ABINGDON, St Helen. The fine tower with its spire dominates this Thames-side market town. St Helen's has five aisles, making it wider than it is long. Its greatest treasure is the painted wooden ceiling of the Lady Chapel, unequalled in England. This dates from 1391 and has recently been painstakingly restored.
ADDERBURY, St Mary. A handsome church with a tower and spire, a 14th century timber roof, and a glorious chancel, which dates from about 1410 and is the work of Richard Winchcombe, famous for designing Oxford Divinity School. There is a 14th-century frieze of animals, birds and musical angels.
BAMPTON, St Mary. The fine spire of this large church can be seen for miles around. There are traces of the original Saxon church and much Norman work remains. The building was rebuilt in the 12th century and remodelled in the 13th and 14th centuries.
BLEWBURY, St Michael. A spacious church with a late Norman vaulted chancel and tower crossing, with south and north aisles and west tower added in the 13th to 15th centuries. It is set in a pretty village at the foot of the Berkshire Downs.
BLOXHAM, St Mary. This grand church has an elegant tower and spire over 190 feet high. The building is mainly 14th and 15th century, but some earlier work remains. Note the magnificent Milcombe Chapel. The east window is by William Morris, Sir Edward Burne-Jones and Philip Webb.
BROUGHTON, St Mary. A 14th-century church in a quiet, parkland setting next to Broughton Castle. Six centuries of baronial monuments and hatchments are to be seen, as well as a rare stone chancel screen.
BURFORD, St John Baptist. One of the
largest churches in Oxfordshire, it still has its original Norman tower
and west door. It was remodelled in the 15th century at the height
of Burford's prosperity as a wool town, when the slender spire was added.
Note the splendid Harman and Tanfield monuments.
CHARLTON-ON-OTMOOR, St Mary. The 13th-century church, remodelled in the 14th century, has a high tower that can be seen from far away across the moor. It has a magnificent, intricately carved 16th-century rood screen and loft.
CHECKENDON, St Peter and St Paul. A small Norman flint and stone church in a pretty Chiltern village. The semi-circular apse has early 13th-century wall-paintings and the monuments include a modern window engraved by Laurence Whistler.
CHIPPING NORTON, St Mary. One of the great Cotswold churches, whose nave was rebuilt about 1485 by a local wool merchant, John Ashfield. The clerestory, which runs the length of the nave, bathes the church with light.
CHISELHAMPTON, St Katherine. This charming and unpretentious Georgian church of 1762, with all its original furnishings intact, has a wooden bell-turret surmounting the gabled west front. It is now maintained by the Redundant Churches Fund.
DORCHESTER, Abbey of St Peter & St Paul. Dorchester - one of the earliest Christian sites in Britain - has been a centre of Christianity since A.D. 634, when St Birinus began a mission to Wessex. The imposing church is all that remains of an Augustinian abbey, founded in 1140. It was enlarged in the 13th and 14th centuries and restored in the I9th. It has good medieval stained glass, a remarkable Jesse window, and a rare lead font.
EWELME, St Mary. The church, cloistered almshouses and school were built as a group about 1432 by the Earl (later Duke) and Countess of Suffolk. She was Alice Chaucer, granddaughter of the poet Geoffrey Chaucer: her magnificent canopied tomb, with alabaster effigy, lies beside the altar. Note the very tall font cover of 1475.
FARINGDON, All Saints. A grand cruciform town church, mostly 12th and 13th century, which lost its spire in the Civil War. It has some exceptional stonework and some fine monuments, particularly those to the Unton and Pye families.
FREELAND, St Mary. This unaltered Victorian Gothic church of 1870 was designed by J. L. Pearson, an important Gothic Revival architect. The glass and wall-paintings - which have recently been restored to their former glory - by his favourite craftsmen, Clayton and Bell. The adjoining parsonage and the school form part of the scheme.
GREAT TEW, St Michael and All Angels. The church was originally Norman but was rebuilt in the 13th and 14th centuries. It lies on the edge of a picturesque village of thatched cottages and is approached by a tree-lined path. The monuments include an elegant stone sculpture of Mary Anne Boulton by Sir Francis Chantrey, dated 1834.
IFFLEY, St Mary. One of the finest Norman churches in the country, St Mary's was built about 1170 and has undergone few alterations. The simple plan consists of nave, tower and chancel. There is much fine beak-head and zigzag carving, both within and without. Note particularly the decoration on the west and south doorways.
LANGFORD, St Matthew. An impressive church in a remote village, with a central Saxon tower of about 1040 supported by massive piers, a Norman nave and a 13th century chancel. Two notable limestone sculptures, one of Christ with arms outstretched and one of the Crucifixion, are either late Saxon or early Norman.
NORTH LEIGH, St Mary. This beautiful church has a Saxon tower at the west end. The spectacular Wilcote Chapel, built about 1442, has exquisite fan vaulting, unusual in a country church: it contains fine alabaster effigies of Sir William Wilcote and his wife. The classical Perrot aisle was added about 1690.
SHORTHAMPTON, All Saints. This tiny church stands alone in the countryside, apart from a few cottages and a farm. Built in the 12th to 15th centuries, it has medieval wall-paintings and a Georgian two-decker pulpit and box pews.
SOMERTON, St James. A mostly 14th-century church, with a battlemented parapet and a Crucifixion carved on the outside of the tower. Inside are a stone carving of the Last Supper behind the altar and monuments to the Fermor family.
SPARSHOLT, Holy Cross. The large church is in a pretty village on the edge of the Vale of White Horse. Of special interest are three rare oak effigies of about 1300 depicting a knight and two ladies. They are in the south transept behind an elegant 14th-century screen.
STANTON HARCOURT, St Michael. This church, with its central tower, stands in an attractive manorial setting. Originally Norman, its transepts were added in the 13th century. Besides many memorials to the Harcourt family, it contains part of the shrine of St Edburg, brought from Bicester Priory for safe keeping at the time of the Reformation.
SUTTON COURTENAY, All Saints. A church with work of many different periods, from the Norman tower to a 20th-century trompe-l'oeil portrait. There is a charming two-storied Tudor south porch, made of red brick. The Liberal Prime Minister H. H. Asquith and the writer George Orwell are buried here.
SWINBROOK, St Mary. This church, in a village nestling in the Windrush valley, is known for its monuments to the Fettiplace family. These include two remarkable 17thcentury tombs, in which stone figures recline on shelves and gaze at the spectator. The novelist Nancy Mitford is buried here.
SWYNCOMBE, St Botolph. Beautifully placed in the Chilterns is this largely untouched small Norman church, built of flint and stone. In the semi-circular apse are traces of early wall-painting.
UFFINGTON, St Mary. An imposing, little-altered cruciform church of the 13th century, just below the famous White Horse carved out of the chalk hillside. It has a central octagonal tower, which lost its spire in a storm in 1740.
WATERPERRY, St Mary. An attractive small church of Saxon origin in a peaceful corner next to Waterperry House and its well-known gardens. It has some fine medieval stained glass, memorials, Georgian box pews and brasses.
WHEATFIELD, St Andrew. This church is surrounded by parkland, the neighbouring manor house having been burnt down in 1814. Originally 14th century, it was remodelled in the 18th. All the furnishings are Georgian, including the font, pulpit and box pews.
YARNTON, St Bartholomew. Originally Norman, the church was rebuilt in the 13th century, and enlarged in the 17th. To it has been added a store of treasures over the centuries, including grand monuments in the Spencer chapel, wooden screens, medieval glass, alabaster carvings and a font.