Adderbury, St. George

Round Close Road, West Adderbury, OX17 3EE

The chapel of St. George at Adderbury, now served from the Holy Trinity at Hethe, was built by Canon Arthur Wall of St. John's in Banbury in 1956. Before then, and since 1944, local Catholics had attended Mass in the home of Lady Bedingfield.

Served from Holy Trinity, Hethe.

Avon Dassett, St. Joseph

Avon Dassett, Southam, CV47 2AR

The first-time visitor to this lovely village might presume that the imposing stone structure in the main street is the medieval parish church. It is in fact Victorian, a splendid example of the Early English Gothic revival of the 1850s, presumably built by the Worralls of Bitham Hall. It stands opposite their family seat and several members of the Worrall family are buried in a reserved area in the cemetery behind the church. The church itself has a high nave, a large and well furnished chancel,a tower, lancet windows and much Hardman glass. An older building, for a while a convent,is attached.

Served from St. Francis of Assisi, Kineton.

Banbury, St. John the Evangelist

25 South Bar Street, Banbury, Ox16 9AF

Rev. Fr. Richard Walker, Rev. Fr. Craig Szmidt

Mass had been celebrated for many years at Warkworth Castle and then in Overthorpe when a French emigre priest, Pierre Hersent establised a mission in the town in 1828. The present church was completed ten years later. The arrival of such a dramatic piece or Roman Catholic architecture provoked a hostile reaction from some members of the local Protestant community including an angry pamphlet entitled "The Abomination of Popery Diaplayed". Inside the church the chancel windows, high altar candlesticks and other chancel furnishings are probably by Augustus Pugin as were a rood beam and figures at St. George's Adderbury.

Saturday, 4.00 pm vigil

Sunday,9.00 am, 10.45 am and 5.30 pm

Banbury, St. Joseph the Worker

Edmunds Road, Banbury, OX17 0PP

Rev. Fr. Bill Wilton, Rev. Mr. Henry Allen, Rev. Mr. Robert Hughes.

Built in 1965 as a chapel of ease for St. John the Evagelist to serve the growing estates to the west of Banbury it became a parish in its own right in 1968. The church with its dramatic roof and bright, inviting interior was designed by Lucas Ingram and Partners of Banbury. In 1968 the tharched chapel at Wroxton, dedicated to St. Thomas of Canterbury was added to the parish.

Saturday, 6.00 pm vigil

Sunday, 10.30 am

Bicester, The Immaculate Conception

The Causeway, Bicester, OX26 6AW

Rev. Fr. John Batthula, Rev. Mr. Michael Panejko.

In 1869 William North of Wroxton Abbey hired a room in an Italian jeweller's shop to enable a priest from the Parish of the Holy Trinity in Hethe to celebrate the first Mass in Bicester since the Reformation. In 1883 a small school-cum-chapel was built by the then Parish Priest at Hethe, Rev. Fr. Philip Sweeney. Bicester was served by the Servites from Begbroke and other religious as well as from Hethe and Banbury until 1943 when due to petrol shortages during the Second World War Bicester became a parish in its own right. Rev.Fr. Stephan Webb S.J., then at Hethe, became Bicester's first Parish Priest. The present church was built by Rev. Fr. Thomas Foynes and was opened for worship in 1963.

Saturday, 6.00 pm vigil

Sunday, 9.00 am and 11.00 am

Brailes, St. Peter and St. Paul

Friars Lane, Lower Brailes, OX15 5HU

Rev. Fr. Brian Doolan

Mainly thanks to the Bishop family, Roman Catholicism survived the Reformation in this village and in 1726 the present chapel was built on the upper floor of an old malt barn belonging to the early seventeenth century manor house. The official Retiurns of Papists presented to Parliament in 1767 records that there were no less than 190 Catholics in the parish. Nestling in the shadow of the splendid medieval parish church, the chapel at Brailes is a very evocative place and retains much of its original furnishings. The rich recusant library and old vestments, some created by the women of the Bishop family, are now at Oscott.

Charlbury, St. Teresa of Lisieux

Fisher's Lane, Charlbury, OX7 3QR

Rev. Fr. Aldo Tapparo

The parish derives from the mission founded at Kiddington Hall, the seat of the Mostyn-Browne family, the last of whom built a small stone chapel designed by Augustus Welby Pugin at Radford in 1840 - plus a convent and a school. THese buildings were sold in 1970 and the priest moved to Charlbury which had long been a capel of ease of Radford. Formerly a Methodist chapel built in 1854, this had been purchased by the diocese for £100 in 1931.

Chipping Norton, Holy Trinity

26 London Road, Chipping Norton, OX7 5AX

Canon Mervyn Tower

The grand classical building that serves as the parish church, finished in 1836 was paid for by the 15th Earl of Shrewsbury, who is buried in its crypt and is a successor to the chaplaincy maintained at Heythrop by the earl's family. The church has a memorable east window and an attractive Lady Chapel, a later addition, which has a Gothic altar and reredos from Heythrop and furniture from the former Jesuit chapel at Hook Norton. A sacristy was added to the church in 1888. Heythrop College itself was closed in 1979.

Saturday, 6.00 pm vigil

Sunday, 10.30 am

Enstone, St.Kenelm's Church of England Church

Bicester Road, Church Enstone, OX7 4NL

Served from St. Teresa of Lisieux, Charlbury

Hethe, Holy Trinity

Hardwick Road, Hethe, Bicester, OX27 8AW

Rev. Fr. Paul R.Lester

The Fermors of Tusmore Park had sustained local Catholic life during the suppression. For 200 years Mass was celebrated in a secret chapel in the loft of a farm-house in Hardwick. The present church along with a small school and presbytery were completed in 1832, local farm workers having helped to complete it. Apparently Pugin was asked in 1838 to design an altar for the church but it is not known if he carried out this commission. The sanctuary with its painted walls and statues is worth seeing.

Sunday, 10.00 am

12.00 (Latin/low sung)

Ilmington, St. Philip the Apostle

Grump Street, Ilmington, CV36 4LE

Mass had been celebrated in a room at Foxcote, the home of the Canning family about a mile from Ilmington, more or less continuously since the Reformation and a private chapel had been built there in 1814. However, Foxcote passed into non-Catholic hands in 1934 and the chapel was closed. Fortunately the husband of a Cannine heiress, Philip Howard, had, in 1867, built and endowed a school for Catholic children at Ilmington. This had closed in 1931 and its former chapel was converted into the present church. The pews came from the chapelat Foxcote. The stained glass in the east window is by Augustus Welby Pugin and contains some medieval fragments. The bold north window of the sanctuary is by Donald Brooke of Long Compton and shows the English martyrs with a local connection.

Kineton, St. Francis of Assisi

Southam Street, Kineton, CV35 0LL

Rev. Fr. David Condron

Since 1927 Mass had been celebrated at Kineton in a converted barn. The present church was opened in 1972 and had been designed by Brian Rush & Associates. It is an interesting building with imaginative use of wood and particularly striking statuary.

Saturday, 5.00 pm vigil

Sunday, 10.00 am

Shipston-on-Stour, Our Lady and St. Michael

Darlingscote Road, Shipston-on-Stour, CV6 4DR

Rev. Fr. Brian Doolan

Unusually for a Catholic church, this is the oldest place of worship still in use in the town. Although it has only been in Catholc hands since the late 1970s. It had previously been the chapel for an old people's home and part of a workhouse. Brick built in 1847 in an ealy Victorian Gothic style it was in a ruinous state when the diocese acquired it needing a new roof, new floor and new windows - something of a challenge for its first parish priest, Rev. Fr. David Kenlry. The church has inherited two large statues from the former chapel at Foxcote. Before this church was opened, Mass had been celebrated in the Old Mill Hotel, in a school, above a greengrocer's shop in the High Street and in scout hut.

Wellesbourne, St. Peter's Church of England Church

Church Street, Wellesbourne, CV35 9LS

Served from St. Francis of Assisi, Kineton.

Wroxton, St. Thomas of Canterbury

Stratford Road, Wroxton, OX15 6QW

Served from St. Joseph the Worker, Banbury.

Now part of the parish of St. Joseph the Worker in Banbury, the Catholic church at Wroxton was built in 1887 by the then Lord North, the Catholic owner of a splended mansion built on the site of Wroxton Abbey, a medieval Augustinian hoise suppressed in 1536. It has some wonderful glass including much rescued from London churches bombed during the blitz, and exquisite Stations of the Cross.