Church of St Andrew Great Rollright, England

Text courtesy of Historic England. © Crown Copyright, reprinted under the Open Government License.

ROLLRIGHT CHURCH END SP3231-3331 Great Rollright 12/120 Church of St. Andrew 27/08/57

GV I

Church. Late C12, C13, C14 and C15; restored 1852 by G.E. Street. Roughcast limestone rubble with limestone-ashlar dressings; limestone ashlar; copper roofs. Chancel, north vestry, nave, south aisle, south porch and west tower. Chancel is probably C13 and has shallow ashlar buttresses at the angles, but has a plain C15 parapet and C15 windows: to east a 4-centre-arched 3-light window with elaborate drop tracery, and to south square-headed windows of 2 and 4 lights with similar tracery, labels and head stops, plus a C15 priest's door. Narrow south aisle has elaborate C14 details including a pinnacled diagonal buttress with ogee-canopied image niche, a corbel table of grotesque heads and square flowers, returning around the contemporary porch, a 2-light window to right of the porch with flowing tracery and square flowers around the arch, and an unusual 3-light window to left of the porch with a segmental arch, dense drop tracery, and elaborate headstops, one holding an oak branch. 2-storey porch has an outer arch of 2 chamfered orders below an ogee lancet, and has a sundial on the gable plus eroded corner pinnacles; it shelters a fine late-C12 doorway of 2 orders (beakhead and chevron) with anouter band of chevron, an elaborate carved tympanum, and detached jamb shafts with scalloped capitals. C15 clerestory has 2-light square-headed windows with labels. North side of nave is C15 and has a high moulded ashlar plinth and stepped buttresses. Ashlar tower of 3 stages, with a similar plinth, diagonal buttresses, and a crenellated parapet with 8 crocketed pinnacles, is also C15 and has a 3-light drop-traceried west window, deeply recessed in a 4-centre-arched casement mould, and has 2-light Y-traceried transomed openings to the bell chamber; below the parapet are 8 large winged gargoyles. Interior: chancel has a small canopied piscina with credence shelf and some original colouring, set into the splay of a C15 window; shallow kingpost roof is probably early C19 but has small pendants of C17 character. C13 chancel arch of 3 chamfered orders has attached shafts with moulded capitals and bases; 3-bay nave arcade of 2 orders is probably contemporary and has circular columns with similar mouldings; tall tower arch of 3 continuous chamfered orders is C15. South aisle has an ogee-headed C14 piscina with credence shelf. C15 north door has re-used C12 chevron in the rere arch. Nave roof, with curved braces rising from wall posts to tiebeams, is dated 1814 but may be much earlier; south aisle roof is mid C19. Fittings include a panelled octagonal C15 font, a richly-carved traceried C15 wood screen (repainted 1862), and a contemporary canopy fixed to the nave roof with a panelled cove and carved bosses, which may have original colouring, Pews, pulpit and other fittings are mostly C19. Coloured glass is mainly C19 in repetitive patterns, but includes five C15 roundels in a south aisle window. Brass of James Battersby (d.1522). (Buildings of England: Oxfordshire: pp623-4)

Listing NGR: SP3268431497