page_title: Charlton-on-Otmoor
section_title: Church of England
hierarchical_section_title: Charlton-on-Otmoor / Church and chapels / Church of England
caption_attribution_description: English: Rood screen and cross in the Church of England parish church of St Mary the Virgin, Charlton-on-Otmoor, Oxfordshire.
context_page_description: Charlton-on-Otmoor is a village and civil parish about 9 miles NE of Oxford and 6 miles SW of Bicester in Oxfordshire, England. The village, one of the seven "towns" of Otmoor, dates back to the 11th century and sits on the northern edge of the moor on a ridge of Cornbrash. The 2011 Census recorded the parish's population as 449.
context_section_description: Charlton had a parish church by the 11th century. The present Church of England parish church of Saint Mary the Virgin was a 13th-century Early English Gothic building but there were substantial Decorated Gothic alterations in the 14th century. The east window is slightly later, in the transitional style from Decorated to Perpendicular Gothic. Around the beginning of the 16th century the clerestory and a new roof were added to the nave, and a new window was added to the south aisle.
  In the early 16th century the present rood screen and rood loft (for a crucifix between the chancel and nave) were added to the church. During the English Reformation Edward VI's injunctions of 1547 instructed that rood screens and lofts be removed from all churches in England and Wales. Charlton's screen and loft survived these injunctions, and in the 20th century the critic Jennifer Sherwood judged them "the finest and most complete in the county". A tradition of garlanding the rood cross with flowers and box greenery on May Day and carrying it in procession around the parish also survived the Reformation and continues in modern times. In recent years, due to pressure on the school administration, it is usually impossible to hold the May Garland Service on May Day so it is held either in late April or later in May.
  In 1846 the Gothic Revival architect G. E. Street re-roofed the church and restored the north wall. In 1889 the rood screen and loft were restored. St Mary's has never been over-restored, and its Decorated and Perpendicular mediaeval character has survived almost intact.
  By 1553 the bell tower had five bells plus a Sanctus bell, but all have since been recast or replaced. Richard Keene, whose foundries included one at Woodstock, cast the two largest bells in 1681. Thomas Lester of the Whitechapel Bell Foundry cast another bell in 1746 and Matthew II Bagley of Chacombe, Northamptonshire cast another in 1755. The then treble bell broke in 1789 but John Warner and Sons of the Whitechapel Bell Foundry recast it that same year. In the 19th century the Bagley bell survived for a long time with a fracture, but in 1895 its tongue and head fell out. Mears and Stainbank of the Whitechapel Bell Foundry replaced or recast the broken bell in 1898. In 1998 the Whitechapel Bell Foundry cast a new treble bell, making the 1789 bell the second bell and increasing the tower to a ring of six bells. In 1999 the new bell was hung and the old bells re-hung as a project for the village to celebrate the Millennium. John Warner and Sons cast the present Sanctus bell in 1793.
  St Mary's church clock is of unknown date but appears to be late 17th century. Two of the wheels of the going train are characteristic of the work of the clockmaker and bellfounder Edward Hemins of Bicester, which would make them an early-18th-century alteration.
  St Mary's is now part of the Church of England Benefice of the Ray Valley.
caption: Garlanded rood on 16th-century screen in St Mary the Virgin parish church
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