St Frideswide's Church New Osney, Oxford by Ala'mint Graham First published in 1978. This edition with revisions and additional material published in 1997. Malcolm Graham 1978, 1997 All rights reserved The author is Head of Oxfordshire Studies with Oxfordshire County Council and has made a special study of Oxford's Victorian suburbs, Cover ii/ustration: drawing of St Frideswide s church by Derck He of Cheltenham Designed and typeset by Andrew Iveu and printed and bound by Oxonian-Rewley Press in the parish of St Frideswide, Oxford The origins of the parish New Osney ur Osney Town developed from meadowland to populous suburb in just a kw years, starting in 1851, It owed its origins to Oxford's Town Clerk, George Parsons Hester (d. 1876), who purchased the land for its building potential as two railway companies, the London and North Western and the Great Western, were opening stations nearby. An auction of 40 lots in September 1851 was followed by rapid building activity and the first houses were occupied by October 1852. Within two years Osney Town had over 300 inhabitants and the 1861 census recorded a population of 795 people in 141 houses, No provision had been made for the spiritual or educational welfare of the inhabitants of this new district which was in the extensive and populous parish of St Thomas. Neither the church nor the parish schools had the resources or accommo- dation to cope with the influx of a new population, and the remoteness of both from Osney Town was further emphasised by the railway line; at the same time. Osney was equally isolated from the Nonconformist churches in the centre of Oxford. The energetic Tractarian vicar of St Thomas's, Thomas Chamberlain (1810-92). was quick to act, making himself personally responsible for the cost of setting up a combined church and school in Osney. He persuaded Hester to sell him a site at the south-west end of Bridge Street at half the market rate and commissioned the architect. George Edmund Street, to design a suitable building, The London and North Western Railway Company agreed to contribute £25 to the project and Christ Church, the patrons of the benefice of St Thomas. promised a donation. By the time the building opened for worship on 19 November 1854. Chamberlain was able to declare that the total cost of about 5:400 had been either raised or promised. Brick inside and out. the new school-chapel on the corner of Bridge Street and South Street was prosaically described as 'a plain. but internally very Church- like-looking building': an elegant open screen separated the east end from the rest of the interior and the wall behind the altar was richly furnished with a dossel of figured satin. Chamberlain may have started a St Fridemides clay school almost immediately and it was certainly in being by 1861, interdenominational rivalry was soon evident in Osney as the active New Road Flaptist Church established a physical presence on the island, Its Sunday School opened with just five children on 16 August la57.. whereupon 'the Puseyite party soon opened a (Sunday] school in that district, which took some of the children away for a short time since then, they have closed their school and the scholars most of them have returned', The Baptist Sunday School continued to flourish to the point of overcrowding and, when pleading for larger premises in 1863. its teachers described the population as 'a peculiarly promising field for Christian work It is comprised largely of railway servants. They are more intelligent than a rural people. having been brought from various parts of the country. and having seen much of men and things, they are more independent than a village people. and than many in towns of religious matters, being free from the domination of both landlords and customers,' The teachers' petition was heard and the foundation stone of a new Sunday Schoolroom in Bridge Street was laid on 9 February 1864. The obvious strength of the Baptists in Osney Town was a challenge to the Established Church and drew attention to the inadequacy of the combined school and chapel. Chamberlain and Christ Church therefore adopted the idea of building a new and much larger church to serve the growing district. A site was easily found in Mrs Jones's Field, a triangular piece of land to the north-west of Osney Island and, on 19 August 1870, Christ Church conveyed this to the Ecclesiastical Commissioners. Samuel Sanders Teulon of Westminster was engaged to design the building and, by 22 October, Honour and Castle. a local firm from across the Thames in Russell Street, had been chosen as builders. Their tender, at £2.900, was the lowest received and compared with some of over £5,000. The building of St Frideswide's Church Despite 'unpropitious weather', which limited the attendance of spectators at the ceremony, the foundation stone of St Frideswide's Church was laid on 13 December 1870 by John Talbot (d. 1910), a Christ Church graduate, who was at the time M.P. for West Kent. Chamberlain then addressed the assembly, remarking that the building was to be completed by 1 October 1871, and that its erection depended much on the enterprise and self-sacrifice of the Reverend Robert Young, who was envisaged as its first vicar. The optimistic tone of these proceedings soon proved to be ill-founded. Young seems to have become disenchanted with the project, and supervision of the building of the church devolved upon a committee comprising the Archdeacon of Oxford (the Venerable C.C. Clerke), the Warden of All Souls College (Dr Francis Leighton), Frederick Morrell, William Ward, and Chamberlain. Their main difficulty was financial, and despite a liberal donation from Christ Church and a grant of £175 from the Oxford Diocesan Church Building Society, additional money was just not available in an area of low incomes. Work on the building therefore ceased for some months in the summer of 1871, and, in November, the committee prefaced a public appeal for upwards of £500 with the announcement that they had entered into a fresh contract with the builders to 'render the church as speedily as possible fit for Divine worship ... without at present attempting the erection of the Tower. or any such ornament as may not be absolutely required'. The appeal to residents in the University, City and neighbourhood was successful enough to finish the church on this more limited scale, and St Frideswide's Church, in spite of the manifold difficulties and discouragements that have been met with [was] opened and consecrated to public worship' by the Bishop of Oxford on 10 April 1872, The dedication of the church The decision to dedicate the church to St Frideswide (d. 735?), patron saint of Oxford City, University and Diocese, probably owed much to the fact that the patrons of the parish. Christ Church, had inherited from St Frideswide's priory both its buildings and the advowson of Binsey church. Nearby Binsey has also been seen as the place of St Frideswide's final retirement after her escape from her unwanted suitor, Algar. The dedication is a rare one. the only other instances being at Poplar, London (now demolished). Frilsharn, Berkshire, and Water Eaton in Milton Keynes. 2 S.S. Todon's design (1870) for the church. The rower and wire were never built, 3 The architect Samuel Sanders Teuton (1812 -73) was born in Greenwich, the descendant of a Huguenot family that had escaped from France at the time of the Revocation of the idiot of Nantes in 1685. He began his architectural career by being articled to George Legg, and his first commission came in about 1840. when he designed almshouses for the Worshipful Company of Dyers. TettIon soon built up a large and important practice from offices in Westminster, His commissions were wide-ranging, including schools and parsonages in almost all parts of England, farm buildings and cottages on the Windsor Park estate, and not a few mansions, including Tortworth Court, Gloucestershire (1850-2) for the Earl of Dude. A major part of his work was, however, the design or restoration of churches over much of Southern and Midland England, and amongst his London churches was St Stephen's, Hampstead, near his home, Tensleys. (This great church is now deserted and ruinous.) Described by Pevsner as the 'grossest and most assertive architect of his gener- ation', Teulon designed buildings that were invariably individualistic, and he was never a slavish copier of Gothic forms. Bestwood Lodge, Nottinghamshire (1862-65). has been described as Gothic, chiefly Early English but with Franco-Flemish elements, Nearer to Oxford. at Leckhampstead church, Berkshire (1858-60). Teulon was 'at his most original. using coloured bricks and flint for a building that is of North German character - so far as it has any precedence at all'. The design of St Fricleswide's church was similarly original, and was variously described by contemporary reporters as `Gothic, of the Early English period', as 'Late Early-English or early Decorated style', or as' Early French, style'. The exterior of the church Enjoyment of the building is enhanced by its waterside setting between two back streams of the Thames, and by its bosky churchyard. The latter has now recovered from the effects of Dutch elm disease and of its many trees, the horse chestnuts separating the church from the busy Botley Road are the most vital. St Frideswide's Church is most substantially built' of rough-hewn blocks of Charibury limestone with Bath stone dressings. It is 105 feet long and consists of a nave, a north porch, and an apsidal chancel above which there is a low octagonal tower; a north transept is squeezed in between the mighty tower buttresses, and, to the south of the crossing, there are the sacristy and an organ chamber, The first appearance of St Frideswide's church must be surprise at its squat appearance, but this is the result of mere historical accident, the failure, through lack of funds, to complete the building as Teulon had designed it.