Nuneham Courtenay - Parish Churches

Parish Churches

Abingdon Abbey may have had a Saxon parish church in Newenham. If so, it was destroyed in the Danish invasions of the 10th century. There was then a parish church of All Saints that served the village from the Middle Ages until the 1760s, but little information about it survives. It was demolished in 1764 to make way for Earl Harcourt's landscaping plan (see above). Remains of two windows of the old church and one of the tombs were moved to Baldon House at nearby Marsh Baldon, where the windows were used to create a folly. The Earl removed monuments from both the churchyard and the church, demolished the church building and sold its peal of five bells.

Earl Harcourt had the next All Saints parish church built about 20 feet (6.1 m) away from the mediaeval one. The Earl was an amateur architect and designed the church himself, aided by the Neoclassicist James "Athenian" Stuart. It is a domed Palladian temple conventionally oriented with its entrance at the west and altar at the east end, but has a doorless Ionic portico on its north side overlooking the River Thames. The church is positioned on a slight rise on the river bluff to maximise its effect in the landscape design.

The removal of the village to a new site 1 mile (1.6 km) away made the new church highly inconvenient. Its austere neoclassical design also became unpopular during the 19th century Gothic Revival. In 1871 Edward Vernon Harcourt MP inherited Nuneham Courtenay, and in 1872–74 he had a new All Saints parish church built close to the village, designed in the Early English style by the architect C.C. Rolfe. This left the 18th century church to become the Harcourt family chapel, and in 1880 ornately carved Italian fittings were added to its austere interior. The Churches Conservation Trust now cares for the building.

In the 20th century the benefice was combined with the parishes of Marsh Baldon and Toot Baldon and in the 1970s All Saints church building was declared redundant.