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St. Laurence's Church in Combe stands on rising ground at the south-east edge of Combe village, and comprises chancel, nave, embattled and pinnacled west tower, and north and south porches. White Kennett's assertion that the church was built in 1395 has led to a misconception that it is all of one build. A church may have stood there from c. 1200 or earlier if the round-headed doorway of that date leading from the south porch into the nave is in situ or was re- used from a previous church on the site: the doorway is not of a quality to have merited transporting. The chancel and chancel arch were built or rebuilt in the earlier 14th century. The chancel is a modest structure but contains in its south wall notable sedilia, with canopies and detached shafts, and a trefoiled piscina. The arch is wide, indicating that the then nave, whose date is unknown, was spacious even before its rebuilding in the late 14th century or early 15th, and that it may have been aisled; the nave, 8.48 metres wide, is one of the broadest in the county, and was presumably rebuilt to the full width of any aisle or aisles flanking its predecessor. South of the chancel arch is a mid 14th-century niche with ballflower decoration: 'Our Lady's altar', the object of bequests in the 16th century, probably stood beneath or to the side of the niche, which contained a statue or painting of the Virgin. There is a 15th-century piscina in the nave wall adjacent, and some decorated floor tiles below. The niche's cramped position against the south wall of the nave may be the result of removal in the 15th century, possibly so as to balance the rood stair doorway, which occupies a similar position north of the chancel arch. The niche's location also allows a 15th-century wall painting of the Annunciation to depict the archangel Gabriel looking directly into it. The nave is markedly superior to the chancel in design, and contains the church's most remarkable feature, a rare 15th-century raised stone pulpit built against the north wall of the nave at its east end: springing from a corbel in the form of a human head, the pulpit is polygonal, its traceried panels flanked by crocketed pinnacles and surmounted by a crenellated cornice. The tower was presumably added when the nave was rebuilt. The north porch contains 14th-century windows, and has an unusual stone-vaulted roof, but was extensively remodelled in 1595. The south porch appears to be post-medieval, although it incorporates a 15th century arch, of lop-sided construction, as its outer doorway.

The chancel windows appear to have been replaced at about the same time as the rebuilding of the nave, the new east window being unusually wide and flat-headed. A carved wooden rood screen of the 15th century survived until 1852 when it was removed and destroyed as being 'old and decayed'. The rood stairs and doorways remain, north of the chancel arch. Wall paintings of the 15th century were uncovered in 1892 around the chancel arch and on the north and south walls of the nave. The Last Judgement is incomplete, the lower part, presumably painted on a tympanum, cut off by the chancel arch; the upper part is hidden by the later insertion of roof brackets. Between the arch and the lower rood doorway is a Crucifixion, painted c. 1500 over an earlier picture of the same scene. On the north wall of the nave is a painting of St. Catherine, and in the south- east corner of the nave the Annunciation. Above the south door are the remains of a large-scale painting of St. Christopher with fish and an otter, reckoned to display rare skill in perspective. It was overpainted with a table of the ten commandments in the 17th century and again in 1809. The nave windows and the east window of the chancel appear to have been glazed by a single workshop in the earlier 15th century. Of the main lights, only one, in the south-east of the nave, retains its principal figure, St. James the Great. The chancel window retains in its upper lights the figures of Christ in Majesty blessing the Virgin Mary, flanked by cherubim identical to others in the nave windows. In the early 18th century the window's main lights still retained ten figures, beneath which were the kneeling figures of the donors, a man and his wife described as of Oxford. Most of the windows were restored in the late 19th century and early 20th. 

Complaints about dilapidations were made regularly in the 16th century and later. Major works included reroofing the nave in 1632 and remodelling the north porch. The coved chancel ceiling, with its ribs and bosses, appears to be of the 18th century but might have formed part of the repairs carried out by Lincoln College in 1824 in response to allegations that the chancel had long been open to the elements. The stone cross on the chancel gable, sometimes said to be medieval, was placed there by the college in that year. The nave was releaded in 1803–4. Work was under way on a west gallery in 1821, but it is not clear if it was being installed or repaired. Box pews of deal were introduced in the 1820s, some of which survive at the west end of the nave.

The internal state of the church was criticized in 1843 as 'miserable, deal pews, white and yellow wash, dirt, and everything most offensive', the pulpit occupied 'only by spiders and other vermin'. Little seems to have been done before the late 19th century. A new window was placed in the chancel in 1887, presumably that in the south-west corner, but in 1892 Stephen Pearce found the church in bad order and much neglected. A programme of gradual restoration included the removal of the gallery in 1892, the repair of chancel and nave walls, the uncovering of the wall paintings, the renewal of windows, and extensive repairs to the nave roof between 1907 and 1909. Pearce also refurnished the chancel, presumably including the Jacobean chairs kept there, and obtained pews for the nave from the chapel at Blenheim Palace. In 1918 the tower was gutted by fire, and repairs were completed only after 1922. 

Choir stalls were placed in the chancel in 1928. In 1933 electric lighting was installed. In 1937 the south porch was converted into a vestry. The stonework of the tower was restored between 1952 and 1955, and a screen was erected at the tower entrance in 1971. The chancel was reslated by Lincoln College in 1963, and in 1976 the nave roof was re-covered in aluminium. 

The octagonal bowl of what appears to be a 15th-century font lies in the south-east corner of the nave. That it was a font is disputed, and it may have been the base of a churchyard cross such as those at Eynsham and Yarnton before being hollowed out to serve as a well-head. It is roughly carved inside, and was used as a wellhead in the late 19th century, but it appears to have served as a font in 1846. It was returned to the church in 1912. 

The monuments include, on the chancel floor, a memorial to John Horner (d. 1792), chaplain 1784–5,and his wife Mary (d. 1789), and, in the nave, a memorial to members of the Golding family, prominent in the 18th century. There are plaques in the nave to Stephen Pearce (d. 1899) and to Alfred Spencer (d. 1885).

The church plate includes a chalice and paten cover dated WH 1575, recorded from 1624 in inventories of church goods. A pulpit cloth of 1634, presumably that mentioned in an inventory of that date, hangs in a case. The fire of 1918 destroyed the parish chest and its contents. The parish register for 1646–1705, and some 19th-century registers, vestry minutes, and churchwardens' accounts were at the vicarage and survived. Transcripts also survive of much of the burnt material. Bequests for the maintenance of the bells were made from the earlier 16th century; one bell in 1585 had been recently cast. In the late 19th century there were five bells, one dated 1602 or 1621, two made by James Keene of Woodstock in 1628 and 1629, the fourth dated 1723, and the fifth 1698. The bells were irreparably damaged in 1918, and were melted down and recast in 1925 as a ring of six at the Taylor foundry in Loughborough (Leics.). There is a turret for a sanctus bell on the nave gable; it was empty in the earlier 19th century, and the bell may by then long have been housed in the tower. It survived the fire, and was rehung in 1925. A single-handed clock on the tower, damaged in the fire and discarded, was rescued and found to contain a 17th-century escapement apparently replacing an earlier mechanism. Restored, the clock was given to the History of Science Museum in Oxford. A new clock was installed in 1948. 

The churchyard has twice been extended on the south, in 1878 by ⅓ a. given by the duke of Marlborough, and in 1917 by ¼ a. given by Lincoln College. Previously the churchyard had lain largely north of the church. Two 15th century table-tombs survive north-east and south of the chancel, with quatrefoil panelling matching that on the nave parapet. Tombstones of the late 17th century survived north of the church c. 1900, but seem to have been among those removed in a clearance of 1961. A low, thatched, building, probably a barn, by the south-west corner of the church was removed in the later 19th century.

The church was by the mid 17th century the owner of c. 2 a. of land in Ten Acres furlong, in the north-east corner of the parish. At inclosure in 1792 the church received instead a close at the southern edge of the village, east of the road to Grintley hill. From 1825 the close was leased annually by candle auction until in 1845 John Hannah persuaded the vestry to divide the land into allotments which survived, reduced in area, in 1988. Thomas Summer, by will proved 1530, devised to the churchwardens a cottage, later known as Church House, north-west of the rectory. The cottage was vested in the Charity Commissioners in 1861, and the proceeds continued to be applied to church repairs until 1952, when the cottage was sold. It is apparently 17th-century and has elaborately decorated wooden lintels. After 1952 its thatch was replaced by clay tiles. Two cottages south-west of Green Close, towards the southern end of the village, were mentioned from 1623 as being in church ownership. They were demolished c. 1860 and replaced by a row of four terraced houses known as Church Cottages. They were sold in 1926. A cottage east of the lane leading to the church was church property in the mid 17th century. It was a public house, the Cock, from 1778 until 1828 when it was rebuilt as two cottages. There were still two cottages in the earlier 20th century, but by 1988 they had been converted into a single dwelling.

Historical information about St. Laurence's Church is provided A P Baggs, W J Blair, Eleanor Chance, Christina Colvin, Janet Cooper, C J Day, Nesta Selwyn and S C Townley, 'Combe: Church', in A History of the County of Oxford: Volume 12, Wootton Hundred (South) Including Woodstock, ed. Alan Crossley and C R Elrington (London, 1990), pp. 92-96. British History Online http://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/oxon/vol12/pp92-96 [accessed 6 April 2023].

St. Laurence's Church is a Grade I listed building. For more information about the listing see CHURCH OF ST LAURENCE, Combe - 1283757 | Historic England.

For more information about St. Laurence's Church see Combe: Church | British History Online (british-history.ac.uk).