| Official Name: | Churchill |
| Static Image Name: | All Saints Churchill.jpg |
| Static Image Caption: | All Saints' parish church |
| Population: | 665 |
| Population Ref: | (parish, including Sarsden) (2011 Census) |
| Os Grid Reference: | SP2824 |
| Civil Parish: | Churchill |
| Shire District: | West Oxfordshire |
| Shire County: | Oxfordshire |
| Region: | South East England |
| Country: | England |
| Coordinates: | 51.917°N -1.59°W |
| Post Town: | Chipping Norton |
| Postcode Area: | OX |
| Postcode District: | OX7 |
| Dial Code: | 01608 |
| Constituency Westminster: | Banbury |
| Website: | Churchill and Sarsden |
Churchill is a village and civil parish about 3miles southwest of Chipping Norton, Oxfordshire in the Cotswolds Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. Since 2012 it has been part of the Churchill and Sarsden joint parish council area, sharing a parish council with the adjacent civil parish of Sarsden.[1] The 2011 Census recorded the parish's population as 665.[2]
The Domesday Book of 1086 recorded the toponym as Cercelle. A pipe roll from 1168 records it as Cerzhulla. A charter of the Priory of St Frideswide, Oxford from about 1175 records it as Chirchehull. Other late 11th-century, 12th century and early 13th-century variants include Cercell, Cercell, Cercella, Cerchil, Cerchull and Cerchulla. A Close Roll from 1220 records it as Cerceill. An entry in the Book of Fees for about 1235–36 records it as Cershull. An assize roll from 1246–47 Latinises the name as Sercellis. A feudal aid document from 1346 records it as Cerccell.
The name is derived from Old English. The parish's old church (see below) was not on top of the hill, so the name may not necessarily refer to a hill with or belonging to a church. There is a barrow almost at the top of the hill, so the first part of the name could be derived from the Brythonic word cruoco or crūc, meaning a hill, burial ground, or barrow. But if this is the case, crūc must have become confused with the Old English cirice ("church") at an early date.
Churchill was originally at the foot of a hill now called Hastings Hill, but on 31 July 1684 a fire destroyed 20 houses and many other buildings, and killed four people. The village was rebuilt higher up the hill, with stone houses instead of the old timber-framed and thatched cottages. The fire was apparently caused by a baker who, to avoid chimney tax, had knocked through the wall from her oven to her neighbour's chimney. The old village can still be seen as grassy mounds in the pastures around the Heritage Centre.
The former Chipping Norton Railway, part of the Great Western Railway, passed near Churchill. The line had a small railway station, Sarsden Halt, NaNmiles northwest of Churchill. British Railways closed the halt to passengers in 1962 and closed the railway in 1964.
The Heritage Centre is on what is thought to be the site of a Saxon church. In 1348 the church of which the chancel – now the Churchill Heritage Centre – is the last remaining part was built in the Decorated Gothic 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 old parish church of All Saints was left at the edge of the village. By the end of the 18th century the church was said to be in disrepair, and in 1825 James Haughton Langston (1796–1863), who had the living of Churchill & Sarsden, and who owned the Sarsden estate and most of Churchill, built a new one higher up the hill in what had become the centre of the village. The new All Saints was consecrated in 1827. The old church fell into disrepair, but the chancel was retained and used as a mortuary chapel and to house the memorials and in 1869 the Gothic Revival architect CC Rolfe added a new east window.
A Preservation Society was formed in 1988 to campaign for its retention as the last medieval building in Churchill and the building was repaired. The Heritage Centre opened in 2001 in the restored chancel which now houses a collection of maps and historical records of the village from 1600 to the present, as well as displays about Warren Hastings and William Smith. Having received a Heritage Lottery Fund grant in 2010, the building has been refurbished with new interactive displays and oral history recordings.
The Church of England parish church of All Saints was designed by James Plowman of Oxford in 1826. It is an architectural mixture 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 those of the chapel of New College, Oxford, and its windows are based on those from various Oxford Colleges. In a restoration appeal for the tower in 1975, Sir John Betjeman wrote of it:
It is a beautiful landmark and has [...] been an eye-catcher for miles around, and a delightful one. I am sure it was built with this object in view. Although the style is English Perpendicular Gothic, the Tower is in the great tradition of English landscape gardening. Its disappearance would be a grave loss to a rolling wooded landscape.
The west tower has a ring of eight bells. Robert Taylor and Sons cast the third, fourth, fifth and sixth bells in 1826 at their then bell-foundry in Oxford. Their successors John Taylor & Co of Loughborough cast the treble, second, seventh and tenor bells in 1957.[3] Robert Taylor and Sons also made the clock for the west tower. External stairs lead to the bell-ringers' chamber, with a pulpit at the top of the staircase. In imitation of the May morning celebrations at Magdalen College, villagers gather at sunrise on 1 May each year and sing from the stairs and pulpit. The church was damaged by fire on 11 August 2007. It was reopened 15 months later and repairs were completed in the summer of 2009. It is a Grade II* listed building. All Saints' parish is part of the Benefice of Chipping Norton.[4]
Churchill has a Methodist church. It is a member of the West Oxfordshire Methodist Circuit.[5]
There are three notable monuments in the village. A monolith, made of stone found in nearby Sarsden Wood, was erected in 1891 at the behest of the 3rd Earl of Ducie, commemorates William Smith. A memorial fountain, erected in 1870 at the behest of Julia, Countess of Ducie, commemorates her father, James Haughton Langston. Jennifer Sherwood described this fountain 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." There is also a parish war memorial.
The village has a public house, the Chequers, built in the late 18th or early 19th century. It was controlled by Hunt Edmunds brewery before Mitchells & Butlers Brewery took the company over in the 1960s. It is now a gastropub operated by The Lionhearth Group.[7] The village hall was built in 1870 at the behest of James Langston as a Reading Room for the village. It was converted into the village hall after the Second World War. Bus route X8 serves the village. Buses run peak hours only, Monday to Friday, linking Kingham railway station and Chipping Norton via Churchill. Pulham's Coaches operates the route for Oxfordshire County Council.[8]
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,[9] and both have been converted and divided into private houses.