CHURCH.
A dispute over parochial rights in
Northmoor between Reading abbey, owner of
Stanton Harcourt church, and the abbey of
St. Denis in Paris, whose church of Taynton
professed an ancient claim, was settled in 1145
× 1148 in favour of the French house. North-moor was created a separate parish, and a church
was built shortly after. A pension due to Stanton
Harcourt as part of the settlement was still paid
in the 18th century. (fn. 99) The benefice was a rectory
until appropriated by Sir Thomas White in 1555
on behalf of his college, St. John's, Oxford. A
vicarage was then ordained, taking effect in 1558
on the death of the incumbent. (fn. 1) The college
appropriated the vicarage in 1711, establishing
a perpetual curacy to be served by a senior
fellow. (fn. 2) The benefice, styled a vicarage from
1868, (fn. 3) was in 1959 united with that of Stanton
Harcourt, which in 1976 joined, with Standlake
and Yelford, in the united benefice of Lower
Windrush. (fn. 4)
The advowson of the rectory belonged to the
abbey of St. Denis whose daughter house,
Deerhurst priory (Glos.), exercised the patron-age. (fn. 5) The Crown presented in 1347 and regularly
thereafter following Deerhurst's seizure as an
alien priory, (fn. 6) until in 1467 Edward IV granted
the advowson with Deerhurst to Tewkesbury
abbey. (fn. 7) An exceptionally prolonged incumbency
was already under way, (fn. 8) and the abbey sold the
next turn, in 1502, to Richard Croft, (fn. 9) so it can
rarely have exercised its right before the Dissolution. The advowson seems to have been
granted to Charles Brandon (d. 1545), duke of
Suffolk, but reverted to the Crown, which in
1554 sold it to Sir Thomas White. (fn. 10) Although
Sir Thomas gave the advowson of the vicarage
to St. John's College he exercised the right of
patronage personally until his death in 1567. (fn. 11)
The college remained patron of the vicarage, and
from 1711 of the perpetual curacy, after 1976
sharing the right to present to the united
benefice with the dean and chapter of Exeter
cathedral, the bishop of Oxford, and the Oxford
Diocesan Board of Patronage. (fn. 12)
The living was valued in 1254 at only £5, (fn. 13) but
in 1291 and 1341 at £14, including £10 of glebe,
hay tithe, and small tithes, and excluding a
pension of 13s. 4d. to Stanton Harcourt. (fn. 14) In
1535 the net value was £18 17s. 6¼d. (fn. 15) Under
the terms of appropriation in 1555 the vicar was
to receive £12 a year, (fn. 16) which St. John's increased to £30 in 1612. (fn. 17) From the later 18th
century the living was several times augmented
by Queen Anne's Bounty, meeting benefactions
of £800 in total from St. John's, of £200 in 1764
from the Revd. Samuel Dennis, and of £200
in 1821 from the trustees of J. Marshall. (fn. 18) In
1808 the benefice's clear annual value was
£68, (fn. 19) rising by 1851 to £123, at which level it
remained at the end of the century. (fn. 20)
Although the settlement of 1145×1148 gave
the tithes of Northmoor to the church, (fn. 21)
Eynsham abbey seems to have received, allegedly
'ab antiquo', the corn tithes of certain tenements,
valued at 30s. in 1254. (fn. 22) In 1555 glebe of 40 a.
was appropriated with the tithes. (fn. 23) Bounty
money was used in 1808 to buy a 'piece' of land
for the incumbent. (fn. 24) In 1883 the vicar's glebe
comprised 42 a., worth £46; it seems to have
been sold in 1920. (fn. 25)
There was a rectory house by 1381, on or near
the site of Rectory Farm. (fn. 26) St. John's seems to
have provided or built a cottage for the vicar's
use after appropriation. (fn. 27) The cottage, with
garden, orchard, and small close adjoining, stood
north of the church across Church Road. (fn. 28) It
was described in 1805 as a thatched, lath-and-plaster building, (fn. 29) and dismissed in 1814 as
comprising two 'miserable' rooms. (fn. 30) A drawing
of 1873 shows a long single-storeyed row with
attics, modest in appearance but evidently
comprising more than two rooms. (fn. 31) It is likely
that in 1814 the building was divided into two
dwellings, used by 1831 as the parish school and
teacher's house. Their demolition was urged in
1879 but apparently not carried out until 1891. (fn. 32)
Incumbents lodged at Rectory Farm, (fn. 33) then
rented the house later known as Ferryman
Farm. (fn. 34) In 1892-3 a new vicarage, designed by
John Oldrid Scott, was built on land provided
by E. W. Harcourt and with financial assistance
from the Bounty and St. John's. (fn. 35) It was sold c.
1960 to raise funds for a house at Stanton
Harcourt to serve the united benefice. (fn. 36)
John of More, presented in 1229, and Thomas
More, ejected in 1418, (fn. 37) were presumably local
men. Few of 28 rectors traced before 1555
appear to have held the living for more than a
year or two, and three who held it for more than
30 years each were exceptional also in dying in
office. (fn. 38) Several were graduates and some had
noteworthy careers, usually as non-resident pluralists. Richard of Chaddesley (1312-15) later
served as a royal envoy. (fn. 39) William Cogyn (c.
1439), said to be 'of noble race', was chaplain to
Richard Beauchamp, earl of Warwick. (fn. 40) John
Hale (1530), who was executed in 1535 with the
London Carthusians, (fn. 41) employed an allegedly
unintelligible Irish curate. (fn. 42)
Simon Walkelin of Northmoor c. 1300 gave a
rent of 10d. from ½ a. of land in Moreton to
support a light dedicated to the Assumption of
the Virgin Mary. (fn. 43) In 1508 twelve lights were
recorded. (fn. 44)
Sir Thomas White's first presentee, Leonard
Stopes, was almost immediately deprived of the
living and of his fellowship of St. John's at the
visitation of the university in 1559. He later died
in prison as a Catholic missionary priest. (fn. 45) His
successor, William More, presumably that
family's third incumbent, was vicar for 53 years
until his death in 1612. Although licensed in
1564 to hold an additional living he probably
resided at Northmoor, where he rented the
rectory estate. (fn. 46) Thereafter St. John's appointed
a succession of its own fellows, who usually
resigned within a few years. Edmund Tillesley
was suspended by Parliamentary Visitors in
1648, though he seems to have been reinstated
by 1653. (fn. 47) From 1711 the living was reserved to
senior fellows, suggesting that it was seen, in
what was then a poor college, more as a financial
opportunity than an obligation. (fn. 48)
Although few of the transient college fellows
can have established close links with parishioners, they rode out weekly to maintain services.
In 1738 the vice-president of St. John's, William
Walker, held two services and preached a
sermon each Sunday, and catechized children
during Lent; there were six communion services
a year, with 20-30 communicants. (fn. 49) In 1748 the
president, William Holmes, left £10 a year to
incumbents who spent three nights a week in the
parish; (fn. 50) most remained in college. Though two
Sunday services remained the norm, reputedly
with only 'four or five of the lowest class' absent,
communion services, reduced to four a year,
were said in 1802 seldom to attract more than
16 communicants. (fn. 51) The incumbent in 1831
claimed an average congregation of 150-160 and
40 communicants, (fn. 52) but other estimates, and the
religious census of 1851, put the totals much
lower. (fn. 53) The long and, for Northmoor, unsatisfactory succession of St. John's men ended with
the appointment in 1872 of John Coen, who
initiated a belated religious revival. Coen took
up residence nearby at Appleton (then Berks.),
introduced weekly communion services, daily
prayers, and a Sunday recitation of the Litany,
and established a religious guild. (fn. 54) The quickening of church life did not survive his departure
in 1879, and in 1882 its debility in the face of
nonconformist vigour prompted newspaper
comment. Criticism was levelled unfairly at
Lewis Tuckwell, rector of Standlake, serving
Northmoor at the bishop's request after a year-long vacancy. (fn. 55) The building of a new vicarage
house allowed incumbents to reside constantly
after 1893, but revitalization of church life in the
late 19th century and earlier 20th was slow. (fn. 56)
The church of ST. DENIS 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. (fn. 57) 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; (fn. 58) 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. (fn. 59) 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. (fn. 60) 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; (fn. 61) 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. (fn. 62) 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. (fn. 63) The lavishly carved 17th-century
altar rails were until 1843 in St. John's College
chapel. (fn. 64)
A heating system installed in 1854 has since
been removed. (fn. 65) 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. (fn. 66) In 1887 the church was said to be in a
'miserable, dilapidated' state, with a collapsed
vault, perhaps in the nave. (fn. 67) 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. (fn. 68)
The chancel was apparently excluded from the
restoration since it was in disrepair in the
1890s. (fn. 69) 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. (fn. 70) The south transept, designated the Lady Chapel in 1959, was
restored between 1955 and 1961. (fn. 71) The tower
was re-roofed in 1960, and the nave in the
1970s. (fn. 72) In 1993 new north and south doors were
fitted. (fn. 73)
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. (fn. 74) 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. (fn. 75) Some medieval floor tiles
remain in the chancel. (fn. 76) 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, (fn. 77) but by 1850 had
been returned to the north transept. (fn. 78) A photograph of c. 1930 shows them on tall stone bases,
the lady in the western recess, the knight by her
side. (fn. 79) 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. (fn. 80) 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. (fn. 81) The war memorial
tablet on the south wall of the nave was designed
by F. E. Howard in 1919; it was extended in
1948. (fn. 82) 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. (fn. 83) 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. (fn. 84) The present mechanism is inscribed
Hawting of Oxford 1785. The clock face, extensively repaired in 1827, (fn. 85) had only an hour hand
until 1863 when a minute hand was added. (fn. 86) The
registers begin in 1654. (fn. 87)