• Home
• Cherwell
  • List of villages
  • Recommended villages to visit in Cherwell
  • Photography dates
• South Oxfordshire
  • List of villages
  • Thames-side villages
  • The Oxfordshire Chilterns
  • Recommended villages to visit in South Oxfordshire
  • Photography dates
• Vale of White Horse
  • List of villages
  • Thames-side villages
  • Recommended villages to visit in Vale of White Horse
  • Photography dates
• West Oxfordshire
  • List of villages
  • Recommended villages to visit in West Oxfordshire
  • Photography dates
• Information
  • Useful links
  • "Midsomer Murders" film locations
  • Link your website to Oxfordshire Villages
  • Weather forecast and traffic
  • Licenses and acknowledgements
  • Contact me

The Church of St. Mary Magdalene in Duns Tew comprises chancel with north aisle or organ chamber, nave with north aisle and south porch, and west tower. The south doorway and a lancet window in the north wall of the chancel survive from a late 12th- or early 13th-century building. The church was extensively remodelled in the late 13th or early 14th century, and enlarged by the building of a north aisle, of which the arcade of three bays with capitals decorated with carved heads survives. The tower and south porch seem to have been built in the late 14th or early 15th century, and about the same time new windows were inserted in the east wall of the chancel and the walls of the nave and north aisle. The rood screen, preserved until 1861, was of similar date. 

The south side of the church was largely destroyed in 1647, probably by the fall of the upper stages of the tower, and was rebuilt, using some of the old materials, in 1664 and 1665. The chancel was repaired c. 1798 and c. 1830. The church was restored in 1861 and 1862 to designs by Sir G. G. Scott at the expense of Sir Henry Dashwood. The chancel and north aisle were completely rebuilt, the north aisle being widened, the south wall of the nave was partly rebuilt, and the south porch reroofed. A portion of the rood screen was preserved against the south wall of the chancel but had disappeared by 1981. The chancel was rearranged in 1924, the eastern end being screened off to form a sacristy. In 1976 a fragment of a medieval crucifixion scene in stone was erected under a medieval canopy north of the chancel arch. 

The font is probably 12th-century. There are no early memorials, but in the chancel are three wall plaques to 19th- and 20th-century members of the Dashwood family, and in the tower is a marble tablet to the vicar William Gorden (d. 1837). There are five bells: (i) 1790, (ii) 1660, (iii) 1694, (iv) 1858, and (v) 1768. 

The plate includes a silver chalice and paten cover of 1575, and a pair of patens of 1720 given to the church in 1832.

Historical information about the Church of St. Mary Magdalene is provided by A P Baggs, Christina Colvin, H M Colvin, Janet Cooper, C J Day, Nesta Selwyn and A Tomkinson, 'Parishes: Duns Tew', in A History of the County of Oxford: Volume 11, Wootton Hundred (Northern Part), ed. Alan Crossley (London, 1983), pp. 209-222. British History Online http://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/oxon/vol11/pp209-222 [accessed 31 January 2023].

The Church of St. Mary Magdalene is a Grade II listed building. For more information about the listing see CHURCH OF ST MARY MAGDALENE, Duns Tew - 1369849 | Historic England.

For more information about the Church of St. Mary Magdalene see Parishes: Duns Tew | British History Online (british-history.ac.uk).