The Church of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Crowell
The church of the Nativity of the blessed Virgin Mary is a small flint building comprising a chancel, nave, south porch, vestry, and stone bell-cot. The original 12th-century church has been largely rebuilt. A Romanesque north doorway with a plain round arch, now boarded up on the inside, is its chief surviving feature. In the 13th century the chancel arch was rebuilt, a south doorway was added, and perhaps the holy-water stoup which is now in the south porch. A new font was installed. As the village feast is kept on the Sunday before the Holyrood, it is likely that these alterations mark the date of the rededication of the church to the Virgin Mary, whose cult was then at its height. The chancel itself was rebuilt in the 14th century: it had a three-light east window and two windows of two lights in the north wall and similar ones in the south wall. Parker wrote in 1850 that the chancel appeared to have been shortened at an early period. There were then two sedilia close to the east end and a 'locker' in the north-east angle. A few of the medieval inlaid tiles, common in south Oxfordshire, have survived under the communion table. Drawings of the building as it was in 1813 and 1822 show that the chancel was more lofty than the nave and had Decorated windows, and that the nave windows were square-headed and without tracery. There was a small weather-boarded bellcot at the west end. No more major alterations appear to have been made before the 19th century. Minor repairs were carried out from time to time. In 1638 the men's pews were 'made new', the cost being borne partly by the occupants of the houses to which pews were attached and partly by a general rate. In 1745 the chancel was repaired, and in 1759 a number of minor repairs to the church were ordered. Weeds and rubbish were to be removed from the walls of the building, and the buttresses were to be repointed; several steps were to be made into the porch instead of one; the steps into the church were to be new laid; the door was to be repaired, the pavement of the church was to be relaid and made even, the communion table was to be thoroughly repaired, and a new carpet, new pulpit cushion, and cloth provided. Soon after it appears that repairs to the chancel were carried out, for Buckler's drawing of the church shows the date 1768 in the chancel gable. A continuing interest in the decent appearance of the church led to the repair of the Ten Commandments, Creed, and Lord's Prayer by Mr. Chapman in 1785. In 1793 a new gate was made to the churchyard, which had been walled with brick in 1731, and in 1802 the churchwardens' accounts show that more serious work was in hand. The chancel had been reported out of repair in 1783 and 1801, and now in 1802 'complete' repairs were said to have been undertaken. A total of £46 odd was spent. In 1803 expenditure amounted to £53 4s. Between 1811 and 1817 a further £11 was expended. The state of the fabric was still causing anxiety in the 1830s and in 1835 Richard Clark of Wallingford was commissioned to carry out various repairs. He repaired the outside walls of the chancel, made two new buttresses, retiled the roof, and made two new pews with floor boards and seats. This work cost the rector £20. Repairs to the body of the church costing £100 included reroofing the bell-cot with zinc, renewing the weather-boarding, and making 'a cornice of battlements according to the plan'; making two new buttresses, two new 'Gothic' windows, and a door and entrance gate to the porch. Clark also retiled the roof, raised the floor, and pointed the walls. He removed the old pews and made twelve new ones, as well as a new pulpit, reading-desk, and boards for the Lord's Prayer, 'Belief', and Ten Commandments. The work was finished before the end of the year. In 1839 Mr. Slatter's bill for repairing the church and 'leading the tower' was £18. Three years later the tower was pointed and new window frames made. A photograph of the church before restoration shows these boards at the east end of the church. There was also a communion table and low wooden altar rails. There were high box pews and a three-decker pulpit. The roof was an open timber one. By the 1870s a major restoration had become necessary and the architects H.J. Tollit of Oxford and Edwin Dolby of London practically rebuilt the church in 1878, using the original materials. The south porch dates from this period, the wooden tower was replaced by the present stone bell-cot, and the vestry was added. All the interior fittings were renewed. The east window of the chancel was filled with stained glass by Kempe. The raised tomb in the chancel to Mrs. Ann Michaels (d. 1724) was removed. The chancel floor was relaid with new tiles. In 1879 the lych-gate was made; in 1891 a faculty was obtained to alter the sittings in the chancel and the altar rails; and in 1895 the west window was filled with stained glass by C. E. Kempe in memory of the rector, Cadwallader Coker Beck (d. 1893). The oak prayer desk in the chancel was installed in memory of E. J. Howman (rector 1893–1902). There is a brass (now on the chancel wall) to John Payne, rector (d. 1469), and a gravestone to John Stopes (rector 1621–68), now under the communion table. The memorial noted by Rawlinson to Zachary White, churchwarden, 1695, was probably destroyed at the restoration. There is a war memorial (1914–18). No inventory is known of Crowell's possessions in Edward VI's reign. The present plate consists of a silver Elizabethan chalice and paten cover, dated 1601, and a silver tazza bearing the inscription 'given in 1637 by Rebecca Stopes', the rector's daughter. It is considered to be of earlier date. The church once had two bells. There is a record of their being rehung in 1749 by William Holt. One was recast in 1759. In 1958 there was only one bell, which had been recast before 1928; the former bell was dated 1642. The registers date from 1594, and the churchwardens' accounts from 1746 to 1877. Historical information about St. Mary's Church is provided by 'Parishes: Crowell', in A History of the County of Oxford: Volume 8, Lewknor and Pyrton Hundreds, ed. Mary D Lobel (London, 1964), pp. 80-91. British History Online http://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/oxon/vol8/pp80-91 [accessed 16 March 2023]. St. Mary's Church is a Grade II listed building. For more information about the listing see CHURCH OF ST MARY, Crowell - 1285359 | Historic England. For more information about St. Mary's Church see Parishes: Crowell | British History Online (british-history.ac.uk). |
