All Saints Church, Churchill History
The village has borne several versions of its name through its history, including Cercelle, Churchell, and Cherchell, but its current form was in use by 1537. The origin of the name is uncertain, though it may come from the Old English cyrc, meaning a hill, burial ground, or barrow. (The village does contain several barrows, suggesting the existence of a settlement here from prehistoric times.) However, the name may come from Cyrc-hill, literally Hill-hill — a common construction formed by Anglo-Saxon incomers who did not understand the meaning of a Celtic root (cf. the etymology of Pendle Hill).
Churchill was originally at the foot of a hill, but in 1684 a fire destroyed many of the houses, and the village was rebuilt higher up. The old village can still be seen as an area of grassy mounds around the Heritage Centre.
Famous Churchillians
Location and Features
Churchill is in North-West Oxfordshire on the Oxfordshire–Gloucestershire border, towards the eastern side of the Cotswolds, in an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. It stands on a hill some seven miles from Stow-on-the-Wold and three miles from Chipping Norton. Among its features of interest are:
Buildings
- Heritage Centre. A Saxon church is thought to have stood here, but in 1348 the church of which the chancel – now the Heritage Centre – is the last remaining part was built in the Decorated Style. At that time it was at the centre of the village, but after the fire of 1684 the village moved up the hill, and the heritage centre is now at the edge of the village. By the end of the eighteenth century the church was said to be in a state of disrepair, and in 1825 James Langston (who had the living of Churchill & Sarsden, and who owned the Sarsden estate and most of Churchill) managed to get permission to pull down the old church and build a new one higher up in what had become the centre of the village. The new All Saints was consecrated in 1827.
- All Saints Church. Designed by James Plowman of Oxford, the building is something of an architectural jumble of imitations. The tower is a two-thirds copy of the tower of Magdalen College, Oxford, its hammerbeam roof a copy of the roof of Christ Church, Oxford, its buttresses are versions of some of those at New College, Oxford, and its windows are based on those from various Oxford Colleges.
- Village Hall. This was originally built in 1870 by James Langston as a Reading Room for the village, and was converted into the village hall after World War II.
- Schools. Churchill had two primary schools: the "Top School", opposite the church on Junction Road, was the Girls' School, and the "Lower School", further down the hill on the Sarsden Road, was the Boys' School. Their dates are somewhat obscure; the Lower School is said to have been built in 1716, though that seems surprisingly early to some historians, and the deeds of the Top School date it to the 1850s, though its rainwater heads are dated 1870. The Lower School was closed in 1947, the Top School in 1982, and both have been converted and divided into domestic dwellings.
Memorials
- A monolith made of stone found in nearby Sarsden Wood, erected in 1891 by the Earl of Ducie to commemorate William Smith.
- A memorial fountain, erected in 1870 by Julia, Countess of Ducie, to her father, James Langston; this is described by Jennifer Sherwood (in The Buildings of England: Oxfordshire by Sherwood and Pevsner, 1974) as: "Memorably ugly. A squat, square tower with obelisks and flying buttresses carrying a dumpy spire. The water drips from a rude spout at the side."
- The village War Memorial.
External Links
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