Great Tew - Parish Church

Parish Church

The Church of England parish church of Saint Michael and all Angels was originally Norman, and the south doorway from about 1170 survives from that period. St Michael's was rebuilt in the 13th century, and the arcades of stone pillars inside the building and the south porch survive from this period. Early in the 14th century the aisles were enlarged and most of the present windows were installed. The bell tower was built late in the 14th century and its style is transitional between the Decorated Gothic and Perpendicular Gothic. Next the Perpendicular Gothic clerestory was added. The architect Thomas Rickman repaired St Michael's and restored its chancel in 1826–27.

The tower has a ring of eight bells. Six were cast in 1709 by Abraham I Rudhall of Gloucester. A seventh was cast in 1785 by Abraham's grandsons Charles and John Rudhall of Gloucester. The youngest bell was cast in 1842 by W & J Taylor, presumably at their then foundry in Oxford.

The living of St. Michael's was granted to the Benedictine Godstow Abbey in 1302 and remained under its control until the abbey was suppressed in the Dissolution of the Monasteries in 1539. The villages of Nether Worton and Little Tew were part of the ecclesiastical parish of Great Tew. Nether Worton became a separate parish in the 17th century and Little Tew in the 1850s. Great and Little Tews were reunited as a single Church of England benefice in 1930.

The church contains a particularly fine sculpted female figure as part of a monument by Sir Francis Chantrey to Mary Anne Boulton (1834).