Photographs of Oxfordshire's Churches from around this mostly rural English County's towns and villages.

These pictures cover churches located between Abingdon and Lower Heyford

There really are a lot of churches in Oxfordshire - with even really tiny villages boasting their own local church. These village churches are often quite small but gorgeous to look at - and of course generally have lots of wildlife, wild flowers and nice trees around them too.
This page of Oxfordshire Church Photos , Pictures covers the churches to be found in the county's villages and towns with names starting between A and L. Photographs of churches located within Oxfordshire with Towns and Villages whose names are between M and Y can be seen on our Oxfordshire Churches M to Y.

It is interesting to note how many Oxfordshire churches are named either St Mary, St Mary's or St Mary the Virgin - seems to apply to just about every other church around South Oxfordshire. Our English churches come in many shapes and sizes although ultimately the layout is in the traditional cruciform shape, aligned East to West. As mentioned many Oxfordshire villages have their own small churches which quite often date back for 100's of years - some of them belong to or were built by rich landowners so you can often find a small church near a Manor House and also located in what is now private grounds. Despite the basic shape it is quite amazing how different they often actually are in design and how beautiful many of them are to look at. They often have a very large yew tree nearby, lots of not so often seen wild flowers etc. surround the edges of the graveyards and for (the benefit of?) walkers, visitors and cyclists there are often wooden seats in the graveyards which provide a nice peaceful location for a picnic which is why we often plan our walks to arrive by a church around lunch time if possible.

Quite a few of our photographs of Oxfordshire's Churches were taken during the Winter since in the Spring and Summer the churches are difficult to photograph clearly due to the heavy foliage from the surrounding trees and shrubs - and also because of the -nearly always found- huge Yew tree situated right next to the church itself. Yew trees are extremely long-lived and were treated by the ancient Britons as a place of burial, worship and for other important ceremonies - therefore these sacred places led the first Christians to build their new churches next to them. From March through to the summer many of the graveyards and surrounds are covered in snowdrops, then bluebells, then daffodils and so on. The village lanes around our part of the county are generally very quiet and therefore excellent for cyclists - a far better way to visit the churches than by car and of course with the extensive paths and tracks in our area you can also hike to them easily enough.
In our case our favourite way of getting around the various locations is by making up circular walks using our English National Trails such as The Ridgeway and The Oxfordshire Way as well as some of our beautiful canals like the Oxford Canal or the Grand Union Canal. A walks menu for England (Chilterns) can be found on our English Walks topic.

 

We have lots more to look at on our site including more English Churches, Nature - wildflowers and toadstools, many English Canal photos and guides including The Grand Union and Oxford Canals plus around 23 walks which you might enjoy whilst visiting England - all can be found via our Home Page.
Please visit our Resources topic if you wish to Email Us - where there are also links to more of our holiday and travel guides about Cyprus, topics about touring the Golden triangle and holidays in India, Egypt - Cairo, Aswan, Luxor and Sharm guides, many Greek and Canary Islands, New Zealand, The Algarve and several Far East destinations including Singapore, Hong Kong and Bali
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You might be interested in these Church Sites
John Ward's Oxfordshire Churches Oxfordshire boasts some of the finest churches in the United Kingdom. This site provides a photographic record of all of them.
The Churches of East Anglia  Simon's extensive series on Suffolk and Norfolk Churches

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