A brief history of THE church
Combe: The Valley on the Hill
‘Combe’ is an Old English word for valley, so it is at first surprising to find that the village is on the top of a hill. Originally, however, the village lay at the bottom of the hill on the north bank of the river Evenlode, to the south of the present Combe Halt, where the existing water-mill stands on the same site as the one mentioned in Domesday Book in 1086.
Whilst a range of reasons have been put forward as to why the village moved up the hill to its present site (including protection against plague from the swampy river basin), it is probably more likely that the move was prompted by changing agrarian practices and the felling of forest to provide fields for crops.
The name of the village was extended to ‘Combe Longa’, meaning that it was ‘Combe at a distance from the original settlement’.
The first church
It would seem that the church in the valley continued to be used by the Combe community for some years.
There is a well-established pathway leading from the valley site to the present village.
1800s: Combe Rectory and Church (unknown artist) Lincoln College, University of Oxford
Lincoln College and John Wesley
Eynsham Abbey appointed rectors until 1399, when it took the income for itself and appointed vicars instead. In 1478, Thomas Rotherham, Bishop of Lincoln bought the living and gave it to Lincoln College, Oxford, which appointed chaplains to serve the church. Lincoln College is still the patron of the living.
It was customary for Fellows of the Lincoln College to travel out to Combe to preach. One such Fellow was John Wesley who preached in 1731, 1737, and 1743.
During the Victorian period, there was a resurgence of interest in medieval church architecture. The box pews and the former west gallery were cleared away, and towards the end of the century the Revd Stephen Pearce did much to restore the church and revealed the medieval paintings.
The old rectory - now Combe House - stands to the West. Part of it dates from the sixteenth century and there is a Gothic wing of 1812. The old vicarage was demolished and replaced by a new one of red brick in 1892. This became a private house when the benefice was united with Stonesfield in 1990.
The Mary niche
The church building today
The first documentary evidence of a church in Combe is in 1141–2 when the Empress Maud, daughter of Henry I and cousin of King Stephen, gave the church to the monks of Eynsham Abbey. It seems there has been a church on the present site since the 12th century.
The evidence for this partly lies in the gift of Empress Maud but also in the outer arch of the south doorway. This doorway, now within the south porch of the church (incorporating the vestry), can be dated to the late 12th century.
The Mary niche (shown), ornamented with ball flowers and inserted into the east wall of the nave on the south side, can also be dated to the 12th century. These pieces were probably part of a building subsequently demolished with the useful stone and other ornamentation incorporated into the subsequent construction carried out in the late 14th century (see below).
Across the chancel arch was a wooden rood screen, reached by the narrow stair (above, left of the crucifixion painting) on the north side.
The curved chancel roof (above) probably dates to about the 1820s. The central bosses include the arms of Lincoln College - three stags - and its controversial Rector, Edward Tatham.
The chancel was built, or more probably rebuilt, around 1310–1320, indicated by the priests’ seats (sedilia) (above) in the sanctuary.
An arched niche
The font
A carved corbel
This rood screen was removed in 1852 and burnt. In the early part of the 20th century some thought was given to rebuilding the screen but this was not progressed.
In 1395 the monks of Eynsham erected the early Perpendicular nave incorporating the pulpit - made of stone, and as such, rare. Stone pulpits were more typically built in monasteries.
The font (shown) dates from the fifteenth century.
The present roof of the nave is dated 1632 (carved on the second truss from the east) and was rebuilt at some stage during the early 19th century. The nave itself (which is probably at least partly a re-construction of an earlier building) dates from 1395 and is, in comparison to other churches of the period, unusually wide.
i. The north porch
ii. The Combe Hare
The north porch (shown i.) was built in the 1300s and re-erected in 1595 (see the topmost stone of the gable for the carved date). There are several small crosses carved into the door-jamb, possibly made during the Medieval period to commemorate vows.
There are several mediaeval floor tiles by the south-east wall of the nave (near the Eminent organ) of which the Combe Hare (shown ii.) is the most well-known. The tiles were likely to have been made at Brill,.
Two box pews, made of deal, survive in the church, originally fitted in 1820. The more decorated oak pews came from the chapel at Blenheim Palace in 1855. The three chairs (shown) in the chancel are from the seventeenth century, as is the communion rail (shown).
Near the pulpit is an embroidered pulpit-hanging of 1634 bearing the initials of Charles I (CR for Carolus Rex).
The church plate includes a chalice and paten of 1575, with the maker’s initials WH above an annulet.
In the south-east corner of the nave is an octagonal stone bowl carved in the Perpendicular style. Rescued from a local garden, it may be either the original font of the church, or the base of the village cross, later turned into a well-head.
There are records of rectors and vicars dating back to the thirteenth century, include Andrew de Woodstock, appointed rector in 1277, who was imprisoned in Oxford gaol for trespass in Woodstock Park.
Perpetual Curates (Titular Vicars) have been appointed since 1867:
1867: John Hoskyns Abrahall (appointed 1861)
1891: Stephen Spencer Pearce
1923: John Henry Pearson
1933: Frederick Edward Gmelin
1952: Thomas Wallis Griffiths
1958: Erasmus Ellis Roberts
1964: George Harry Packwood Thompson
1990: Geoff Josephus Bernardus van der Weegen (with Stonesfield)
2009: Roy Turner
Thank you to David T. D. Clarke; The Victoria History of the Counties of England: A History of Oxfordshire, Volume XII (C.J.Day).