Patrick Comerford
Saint Edburg’s Church on Church Street is the 12th century parish church of Bicester in Oxfordshire. It is at the heart of Bicester’s mediaeval centre, and is the oldest and only Grade I listed building in the market town. The church also has important connections with the Gothic revival and the Pre-Raphaelites in the late 19th century.
The church is dedicated to Saint Edburg of Bicester – also known as Eadburh or Eadburth – who was a seventh century nun and abbess. She remains something of a mystery, as there were several Saxon saints with the same name. It is most likely that Eadburh of Bicester was the daughter of King Penda of Mercia, who was pagan but had several children who were Christians.
Eadburg was born in Quarrendon in Buckinghamshire. Her sister was Edith (or Eadith), and together they founded an abbey near Aylesbury, where Eadburg probably became the abbess. She was also the aunt of Osgyth, and she trained her in the religious life. There are legends that claim that Edburgh and Edith found Osyth after she had drowned three days before and witnessed her return to life.
Eadburg may have lived at Adderbury, north Oxfordshire, which may have been named after her. She died ca 650. Saint Edburg’s burial place is unknown; her feast day is 18 July.
A simple Saxon church was built in Bicester in 850, and Saint Eadburg’s relics were moved there in 1182, when an Augustinian priory was founded by canons regular and dedicated to Saint Eadburgh and to the Virgin Mary.
Bicester Priory had a priory church, chapter house with cloisters, hospice, prior’s lodgings and a farmyard. The walled rectangular enclosure lay just south of the church, the gatehouse was on the site of ‘Chapter and Verse’ Guesthouse in Church Lane, and Saint Edburg’s House is built partly over the site of the priory church. This was linked by a cloister to a quadrangle with the refectory, kitchens, dormitory and prior’s lodging. The priory farm buildings lay in the area of the present church hall and had direct access to land in what is now the King’s End estate.
The Augustinian priory was endowed with extensive lands and buildings, although they appear to have been poorly managed and did not produce much income. The priory was dissolved in 1536 and there are few remaining visible signs of the priory today.
Many pilgrims visited Saint Edburg’s shrine and holy well in Bicester. During the Reformation, Sir Simon Harcourt, the Sheriff of Oxford, destroyed Bicester Priory church in 1536. But he saved Saint Edburg’s shrine and moved it to Saint Michael’s Church in Stanton Harcourt, west of Oxford, to use as an Easter sepulture. Other parts of the shrine were combined into a tomb in the Harcourt chapel. Attempts in the 1940s to return the shrine to Bicester were without success.
There is no mention of a stone church on the site in the Domesday Book, but some sources suggest the triangular-headed arch in the north aisle was the doorway of this building. The remains of a zig-zag dripstone between the arches of the north aisle imply that this was the outside wall of the Norman church built by Gilbert Bassett, one of the earliest manorial lords of Market End manor, ca 1120. The great central arches that once supported a tower also belong to this period.
Saint Edburg’s is impressive inside, with a large nave and high oaken roof, and two long vistas: one towards the altar from the west end, and the other from the high altar steps, with the wide chancel arch framing the tall narrow arch that forms the internal east face of the tower.
By the 13th century, the church had been given to Bicester Priory. The priors appointed the vicars and they enlarged and improved the church over time.
The chancel was extended in the Early English period in the 13th century and the priest’s door was made in the south wall. Four arches were cut in the south wall of the nave and the south aisle was added. The fine arch between the south aisle and the Lady Chapel was built then, as was the south doorway.
The north chapel and the north aisle were built in the Decorated period in the 14th century, when three arches were cut in the north wall of the nave. The north chapel is now used as the choir vestry.
The church was given its present appearance in the Perpendicular Period in the 15th century. The central tower was taken down, its west arch was removed and the crossing was thrown into the nave. The nave was heightened, the clerestory was added and the nave was roofed with timbers supported on 12 stone corbels, carved heads of beasts and grotesques. The west tower was built with a splendid perpendicular arch opening into the nave. Parapets were added to the outside walls and the porch was built.
The north chapel once had an upper chamber, perhaps to house the sexton. It was used from the late 17th century as a school room for a grammar school founded by Samuel Blackwell, Vicar of Bicester in 1670-1691 and Dean of Bicester Deanery. His curate was White Kennett (1660-1728), later Bishop of Peterborough (1718-1728), and the author of a two-volume history of Bicester and the priory.
A great storm damaged the church in 1765. Lightning struck the tower, damaged the belfry and the bells, broke into the main body of the church, tore up part of the floor in the south aisle and smashed most of the lower windows. The church was left ‘full of smoke, accompanied with a suffocating sulphurous stench’. This explains why there is no remaining mediaeval stained glass in the church.
A print from 1849 shows the nave and aisles filled with boxed pews and a three-decker pulpit opposite the Grantham memorial. There were galleries across the west end and between the arches over both aisles.
This ‘chaos of uplifted boxes’ and the galleries were removed in a thorough restoration of the church in 1862-1863 by the Revd JW Watts, Vicar of Bicester in 1843-1881. The roofs, walls and the floor were repaired or renewed and pews were installed. The church was heated and gas lighting installed.
The restoration was carried out by the architect Charles Nightingale Beazley (1834-1897), in consultation with George Edmund Street, two leading architects in the Gothic Revival movement. They installed the existing window tracery and the stone and marble pulpit.
A Morris & Co window in the Lady Chapel in memory of Sir Gregory and Lady Page-Turner and designed by the Pre-Raphaelite artist Sir Edward Burne-Jones. It depicts Faith (centre), Hope (left) and Love (right) trampling on the vices of unbelief (Faith), despair (Hope) and hate (Love).
A wooden screen leading in the vestry is painted with a design of flowers, birds and insects on a gilt background and is signed ‘HL Busby 1882’.
The high altar was given in 1910. It is made of oak and carved with the Lamb of God. The reredos also dates from this time.
The interior was repainted, the church was rewired, and new lighting and audio-visual systems were installed in 2008. Later, the floor in the vestry was replaced in 2012. A new raised floor was installed at the west end in 2014, when the 13th century font was centrally positioned, along with its cover dating from 1757.
Attention turned to the exterior in 2015, when a parapet wall on the south aisle roof was in danger of collapsing and was replaced. Other work on the south side involved replacing stone around some windows.
The nave floor was levelled in 2020, the Victorian pews were replaced with chairs and the nave became more accessible for people with mobility issues, giving them the opportunity to move around the church unhindered.
The church has a ring of 10 bells: eight were recast in 1913 and two were installed as a gift to celebrate the Millennium; there is also a Sanctus bell.
There are memorials to local dignitaries, including the naval commander Sir Thomas Grantham, the Page-Turners of Ambrosden, and the Coker family, who were lords of the manor of King’s End from 1584 until the 1970s and lived in Bicester House.
Saint Edburg’s is a venue for concerts and exhibitions, keeping the church at the centre of community life in Bicester.
The Old Vicarage beside the church dates from the 16th century. It is a Grade II * listed building and is probably the oldest house in Bicester. The original house appears to have been L-shaped and of a ‘hall house’ design. It remained the vicarage until Canon William Henry Trebble retired in 1974.
Recent archaeological excavations at Procter’s Yard have identified the ecclesiastical enclosure boundary, and a large cemetery of Saxon graves suggesting a much larger churchyard has been excavated on the site of the car park of the Roman Catholic Church almost opposite Saint Edburg’s.
The recent Vicars of Bicester have included Michael Charles Scott-Joynt (1943-2014), who was in Bicester in 1975-1982 and later became Bishop of Stafford (1987-1985) in the Diocese of Lichfield and Bishop of Winchester (1995-2011).
Saint Edburg’s is part of the Bicester Area Team Ministry, and the Vicar of Bicester, the Revd Peter Wright, is also the Rector of the Bicester Benefice.
• The Sunday services include Sung Eucharist (first and third Sundays), ‘Café Church’ (second Sunday), and All-Age Holy Communion (fourth and fifth Sundays) at 10:30. In addition, there is a Book of Common Prayer Holy Communion every second Sunday of the month at 8 a.m. and mid-week Holy Communion every Wednesday at 10 am.
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