Patrick Comerford
During my visits to Headington last week, and in between appointments in the John Radcliffe Hospital, Oxford, I visited some of the churches in the area, including Saint Andrew’s Church, Headington, Holy Trinity Church, Headington Quarry, Saint Michael and All Angels, New Marston, Headington Baptist Church and Corpus Christi Catholic Church.
Although Holy Trinity Church, Headington Quarry, is well-known for its associations with CS Lewis, Saint Andrew’s Church is the oldest surviving building and the oldest church in Headington, with some parts of the church dating from the 12fth century.
Saint Andrew’s is thought to have been founded by Hugh de Pluggenait, who was Lord of the Manor of Headington in 1142-1201. However, there was probably an earlier small church on the from Saxon times, so that there has been a place of worship there for over 900 years, and archaeological evidence suggests the site may have become a place of worship more than 1,700 years ago.
By the time Saint Frideswide founded her church on the site of Christ Church in Oxford in the late seventh century, the nearest centre of government was Headington. Mediaeval Oxford was carved out of the royal domain at Headington by the 912. It was a royal seat when later Anglo-Saxon kings reigned and King Ethelred is thought to have been baptised there. The earliest known mention of the royal village of Headington is in a deed of King Ethelred, dated Saint Andrew’s-tide, 7 December 1004.
The first reference to the church, however, is in a charter of Henry I in 1122. Henry I, who died in 1135, may have been the last king to live in the parish.
The early stone church had a nave and chancel. The nave ended a few feet beyond the present tower arch and is shown by the change in texture of the wall. The oldest remaining parts of the church are the arch and part of the chancel, which date from Norman times. The south aisle was added in the mid-13th century to create the Lady Chapel.
The windows in the north and south walls of the chancel date from the 14th century; and the oldest of the bells, dating from the mid-15th century, bears the inscription ‘Sancta Margareta Ora Pro Nobis’. The present tower was not completed until ca 1500, and the south porch was added in 1598.
Despite the opening of Holy Trinity Church in Headington Quarry in 1849, Saint Andrew’s was not large enough to cope with the expansion of Old Headington and the development of New Headington village in the 19th century. By 1862, the church was considered to be more in need of repair than any other in the Diocese of Oxford, then largest diocese in England, with parishes in four counties.
The Bishop of Oxford, Samuel Wilberforce, described the church as ‘incumbered with galleries and pews, woodwork of different ages and every imaginable shape, position and proportion, the floor well below that of the churchyard, broken and uneven. The roof admits an abundant supply of rain.’
Some attempts were made that year to repair and enlarge the church. When the architect John Chessell Buckler (1793-1894) surveyed the church, he reported the church ‘was almost ruinous’ and he drew up plans to enlarge the church while preserving its architectural features. Buckler’s work in Oxford included repairs and additions to Saint Mary’s Church, and Oriel College, Brasenose College, Magdalen College, and Jesus College.
The Gothic Revival architect William Wilkinson (1819–1901) designed a new aisle and vestry on the north side of the church in 1880.
The glory of the church is the Norman chancel arch. Even now, green, blue and red pigments from the Middle Ages painting appear on the stone of the Norman Arch when it is lit by the sunlight. During some remodelling of the church at the end of the 14th century, a pointed arch was inserted about the Norman Arch to relieve it of the weight of the gable wall.
At the end of the 14th century, the chancel was rebuilt with larger windows, paved with patterned tiles and given a new timber roof with its principals resting on the carved stone corbels.
The East Window is a Victorian depiction of the Visit of the Magi. A fourth figure dressed as a knight and carrying a crown may refer to one of the kings connected with Headington. The window in memory of the Revd EFG Tyndale, Vicar of Headington in 1870-1889, was designed by Henry Holiday.
The chancel north window depicts Saint Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274), the Dominican scholar and theologian, and the south window depicts two legends in the life of Saint Margaret of Antioch.
A member of the family of Sir High Pluggenait, a knight from Brittany who was lord of the manor in 1142, was miraculously cured of blindness, deafness and paralysis in his right arm. In response, Sir Hugh bestowed a lamp to burn perpetually before the altar in thanksgiving. A lamp still burns today to mark the place where the Blessed Sacrament is kept, to the left of the High Altar. At the top of a window on the south side, are fragments of 12th century glass.
A small mediaeval door, known as a priest’s door, was uncovered during the restoration of this area in 1997. There are several floors beneath the chancel, and that work in 1997 revealed a floor composed of gravestones from the Civil War period beneath two later tiled floors.
In the wall separating the nave from the Lady Chapel, an opening with steps led to an ancient rood beam that stood above the chancel arch with a figure of Christ on the cross with the Virgin Mary and Saint John on either side.
Before the Victorian restoration of the Lady Chapel in 1864, the jambs of the two lancet windows in the Lady Chapel were still decorated with 13th century wall paintings. They depicted a popular account of the Flight into Egypt by the Holy Family. A kneeling female donor In the corner of one of the panels was thought to be Philippa, widow of Henry, Earl of Warwick, who was Lady of the Manor from 1220-1265.
The window above the altar in the Lady Chapel was bought by the pennies of the poor. During a smallpox epidemic in the parish, those who could afford to moved away from the parish. But a faithful priest, the Revd John Robinson, stayed behind to care for the poor and died. The statue of the Virgin Mary and the Christ Child is by the sculptor Ulrica Lloyd and was donated in 1980. Although a modern work it is in Romanesque style and is cast in metal-filled polyester resin.
Two new stained-glass windows were installed in the north aisle of Saint Andrew’s in August 2023 to mark the 900th anniversary of the charter of Henry I granting a chapel at Headington to Saint Frideswide’s Priory in Oxford, founded in 1122. They were designed by Nicholas Mynheer and created by Steven Cowan of Master Glass Artists Ltd.
The left window, with two adjacent lights, shows Christ, calling Saint Andrew in his boat, catching fish in a net, with a swallow above him symbolising the Resurrection. The depictions on the left also include: Saint Frideswide, bathing the eyes of King Algar in a stream; Henry I holding a charter of 1122; and Sir Hugh Pluggenait holding a lantern for a stone mason working under the church’s Norman arch; the images on the left include the woman washing Jesus’s feet in Simon’s house; and the Headington windmill
The right window shows (on the right): the Good Samaritan; the church bells; the Morris Motors and Pressed Steel Fisher factories, where many Headington people worked; a Hawker Hurricane being repaired at Morris Motors during World War II; and robots now working in the car factory.
The font was moved to its current place in 1961 from the back of the north aisle. The oak font cover was commissioned in 2013. The hand carved panels of fish and nets recall that Saint Andrew was a fishermen.
The organ at the west end was built by Kenneth Tickell in Northampton in 2008 and was installed in 2009. It replaced a JW Walker organ originally built for Merton College and installed in Saint Andrew’s in 1967.
The 1932 west window by Archibald Nicholson is in memory of Vashti de Montfort Wellbourne. The window depicts the Virgin Mary and Saint Anne, Simon de Montfort, founder of the English Parliament, Queen Vashti of Persia, the Chapter House of Westminster Abbey, where the parliament was convened, and Barton Manor where Vashti and her mother lived.
The tower was completed in 1500, and was restored in 1679, 1972 and 2015. The ringing chamber in the tower was restored and the six bells re-hung in 1967. The oldest bell, from the mid-15th century has the inscription Sancta Margareta, Ora Pro Nobis (‘Saint Margaret, pray for us’).
The mediaeval cross in the churchyard, near the south porch, was certainly standing in the 15th century when the kings had a chapel in the royal manor of Headington. The quatrefoil frieze base of the cross probably dates from the 15th century, but the shaft has been restored. The sundial at the top dates from 1961.
Saint Andrew’s had a number of patrons over the centuries. Until the suppression of the priory in 1542, the benefice was held by the Prior and Canons of the Priory of Saint Frideswide. After that, the successive patrons were Cardinal College, King Henry VIII College and finally Christ Church College, Oxford.
The patronage was sold In 1545 to John Browne, lord of the manor of Headington and it remained with the manor until it was transferred to Keble College, Oxford, in 1928.
At one time, the parish stood in the Traditional Catholic tradition of the Church of England and passed Resolutions A and B in 2010, rejecting the ordination of women. But the church had since moved to the liberal Catholic tradition.
The Revd Emma Hopegood Jones is the Vicar of Headington. The associate priest, the Revd Dr Jennifer Strawbridge, is Professor in New Testament and Early Christian Studies at Oxford University and a former chaplain at Keble College, Saint Andrew’s patron. Father Oliver Wright, the assistant curate, is a Junior Research Fellow at Pembroke College, with a special interest in the intersection of theology and AI.
• The Sunday services in Saint Andrew’s are: 8 am, Eucharist (Book of Common Prayer); 10 am, Parish Eucharist (Common Worship). The regular services during the week include: 9 am, Morning Prayer, Monday to Friday; 9:30 am, Monday; 10 am, Eucharist, Wednesday; 5 pm, Evening Prayer, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday.
For my guide to Oxford churches and chapels, visit here
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