Shrivenham - Churches

Churches

Shrivenham had a parish church by 1117, when Henry I granted its advowson to the Augustinian Cirencester Abbey upon the latter's foundation. Little survives from the church of that time save for part of the west wall of the nave, which is late 12th century, and the font which is carved from Purbeck Marble. By the 15th century the parish church was cruciform, with a central Perpendicular Gothic belltower that was built in about 1400.

The present Church of England parish church of Saint Andrew is the result of a comprehensive and unusual rebuilding in 1638, funded largely by the Earl of Craven. The end walls of the nave, chancel and two transepts were extended to form a rectangle with a nave of three bays with round arches on Tuscan columns with excessive entasis; a chancel of two bays; and north and south aisles running the full length of the nave, tower and chancel. The nave, chancel and aisles share one continuous roof. The central bell tower was retained in what otherwise was an almost completely new early 17th century church. A Jacobean wooden pulpit and tester and almost continuous panelling around the walls completed the interior. The building remains largely as it was completed in 1638, apart from the addition of a neoclassical west porch in the middle of the 18th century.

Inside St. Andrew's are numerous monuments. The oldest is a stone recumbent effigy in the south aisle, apparently of a 14th century woman. Many of the monuments from later centuries commemorate notable residents of Beckett Hall, including John Wildman (c. 1621–93), Rothesia Ann Barrington (died 1745; monument sculpted by Thomas Paty), John Barrington, 1st Viscount Barrington (1678–1734), William Barrington, 2nd Viscount Barrington (1717–93; monument designed by James Wyatt and sculpted by Richard Westmacott) and Rear Admiral Samuel Barrington (1729–1800; monument sculpted by John Flaxman).

The tower has a ring of ten bells. Mears and Stainbank of the Whitechapel Bell Foundry cast the six largest bells, including the tenor, in 1908. Gillett & Johnston of Croydon cast the third and fourth bells in 1948. The ring was increased from eight to ten bells in 2003 when the Whitechapel Bellfoundry cast the present treble and second bells.

A Primitive Methodist chapel was established in the village in 1872. It is now Shrivenham Methodist Church.