Wigginton, Oxfordshire

About 300 metres (330 yd) northeast of the parish church is the site of an Iron Age enclosure, on which a large Roman villa[3] was added in about the 2nd century AD.[4] The occupied part of the villa seems to have been reduced in size in the 4th century AD.[4] The site is a scheduled monument.[4]

The nave and north and south aisles of the Church of England parish church of Saint Giles were built late in the 13th century.[5] The chancel is early Decorated Gothic, built in about 1300.[6] Each aisle is linked with the nave by an arcade of three bays.[5] The Perpendicular Gothic porch and west tower were added in the 15th or late 14th century.[5] The nave clerestory is also a Perpendicular addition.[5] The tower and the clerestory are crenellated.[5] Monuments in St Giles include some early 14th century effigies in the chancel: of a recumbent knight on the north side, and of a civilian with two wives or daughters on the south.[7]

In the late 19th century the church was restored under the direction of two Gothic Revival architects: the chancel and south aisle in 1870 under William White and the nave and north aisle in 1886 under John Loughborough Pearson.[5] The stained glass of the east window was added in 1908.[5] St Giles is a Grade I listed building.[5]

The tower has a ring of six bells.[8] Until 1998 there were only three: the treble cast by Matthew III Bagley of Chacombe, Northamptonshire in 1753,[9] the second cast by George Mears of the Whitechapel Bell Foundry in 1859 and the tenor by Henry Bond of Burford in 1896.[8] In 1998 the Whitechapel Bell Foundry converted this into a ring of six by retuning the treble as a tenor, recasting the 1859 and 1896 bells as new second, third, fourth and fifth bells and adding a new treble.[8] The bells were then rehung in a new frame by White's of Appleton.[8] St Giles' also has a Sanctus bell that was cast in about 1599.[9]

St Giles' has an early clock. Its date is unknown but its characteristics suggest it was made early in the 17th century.[10] The churchwardens' accounts record payments to a Samuel Bloxham for its repair from 1717 onwards, including a bill for £5 3s 0d for work in 1733–34 when Bloxham and a clockmaker called Thomas Gilks from Chipping Norton seem to have rebuilt it.[11] St Giles' parish is now part of the Benefice of Hook Norton with Great Rollright, Swerford and Wigginton.[12]

The White Swan

Wigginton has a public house, The White Swan, that is controlled by Hook Norton Brewery.[13] There is a Swerford and Wigginton Women's Institute.[14]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Wigginton, Oxfordshire.

• Beeson, C.F.C. (1989) [1962]. Simcock, A.V. (ed.). Clockmaking in Oxfordshire 1400–1850 (3rd ed.). Oxford: Museum of the History of Science. pp. 21, 73, 173. ISBN 0-903364-06-9.
• Booth, Paul; Cameron, Esther; Crerar, Belinda (2011). "A Roman Lead 'Tank' from Wigginton, North Oxfordshire". Oxoniensia. Oxfordshire Architectural and Historical Society. LXXVI: 266–272. ISSN 0308-5562.
• Lobel, Mary D.; Crossley, Alan, eds. (1969). A History of the County of Oxford: Volume 9: Bloxham Hundred. Victoria County History. pp. 159–170.
• Sherwood, Jennifer; Pevsner, Nikolaus (1974). Oxfordshire. The Buildings of England. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books. p. 842. ISBN 0-14-071045-0.