch was restored, and a vestry was built on the south side of the chancel. The architect of both restorations was G. F. Bodley. The south porch was restored between 1917 and 1922 when the blocked trefoiled arches were opened up. In 1970 the roof of its northern bay was raised to reveal the chevron mouldings of the 12th-century south doorway. The pulpit and lectern were made c. 1920 by a local carver. 

The windows contain several roundels of medieval and 16th-century stained glass, all brought from elsewhere during the 19th century: there was no stained glass at all in the church in 1825. Some, notably the early 16th-century roundel with the arms of the see of York, came from Christ Church. There are also several 16th-century Flemish panels depicting biblical scenes. The medieval glass includes a late 14th-century figure of St. Paul which may be from an Oxford workshop, a 14th-century head of Christ, and two early 14th-century deacon saints, all of high quality. The glass was restored and two 16th-century panels replaced in 1971. 

There are six bells, the earliest dating from 1640. Until one was recast in 1953 the whole ring was by James Keene or his son Richard. The clock, which has no face, is early 18th-century. On the floor at the east end of the nave is a brass, a cross fleury, to Roger Cheyne (d. 1414) and on the east wall of the nave is a late 16th-century shroud brass to Thomas Neal, professor of Hebrew at Oxford, erected in 1590. The monuments include, on the south wall of the nave, a marble plaque surmounted by an urn, to Francis Seale (d. 1720) of St. Clement Danes, London, and, on the north wall of the chancel, a plaque to William Mabbott (d. 1812), lessee of the rectory.

The plate includes a pewter flagon dated 1672 and a 17th-century Dutch or Low German brass almsdish with a representation of Adam and Eve. The two brass candelabra came from Christ Church

Historical information about St Peter's Church is provided by A P Baggs, W J Blair, Eleanor Chance, Christina Colvin, Janet Cooper, C J Day, Nesta Selwyn and S C Townley, 'Cassington: Church', in A History of the County of Oxford: Volume 12, Wootton Hundred (South) Including Woodstock, ed. Alan Crossley and C R Elrington (London, 1990), pp. 49-52. British History Online http://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/oxon/vol12/pp49-52 [accessed 3 April 2023].

St Peter's Church is a Grade I listed building. For more information about the listing see CHURCH OF ST PETER, Cassington - 1367949 | Historic England.

For more information about St Peter's Church see Cassington: Church | British History Online (british-history.ac.uk).