Visitors book in All Saints' church, Great Bourton.
"The small chapel of All Saints, high on the hill which rises steeply from the Cherwell Valley, was built over 600 years ago. The land belonged to the Bishop of Lincoln, but nothing is known about the builders. It was being used in 1549 but was desecrated soon afterwards.
For the next 300 years the people of Bourton worshipped in the north aisle of Cropredy Church, which was known as the Bourton Aisle.
Except for the chancel, the chapel at Bourton fell into disrepair. The chancel arch was filled in and the small area used as a school. The rest of the remaining building eventually became houses, with two floors and dormer windows. At some time, it contained a grocer’s shop. The land around it was used as a garden and later as allotments from which the rent was given to pay for coal for the village poor.
The years following 1850 were a time of revival and renewal for the Church in England and there was much new building and restoration of neglected churches. Early in this period Wardington, Mollington and Claydon became separate parishes with their own resident priests, but Bourton people continued to worship at Cropredy. The Reverend William Augustus Noel, who arrived in Cropredy in 1851 was interested in the little chancel at Bourton and when the school vacated it in 1854 he had it recognised for divine worship but not consecrated. Philip Hoste who became Vicar of Cropredy in 1860 was sympathetic to the view of the people of Bourton who wished to have a church of their own. At first the intention was to build an entirely new one, but this proved to be too expensive. At a meeting in 1861 it was agreed that the old chancel should be incorporated in a restored building.
The village was traditionally a poor one and the building was only made possible by gifts from Oxford colleges, the Bishop of Oxford and Philip Hoste himself. The chosen architect was William White who was responsible for work on many village churches over a wide area. The builders were Kimberley and Hopcraft of Banbury who also worked with William White on other projects. The cost of the building was £900 of which £891.11.4d had been subscribed by the day of consecration, 18th November 1863. The ceremony was conducted by Samuel Wilberforce, Bishop of Oxford. You can find out more about him further down the page.
Gifts for the new church included the reredos from the builders and the font and the small stained glass window on the north wall from Mr G Faulkener. Philip Hoste provided the burial ground by buying a piece of the glebe land from Cropredy and then exchanging it for the allotments surrounding the Church. He then gave the former glebe land to the parish of Bourton for the benefit of the poor.
Records show that in 1866 Philip Hoste bought a piece of land with money given to him for the purpose by his curate C. Cubitt, who for some time had been in charge of the new parish. It is thought that this land was used as the site for the Vicarage which was also designed by William White.
In 1976 it was decided that the seating for 250 people which William White had been required to install was vastly in excess of that required for any likely congregation either then or in the future. The north aisle was separated by screening it from the nave and the pews removed in order to make a church hall. After a few years the semi-permanent screening had to be removed because it restricted the flow of air and caused damaging condensation on the walls. The resulting open plan hall is more spacious and made the building potentially more useful for a variety of purposes.
In 2007 kitchen and toilet facilities were added. The church has since seen use as a venue for Cafe Church – a popular meeting place for the community to get together once a month over a cup of tea. It has also been a venue for the Christmas Bazaar and a place of lively conversation and refreshment at the village fete.
The Bell Tower was provided in 1883 by Charles Cubitt and is recorded as being a “gift in memory of Mrs Cubitt”. It was designed by William White and there are said to be two similar (but not identical) detached towers in existence.
The clock in the tower was provided by public subscription. The Clockmaker’s plate reads “Smith and Sons, The Clerkenwell Steam Clockworks, Clerkenwell, London”. The Bell inscription locates them in St John’s Square, Clerkenwell.
The company, J Smith and Sons, was established in 1780, and became one of the most important clockmakers of the mid-19th century. World War I saw a sharp decline in the demand for clocks, especially the large clocks that the company specialised in, and the last clock was made by Smith and Sons in 1938. The company focused its business instead on the importation of raw materials, and still operates today based in East London."
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