Arthur Mee - The King's England, Oxfordshire.
Ambrosden – The Last of Our Romans.
It was the camp of Ambrosius Aurelianus, the last pf our great Romans, summoned here by the despairing Britons to drive back the invading Saxons. There is a glowing picture of him in our first British history by Gildas, who wrote in the 6th century that Ambrosius was a modest man, courteous, faithful, strong and truthful, “and alone of the Romans was left alive in the turmoil of this miserable age.” At last, around 516, he died, and the country entered its Dark Age, lost to history for two centuries. It is left for this retreat among the lanes and quiet meadows to preserve the shining name of this historic figure, when Geoffrey of Monmouth makes him the father of King Arthur and the builder of Stonehenge, both figments of the chronicler’s mighty imagination.
Invaders of a race Ambrosius never knew began the clerestoried church, and their Norman doorway, with its beautiful arch, is here still. The 13th century added the massive tower, with its pinnacled battlements and dragon gargoyles; the 14th century gave the exterior its rich decoration of niched buttresses, carved parapets and cornices of ballflower, animals, and laughing and weeping heads. There are more sculptured heads on the arches of the nave, and in the 15th century chancel is a pillar bracket with foliage carved so cleverly 700 years ago that ir seems to be growing. The font is 15th century. A charming little window had the Good Shepherd in red and gold, and over the tower arch there is a great wall-painting of the resurrection of the dead. Here also is still the 14th century sanctus bell.
W. Hobart Bird – Old Oxfordshire Churches.
This fine old church is of considerable interest. In the churchyard is the base and part of the pillar of an old churchyard cross.
Dedicated to St. Mary the Virgin, the church has quire, clerestoried nave, South aisle and porch, and West tower. The aisle and lofty porch have parapets with pierced trefoils, and the two buttresses at the East end each have a plain moulded image niche. The other two have Decorated ogree arches with a hood-mould terminating in a crocketed finial. Note carefully the very numerous “mask” finials to the labels of the windows, and especially the unique corbel-table with an endless variety of most interesting small faces continued along the wall to the tower. The gargoyles too should be noticed. The very fine tower is of three stages and has good Early English belfry lights of two lancets with hollow mouldings and a central compound pillar and moulded capitals within a chamfered arch. On the upper part of the second stage is insert a curiously carved circular stone with zig-zag device, also a bird and sun rays, and the date 1587. On the East side of the tower are inset two rectangular panels with dragon-like features on one, and pentagram on the other, and also the date 1587. The embattled parapet is later. On the North is a rectangular stair turret to the rood; it has an entrance door from the church. Along the gable South East of aisle, the buttress has a sculptured leopard couchant.
The muniment room on the South of sanctuary is 14th-15th century. The porch had an upper chamber; the old stone seats remain; on the West is a rather archaic trefoil, and over the early 14th century doorway is a large cinquefoiled image niche enriched with a band of wall-flower in the hollow moulding.
The spacious interior has a nave arcade of four wide bays. The quire has a noteworthy Decorated pillar piscina in perfect condition, and on either side of the altar is good Early English work in the two pillar image brackets with sculptured capitals, but which may originally have been wall shafts to support the stone groining of a former vaulted roof. The East window of three lights is Perpendicular, but the others are all two-light Decorated cusped reticulated in rere arches, which are continued down to the floor line (except the one which forms the sedilia) – a very uncommon design.
The chancel arch is Decorated. Note the great painting of the “Doom” or “Last Judgement” (about 20 feet by 11 feet). The nave arcade is Decorated with octagonal pillars and capitals, with arches of two chamfered orders and continuous labels with masks. The narrow arch on South East is for the rood-stair. The East respond has on the south capital a tonsured man’s head, and on the North a mitred bishop. The clerestory is Perpendicular.
In the South aisle note the finials to the labels, and also the small plain piscina. The fenestration is all early Decorated, pairs of lancets in rere arches, excepting one near the porch, which is a single lancet. Note the charming little single trefoiled light at the end of this aisle. The panelled octagonal font is Decorated. The fenestration on the North is similar style to South. The North doorway is good plain Norman; the jamb-shafts have cushion capitals, chamfered abaci, a plain inner and roll mould outer arch, and hood-mould.
St. Mary's churchyard is also the final resting place of the mother of the doctor who tried to save President Abraham Lincolns life after he had been shot by John Wilkes Booth in 1865.