• 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 chapel of 1836 in Curbridge, dedicated to St John the Baptist, was built on largely waste land next to the pound on the north side of Main Road. It was of stone with a central south doorway, two- and three-light, squareheaded, mullioned windows with drip-moulds, a bell-turret, and an undivided interior providing about 100 free seats; there was a small attached schoolroom on the north. Proposals to rebuild were made as early as 1865 but, apart from the addition of a porch and in 1895 a small apsidal chancel designed by C. C. Rolfe, few changes were made until 1906 when the derelict building was demolished. 

A new church designed by Nicholson & Corlette was built to the north-east, within the extended churchyard.

The cost (around £750) was met by grants and private donations, notably from the curate, Cyril Jenkyn, and Thomas Foreshew, a director of Clinch's brewery with land in Curbridge. The building comprised a chancel and nave of coursed limestone rubble with red pantile roofs, carried down low on the south over a vestry and organ chamber, and surmounted by an open bell-turret and tall chimney. The style of the exterior, a picturesque mixture of southern Romanesque and Early English features, has been described as Mediterranean. The plain plastered interior is English in character and has original rood beam, pews, pulpit, and other interior furniture, painted green with red, white, and black decoration. An organ replaced a harmonium in 1958. The stained-glass east window is of 1906. The church plate includes a silver paten of 1876 and an electro-plated chalice and alms plate. The single bell of 1836 was given by Charles Jerram, rector. The churchyard was enlarged on the north east in 1898, and a small strip added on the south east in 1974. Registers of christenings and burials begin in 1847.

Historical information about the Church of St. John the Baptist is provided by A P Baggs, Eleanor Chance, Christina Colvin, Nicholas Cooper, Alan Crossley, Christopher Day, Nesta Selwyn, Elizabeth Williamson and Margaret Yates, 'Curbridge: Church, nonconformity', in A History of the County of Oxford: Volume 14, Bampton Hundred (Part Two), ed. Simon Townley (London, 2004), pp. 222-224. British History Online http://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/oxon/vol14/pp222-224 [accessed 7 April 2023].

the Church of St. John the Baptist is a Grade II* listed building. For more information about the listing see CHURCH OF ST JOHN THE BAPTIST, Curbridge - 1368232 | Historic England.

For more information about the Church of St. John the Baptist see Curbridge: Church, nonconformity | British History Online (british-history.ac.uk).