Description

HIGHMOOR

1209/0/10025 HIGHMOOR CROSS
06-APR-06 St Paul's Church

II
Parish church, built as chapel of ease 1859. Designed by Joseph Morris of Reading; built by Robert Owthwaite of Henley-on-Thames. Nave, chancel, single-storey vestry to south.

MATERIALS: Knapped flint with ashlar detailing (banding, quoins, windows, doorways), red tile roof

EXTERIOR: Nave with bellcote to west end. Trefoil cusp-headed two-light windows and buttresses to sides; three-light window to west end with centrally placed porch with generous doorway. Lower chancel with single-light side and east windows. Lower still single-storey vestry to south of chancel with tall stone chimney on south gable. Rainwater goods dated 1859.

INTERIOR: Internally little altered with benches, font, pulpit, organ (occupying much of south wall of chancel). Stained glass in the east window by Bentley.

The churchyard wall, of flint with brick detailed and red tile coping, is likely to be broadly contemporary with the church. It appears on a photo of 1865 (Harper-Spencer 1999, 61).

HISTORY: The church was apparently paid for (along with the adjoining unlisted parsonage) by the Revd. Joseph Smith, the rector of Rotherfield Peppard, as a chapel of ease. Highmoor was made a separate parish in 1860.

SUMMARY OF IMPORTANCE: St. Paul's is a simple but pleasing mid Victorian church, little if at all altered. It is by a local architect and makes a positive contribution to Highmoor, notably through the predominant use of flint which is a distinctive local building material. The church represents the High Victorian desire to improve the provision of places of worship in rural areas such as this.

SOURCES: N. Pevsner, Oxfordshire (1974), 649; A. Harper-Spencer, Dipping into the Wells (1999)

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q26670914

External links are from the relevant listing authority and, where applicable, Wikidata. Wikidata IDs may be related buildings as well as this specific building. If you want to add or update a link, you will need to do so by editing the Wikidata entry.

Recommended Books

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  London 4: North: North v. 4 (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
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