St Frideswide's Church is a

Church of England The Church of England (C of E) is the established Christian church in England and the mother church of the international Anglican Communion. It traces its history to the Christian church recorded as existing in the Roman province of Britai ...

church on the south side of the Botley Road in New Osney, west

Oxford Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the Un ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe ...

. The church is in a district originally part of the parish of St Thomas the Martyr.

History

The church is dedicated to the patroness of Oxford, St Frideswide. It was designed by the 19th-century Gothic Revival architect

Samuel Sanders Teulon Samuel Sanders Teulon (2 March 1812 – 2 May 1873) was an English Gothic Revival architect, noted for his use of polychrome brickwork and the complex planning of his buildings. Family Teulon was born in 1812 in Greenwich, Kent, the son of a ...

Westminster Westminster is an area of Central London, part of the wider City of Westminster. The area, which extends from the River Thames to Oxford Street, has many visitor attractions and historic landmarks, including the Palace of Westminster, Buck ...

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

and built by the local firm of Honour & Castle. The foundation stone was laid in 1870 and the church was consecrated on 10 April 1872 by

John Mackarness John Fielder Mackarness (3 December 1820 – 16 September 1889) was a Church of England bishop. Life He was born in Islington (then in the county of Middlesex, now in Greater London) on 8 December 1820, the eldest son of John Mackarness, a We ...

, the

Bishop of Oxford The Bishop of Oxford is the diocesan bishop of the Church of England Diocese of Oxford in the Province of Canterbury; his seat is at Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford. The current bishop is Steven Croft, following the confirmation of his elect ...

. It was originally intended for the church tower to have a

spire A spire is a tall, slender, pointed structure on top of a roof of a building or tower, especially at the summit of church steeples. A spire may have a square, circular, or polygonal plan, with a roughly conical or pyramidal shape. Spires are ...

. In the

nave The nave () is the central part of a church, stretching from the (normally western) main entrance or rear wall, to the transepts, or in a church without transepts, to the chancel. When a church contains side aisles, as in a basilica-typ ...

is the "Alice Door", carved by

Alice Liddell Alice Pleasance Hargreaves (''née'' Liddell, ; 4 May 1852 – 16 November 1934), was an English woman who, in her childhood, was an acquaintance and photography subject of Lewis Carroll. One of the stories he told her during a boating trip bec ...

, a daughter of

Henry Liddell Henry George Liddell (; 6 February 1811– 18 January 1898) was dean (1855–1891) of Christ Church, Oxford, Vice-Chancellor of Oxford University (1870–1874), headmaster (1846–1855) of Westminster School (where a house is now named afte ...

, the Dean of Christ Church, Oxford, made famous through

Lewis Carroll Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (; 27 January 1832 – 14 January 1898), better known by his pen name Lewis Carroll, was an English author, poet and mathematician. His most notable works are ''Alice's Adventures in Wonderland'' (1865) and its sequel ...

's ''

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland ''Alice's Adventures in Wonderland'' (commonly ''Alice in Wonderland'') is an 1865 English novel by Lewis Carroll. It details the story of a young girl named Alice who falls through a rabbit hole into a fantasy world of anthropomorphic creatur ...

''. Immediately to the west is Osney Ditch. The church was the setting of a Morse detective story,

Service of All the Dead ''Service of All the Dead'' is a crime novel by Colin Dexter, the fourth novel in his Inspector Morse series. Setting The novel describes a series of murders in and around St Frideswide's Church, Cornmarket, which corresponds to St Mary Magdale ...

by Colin Dexter.

Vicars of St Frideswide's

* 1872-96 George Lynch Kemp * 1896-1905 Augustus Jameson Miller * 1905-14 William Alfred Spence * 1914-22 George Herbert Tremenheere * 1922-33 Charles Overy * 1933-76 Arnold Mallinson

Present day

St Frideswide's stands in the

Anglo-Catholic Anglo-Catholicism comprises beliefs and practices that emphasise the Catholic heritage and identity of the various Anglican churches. The term was coined in the early 19th century, although movements emphasising the Catholic nature of Anglica ...

tradition A tradition is a belief or behavior (folk custom) passed down within a group or society with symbolic meaning or special significance with origins in the past. A component of cultural expressions and folklore, common examples include holidays ...

of the

Gallery

File:St Frideswide's, Osney - geograph.org.uk - 1590381.jpg, View of the church from the south. File:St Fridewides church - geograph.org.uk - 1102595.jpg, View from the northeast.

References

1872 establishments in England Churches completed in 1872 Church of England church buildings in Oxford English Gothic architecture in Oxfordshire Anglo-Catholic church buildings in Oxfordshire {{England-church-stub

History

Vicars of St Frideswide's

Present day

Gallery

See also

References