CHURCHILL

Churchill is a pleasantly attractive village that is worth a visit as it has some impressive and quite unusual features. The most impressive is without the doubt the imposing 19th century All Saints Church which dominates the village. The tower of All Saints is a two-thirds copy of the tower of Magdalen College, Oxford. Its hammerbeam roof is a copy of the roof of Christ Church, Oxford. Its buttresses are versions of those of the chapel of New College, Oxford, and its windows are based on those from various Oxford Colleges.

Next to the church is a grand memorial fountain, erected in 1870 by Julia, Countess of Ducie, to her father, James Haughton Langston.

Nearby is the Smith Memorial, a memorial to William Smith, Father of British Geology who was born in Churchill in 1769. One of his many achievements was the publication of the first geological map of the whole country.

At the bottom of Hastings Hill is the Churchill and Sarsden Heritage Centre housed in the chancel of the original 14th century parish church. This is where the original village was, but in 1684 it was burned down by a fire which destroyed 20 houses and many other buildings. A number of mounds in the nearby field marks where some of the original buildings were. When the village was rebuilt it was built on top of the hill.

Churchill is on the B4450 about 3 miles south-west of Chipping Norton.