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St. Denys' Church in Northmoor comprises chancel, nave with north and south transepts, south porch, and integral west tower. It is built of limestone rubble which, apart from the chancel and the upper part of the tower, is rendered, and the roofs are covered with natural and artificial stone slate.

Except for the cylindrical font with its carved sprig of stylized leaves nothing survives from the 12th-century church. The almost total rebuilding may have begun with the chancel c. 1300 and finished when the transepts were completed in the mid 14th century. The long chancel has a piscina and a triple sedilia in the south wall, and above them is a window, presumably re-used, with 13th-century plate tracery. The unusually wide nave is lit by two-light windows with rere-arches supported by crudely carved foliage capitals, and by a large west window. The matching transepts have windows with reticulated tracery in their gable walls. The north transept, which was long known as the More aisle, has twin tomb recesses containing 14th-century effigies of a knight and a lady, probably Sir Thomas de la More (fl. 1330×1357) and his wife Isabel; the transept was the property of the Mores and later of the lords of Northmoor manor, who remained liable for its repair in the 17th century. It retains a piscina in the east wall. The south transept has a piscina in its south wall and, on the east wall, a 15th-century canopied niche containing a statue of 1959. In the 15th century the tower was built into the nave, to which it had open arches on the north, east, and south. The 14th-century nave roof was probably then left in place, but was replaced soon afterwards by a tie-beam roof. The barrel-shaped plaster roofs of the north, and, presumably, of the south, transept were apparently built by Edmund Warcupp soon after he acquired Northmoor manor in 1671; the rough tie-beams in the transepts are probably of the same period. The chancel roof appears to be 19th-century. The timber-framed porch is of the 16th or 17th century.

Richard Lydall gave a bell loft in 1701. Its rail, which has turned balusters, was originally across the tower arch. It was reset in an extended gallery erected in front of the arch later in the 18th century. Painting and gilding of the gallery, recorded in 1827 and 1829, has since been removed. The lavishly carved 17th-century altar rails were until 1843 in St. John's College chapel. 

A heating system installed in 1854 has since been removed. Bishop Wilberforce in 1855 recommended the church's restoration, to include removal of the 'hideous' gallery and 'little stone altar'; the latter, put up by Dr. Thomas Silver, incumbent 1819-22, was presumably that which still stands against the chancel's east wall. n 1887 the church was said to be in a 'miserable, dilapidated' state, with a collapsed vault, perhaps in the nave. A conservative restoration that year under the direction of Clapton Crabb Rolfe included renewing part of the nave plaster ceiling, reflooring with wooden blocks, installing new pews, and fitting a new north door. A pulpit on a stone base was erected north of the chancel arch, and a matching lectern was provided; plans to preserve tracery in the existing pulpit and lectern, thought to be from a rood screen, seem to have been abandoned. The chancel was apparently excluded from the restoration since it was in disrepair in the 1890s. In 1948 electric lighting was installed using existing, presumably oil lamp, fittings. A high altar made of oak was installed in 1957, and in 1958 the chancel ceiling was repaired and the chancel and nave limewashed. The south transept, designated the Lady Chapel in 1959, was restored between 1955 and 1961. The tower was re-roofed in 1960, and the nave in the 1970s. In 1993 new north and south doors were fitted. 

Remains of 14th-century wall paintings associated with the More tombs survive on the north and west walls of the north transept. Descriptions of the 17th century and later record More family heraldry, little of which survives, on the walls and on the knight's shield. Still visible in the north-west corner is a depiction of two angels raising a soul to heaven before Christ in majesty. The paintings were restored in 1932 by E. T. Long, who uncovered in the recesses paintings of the Virgin Mary and of the Virgin and Child flanked by kneeling figures, which by 1990 were no longer visible. Some medieval floor tiles remain in the chancel. Fragments of medieval glass survive in the east window of the south transept. The chancel has a notable east window of 1866 given by Sarah Nalder of Rectory Farm; there is a window of 1871 in the south wall of the nave.

The More effigies were moved to the chancel in the earlier 19th century, but by 1850 had been returned to the north transept. A photograph of c. 1930 shows them on tall stone bases, the lady in the western recess, the knight by her side. The bases were removed in 1932 when the knight was placed in the eastern recess. A medieval tomb slab was moved to the chancel in 1932 from the north transept, where another remains. Later monuments include, in the north transept, the tomb chest of Sir Edmund Warcupp (d. 1712), a floor tablet to Sir John Stone (d. 1719), and a bust of Richard Lydall (d. 1721). Lost monuments include several of the More family recorded in the south transept in the early 18th century. The war memorial tablet on the south wall of the nave was designed by F. E. Howard in 1919; it was extended in 1948. In the churchyard, east of the chancel, is the base of a 14th-century stone cross.

There is a 17th-century parish chest in the blocked south doorway of the nave, and a parish chest dated 1721 in the south transept. An organ apparently of the late 19th century stands at the entrance to the north transept. Church plate includes a silver chalice of 1646, a silver paten of 1684 inscribed D. C., probably Dorothy Champneys (d. 1705), lessee of the rectory estate, and a silver paten of 1776 given by William Kent. A 17th-century Spanish painting of Christ carrying the cross hangs above the chancel south door. In the late Middle Ages the tower apparently carried a ring of four bells, increased to six in the 17th century. Richard Lydall gave a new tenor bell in 1693. The fifth was recast in 1717 at the Gloucester foundry of Abraham Rudhall, and the others, including Lydall's, in 1764 by Thomas Rudhall. The bells, rehung in 1966, are praised as 'one of the best light rings in the country'. Lydall also gave, by will proved 1721, money for a clock in the tower. The present mechanism is inscribed Hawting of Oxford 1785. The clock face, extensively repaired in 1827, had only an hour hand until 1863 when a minute hand was added.  The registers begin in 1654.

Historical information about St. Denys' Church is provided by British History Online. A P Baggs, Eleanor Chance, Christina Colvin, C J Day, Nesta Selwyn and S C Townley, 'Northmoor: Church', in A History of the County of Oxford: Volume 13, Bampton Hundred (Part One), ed. Alan Crossley and C R J Currie (London, 1996), pp. 166-170. British History Online http://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/oxon/vol13/pp166-170 [accessed 22 April 2023].

St. Denys' Church is listed Grade I For more information about the listing see CHURCH OF ST DENYS, Northmoor - 1048936 | Historic England.

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