Churchill

What to see

All Saints church was built in 1826 by James Plowman for James Haughton Langston, the squire at Sarsden, who paid for all of it (at least £14,000, according to the heritage centre), and it was consecrated in 1827. Its tower is modelled on Magdalen College's in Oxford at about two thirds the size (Historic England says a third smaller), and inside, the five-bay hammerbeam roof over a nave without pillars copies the hall of Christ Church. It is listed Grade II* for the tower, which you can see from most of the valley. The east window remembers Langston, who died in 1863; a fire in 2007 did serious damage, and the repair has left it bright. The Langston Memorial Fountain in the village, a squat Tudor Gothic tower in a granite basin, was put up in 1870 by his daughter Julia, Countess of Ducie, and her husband.

On Mill Lane is what is left of the old church, the thirteenth and fourteenth-century chancel that survived when the rest was pulled down in 1825, restored as a mortuary chapel in 1869. Since 2001 it has held the Churchill and Sarsden Heritage Centre, which calls itself possibly the smallest museum in Oxfordshire. It opens on Saturdays, Sundays and bank holidays from 2.30pm to 4.30pm between 4 April and 27 September in 2026, and is free. Its displays cover the lost village, Langston, and the two famous sons.

Warren Hastings was born in the village in 1732, in what is now Warren Hastings House on Hastings Hill, a late seventeenth-century house that is private. He became the first Governor-General of India in 1773, was impeached in 1787 and acquitted after a trial of seven years, and died in 1818 at Daylesford, about 3 miles away, where he is buried. William Smith, born on 23 March 1769, the son of a blacksmith, published his geological map of England, Wales and part of Scotland in 1815, which the Geological Society calls the first geological map of a complete country, and is called the father of English geology. His memorial, a monolith of local stone put up in 1891 by the Earl of Ducie, stands in the middle of the village by the fountain.

An afternoon here

Park at the village hall and start with the Smith memorial and the fountain, then walk up to the church and the fountain. Go to the old chancel on Mill Lane for the heritage centre at 2.30pm; it is small and takes only limited groups at a time, so a group should book. Walk back up by Hastings Hill to see the outside of the Hastings house, and finish at the Chequers on Church Road. An hour and a half covers it; the Chequers opens from midday every day, until 11pm Monday to Saturday and 8pm on Sunday, but it publishes no kitchen hours, so ring 01608 659393 or book online before you count on it for a late lunch.

Walks

We have no walk of our own from Churchill yet. Kingham station is about 2.5 miles (4km) by road, and from there the car-free circular to Bledington and the Kingham and Daylesford walk are both checked and easy. The Sarsden washpool, on the estate that was Langston's seat, was restored and opened in 2017, and the heritage centre has held an exhibition on it. The Oxfordshire Way passes through Bledington and Shipton-under-Wychwood, in the valley below.

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Food and drink

The Chequers on Church Road is the village pub, a listed house of about 1800 that became an inn, now run by the Lionhearth group with flagstones, an open fire and a garden terrace. The menu is British pub cooking; children have their own menu, with high chairs, and dogs a treat jar by the door, and two private rooms seat 15 and 22. It has no bedrooms: its sister pub, the Swan at Ascott-under-Wychwood, has eleven. For more choice, Kingham's two pubs and Daylesford's farm shop are a few miles west.

When to come

Between April and September, on a Saturday or Sunday afternoon, so the heritage centre is open; outside those months the village is the church, the memorials and the pub, which is still a fair hour. The village marked William Smith's 250th birthday on 23 March 2019. The hill catches the wind, and the lanes down to Mill Lane are steep enough to notice in ice.