St Nicholas's Church, Lower Oddington

St Nicholas's Church stands on its own in the woods at the end of Church Road, Lower Oddington, about 3 miles (5km) east of Stow-on-the-Wold. Begun in the twelfth century and all but abandoned in 1852, it was left almost untouched by the Victorians, and its north wall carries one of the largest medieval Doom paintings in the country. It is listed Grade I.

History

St Nicholas's is a church that lost its village and then lost its congregation, which is why so much of its medieval fabric survives. The Norman nave of the twelfth century is the present south aisle; in the thirteenth century a tower and chancel arch were built at its east end and a wider nave was added to the north, and the porch, the top of the tower, the west window, the nave roof and the font followed in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.

The archbishops of York

The church first belonged to St Peter's Abbey at Gloucester, and in 1157 it passed to the archbishops of York. Oddington became one of their houses: in the thirteenth century Henry III often stayed here, and in 1236 royal oaks were sent to build stables. The Victoria County History finds the archbishops living here now and then until 1315, perhaps until 1356. In 1545 the manor was exchanged with the Crown, which granted it in 1552 to Sir Thomas Chamberlayne; a later Thomas Chamberlayne, who died in 1640, has the grandest monument in the chancel.

The village that moved

The original village probably lay around the church, and it drifted north to the road from Stow, so that Lower Oddington was a compact settlement by the end of the sixteenth century. A local tradition blames the Black Death, but the Victoria County History finds no fall in the population to support it. In about 1624 to 1630 the walls were whitewashed, hiding the medieval paintings.

Abandoned and found again

By the nineteenth century the church was a long walk from both Lower and Upper Oddington, and in 1852 the parish built the Church of the Holy Ascension midway between them. St Nicholas's was then used only for funerals. It was restored in 1913, when the eighteenth-century west gallery came out and the whitewash came off the paintings (some accounts give 1912), and it has held occasional services ever since. Eve Baker conserved the paintings from 1969.

What to see

The Doom fills most of the north wall of the nave. The listing dates it to the middle of the fourteenth century and the Victoria County History to the later part of it, and the National Churches Trust calls it perhaps the largest Doom in Britain. It is faded and damaged, so give your eyes time:

• Christ sits in judgement in the middle, the orb of the world at his feet, though the upper part of the figure is lost
• Angels below him blow the last trumpet, and St Peter, in a papal tiara, stands with the saved on their way to heaven, drawn as a tall tower whose wall one soul seems to be climbing
• On the right the damned are driven off by a hoofed devil, crowned and mitred heads among them, past a gibbet and a cauldron of souls to the mouth of Hell
• Beyond it the painting runs into a scene of the Seven Deadly Sins, partly overpainted in the fifteenth century

Look also for traces of paint on the twelfth-century arches and above the image niches by the altar, a small painting in the south chapel that the National Churches Trust thinks may show the Nativity or the life of the Virgin, and the royal arms of William IV painted over a medieval picture above the chancel arch. In the fourteenth-century porch, Historic England's listing notes incised lines on the stone benches where yeomen are reputed to have sharpened their arrows, and a mass dial to the left of the entrance; the benefice counts three scratch dials on the porch's western jamb, probably used to show the times of services.

The fittings are those of a country church that nobody had the money to modernise: a fifteenth-century font, a seventeenth-century pulpit with its sounding board, a fifteenth-century oak bench with carved ends, and commandment boards in the niches by the altar. The monument to Thomas Chamberlayne, who died in 1640, has Doric columns with skulls and bones at its foot, and plaques remember the Rice family, among them Edward Rice, rector here, who became Dean of Gloucester in 1825. In the churchyard, the monument to Margaret Parsons is listed Grade II* in its own right.

Visiting

St Nicholas's is open every day and free to visit. There is no electricity or running water, so it is lit only by its windows: come on a bright day, and late morning or early afternoon, to see the paintings best. Services are held on the third Sunday of the month from April to September, and by candlelight on St Nicholas Day (6 December) and at 6pm on Christmas Eve. The church's National Churches Trust entry says it is dog friendly and has level access to the main areas.

Getting there

St Nicholas's is reached by car or on foot from Lower Oddington, a village on the A436 between Stow-on-the-Wold and Chipping Norton. Follow Church Road to its end, about 700m by road from the Fox; the church gives its postcode as GL56 0XE, and its National Churches Trust entry lists on-street parking by the church and more within 250m. The Kingham, Daylesford and the Evenlode walk explores the valley a little to the east.

Nearby

The Fox at Oddington is a short walk back up the village, and Daylesford Farm, with its café and shop, is about 1.2km to the east as the crow flies (about 2.7km by road). The Adlestrop railway sign and seat are a few minutes' drive north, the River Evenlode runs below the village, and in Stow St Edward's Church is the town's own medieval church.