St Edburg's Church, Bicester

St Edburg's is the parish church of Bicester, a few minutes' walk west of the Market Square. Historic England, which lists it Grade I, thinks its crossing arches are probably eleventh century; its west tower is fifteenth century. Inside are brasses from about 1500, a painted screen of 1882 and monuments to the Cokers of Bicester House and other leading families.

The story of St Edburg's

A church almost certainly stood here before the Norman Conquest, the Victoria County History says, though a tradition of a seventh-century foundation may be an exaggeration. The building you see grew out of a Romanesque church with a central tower, and three of that tower's arches and parts of its transepts survive. By the late twelfth century Bicester gave its name to a deanery of 33 churches.

Soon after 1182 Gilbert Basset gave the church to the house of Augustinian canons he had founded in the town. The priory appropriated it before 1226 and kept it until the Dissolution, paying a vicar to serve the parish. The priory itself has gone: its church, dedicated to the Virgin Mary and St Edburg, was pulled down in 1537, and the Purbeck marble shrine of St Edburg is now at Stanton Harcourt, west of Oxford. Our story of St Edburg tells what is known of her.

Every century added something. In the thirteenth the chancel was enlarged and the south aisle built. In the fourteenth came a north aisle and a north chapel, whose upper room later housed the vicars' grammar school; the chapel is now the vestry. In the fifteenth the central tower was taken down, the nave was given a clerestory and reroofed, and the 75-foot west tower went up.

Galleries and the 1862 restoration

The seventeenth century brought wainscoting and marble paving, and a west gallery was built in 1693, with private galleries after it. By the nineteenth century the county history describes the church as badly run down. C. N. Beazley, working with G. E. Street, restored it in 1862 and 1863 for £3,214, taking out the galleries and reseating the church. The chancel is almost all of that restoration, apart from an early fourteenth-century arch on its north side.

The churchyard holds the town's worst year: a memorial to the 64 people who died in the cholera epidemic of 1832.

What to look for

Start at the crossing, the oldest part, then work round the walls. Look for:

• The round-headed chancel arch and the tall plain transept arches, which Historic England thinks are probably eleventh century
• The south doorway, early thirteenth century with stiff-leaf capitals, and the arcade of the same date inside
• The tall nave roof on stone corbels carved with beasts' heads and grotesques, which the Oxfordshire Historic Churches Trust picks out
• A fifteenth-century traceried screen in the north transept, and the vestry screen signed by H. L. Busby in 1882, painted with flowers, birds and insects
• Nine brasses from about 1500 to the early 1600s, conserved and fixed back on the walls in recent years. One is to Roger Moore, who died in 1551, and his wife Agnes; Moore was granted the priory site after the Dissolution. The brass of a lady and a man is a replica, because the original figure of the man was stolen about 50 years ago
• Monuments to Sir Thomas Grantham, who died in 1718, by Delvaux and Scheemakers; to Sir Edward Turner, who died in 1766, by Joseph Wilton, now in the vestry; and a Coker family relief of about 1794 by Sir Richard Westmacott
• Glass by Morris & Co. of 1866 with panels by Burne-Jones and Philip Webb, a window of 1853 by O'Connor, and a fragment of medieval glass over the priest's door
• Outside, a lead rainwater head dated 1655 on the north face of the crossing and two plainer ones of 1704 on the north clerestory, and in the churchyard a sundial, a war memorial and chest tombs, each listed Grade II in its own right

Visiting St Edburg's

St Edburg's is a working church with services on Sundays and Wednesdays, and neither its own site nor its A Church Near You page publishes hours for visitors. Ring the parish office on 01869 323458 before you make a special trip; the office, in Old Place Yard, lists its hours as 9am to 3pm on Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Fridays. The main entrance, on the north side, has a short ramp to an inner glass door and then a ramp down to the nave, and the church says it takes motorised wheelchairs. Its A Church Near You page lists toilets inside the church, including an accessible one, and a few parking spaces, with priority for less able visitors.

Getting there

The church is on Church Street, at the west side of the town centre. By our measurement on the map, Bicester Village station is about a third of a mile away and Bicester North about half a mile. For trains, buses and car parks, see getting to Bicester and parking in Bicester.

Nearby

The Market Square, with its houses of 1698 and 1751, is a few minutes east, and Garth Park beyond it has the bell of 1732 that was once the call bell of the old Town Hall and Shambles. Bicester Village is about a third of a mile south. Out of town, St Mary's Church, Kirtlington has the Dashwoods' chapel and late medieval wall paintings. For the town's longer story, read our history of Bicester.