page_title: Weston-on-the-Green
section_title: Parish church
hierarchical_section_title: Weston-on-the-Green / Parish church
caption_attribution_description: English: Altar of the Church of England parish church of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Weston-on-the-Green, Oxfordshire, with altarpiece painted by Pompeo Batoni
context_page_description: Weston-on-the-Green is a village and civil parish in the Cherwell district of Oxfordshire, England, about 4 miles southwest of Bicester.
context_section_description: The earliest surviving parts of the Church of England parish church of the Blessed Virgin Mary are the Norman font and the ground stage of the west tower, which was built around 1200. By 1741 the medieval building was in ruins, and in 1743–44 all but the 13th century bell tower was rebuilt.
  The replacement is a characteristically box-like Georgian church, with what were originally plain round-arched windows on the north and south sides. The Georgian building had an ornate plaster ceiling, but this collapsed in 1810. The surviving ornate Georgian surroundings of the south door are of a very high quality.
  There is no east window. Instead the blank east wall is dominated by an altarpiece of the Ten Commandments thought to have been painted by the Italian master Pompeo Batoni (1708–87), although this has not been substantiated. Weston-on-the-Green is not the only Oxfordshire parish church thought to have a painting by Batoni. The parish church of Saint Peter, Marsh Baldon, 12 miles (19 km) south of Weston-on-the-Green, has a Batoni painting of the Annunciation.
  The architect R. Phené Spiers restored the building in the 1870s, repairing the tower and adding the south porch and new seating. A plan to rebuild the east end with an apse "to make the building more churchlike" was not executed. In 1885 Spiers added a heavy tracery to the Georgian windows and the organ was installed.
  The tower used to have three bells, one each cast in the 15th, 16th and 17th centuries. They were replaced in 1870 with ring of five, now six, all of which were cast by Mears and Stainbank of the Whitechapel Bell Foundry. There is also a Sanctus bell cast in 1834 by W. & J. Taylor, presumably at their Oxford foundry.
  The ecclesiastical parish is now a member of the Church of England Benefice of Akeman, which includes the parishes of Bletchingdon, Chesterton, Hampton Gay, Kirtlington, Middleton Stoney and Wendlebury.
  A Graveyard and Church Memorial Survey of St. Mary the Virgin, Weston-on-the-Green by Brian and Jo Wilson has been published. Alan Campbell Johnson C.I.E., O.B.E., Press Attache to Lord Mountbatten, the last Viceroy during the independence of India and author of ‘Mission with Mountbatten’, is buried here.
caption: Altar of Blessed Virgin Mary parish church, with Pompeo Batoni altar piece
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