Twyford, Oxfordshire

Twyford on the map, adjacent to Adderbury

 Just south of Banbury, on the edge of the Cotswolds, is where we found ourselves next, on a showery Saturday afternoon. A bit of early research suggested that this Twyford was much like our Shropshire visit - being an outlying part of an adjacent town, in this case Adderbury.

A bit of research on the excellent Adderbury local history site suggested that I was right, and also confirmed my suspicions about where the fords might be found. Twyford in this case apparently grew up around one large rural house, Greenhill. Today it is really nothing more than one big, amenity-free, and fairly charmless housing estate. But we parked there nevertheless, dutifully took a couple of photos, and headed towards St Mary's church in Adderbury, the church pinpointed by the book.

The original Victorian Greenhill House,
now converted to an apartment complex

Twyford itself - an unphotogenic lump
of post-war housing

NB: this was to be the first of three St Mary's Churches, in addition to the one in Hampshire. There are nominally at least three different St Marys and it's not always clear to which one each church is dedicated, but Adderbury church rejoices in the full title of 'St Mary The Virgin'. It's a reasonable guess that all of our St Mary's are dedicated to Mary-the-mother-of-Jesus, rather than Mary Magdalene or the other - less popular - one, but sometimes some guesswork is involved.

Adderbury town - ain't that pretty?

Anyway, although Twyford itself wasn't much to look at, the same couldn't be said about Adderbury, one of those glorious little chocolate-box Cotswold towns which could easily rival Stow or Bourton-on-the-Water for charm.

It was a lovely stroll down the high street, past independent coffee shops and pubs, ancient buildings - including the stunning converted barn and possibly the world's cutest library. Little workers cottages mingled with thatched roofs and all the other Cotswolds signatures. Really I don't have enough photos to do it justice (partly because the storm clouds were lingering), but I do recommend going and having a wander about on Google Maps to see all the sights.

The tithe barn - I'm guessing the oldest
building in town. Immaculately converted into
 housing but still looks like an original farm building. 

The library and community centre. Who wouldn't want to read here?

St Mary's was tucked away behind a row of houses (you can see the spire behind the tithe barn), but was no less stunning. For starters, it was HUGE! Easily double the size of any church we have visited on this journey. So big, in fact, that it seemed to have out-grown its churchyard and we struggled to get the whole thing in one photo!

The chancel and north transept.
St Mary's is constructed in a classic
 cruciform layout

The vast wall of the chancel

The tower, with a perfectly-timed sun
emerging from the storm. As with so
 many churches, the tower pre-dates much
 of the rest of the church by a few centuries.

The grandeur did not stop inside, either, and most corners of the church were crammed with ornaments and carvings worthy of a cathedral. Some very informative history boards confirmed our suspicions that although the church site was very old (13th Century), it was invested in and reworked very heavily during the boom in the wool trade that brought huge wealth to certain parts of rural Britain (a sad contrast with today, when a whole fleece fetches barely 80p or so). At the time, there was no better use for that money than building a greater, more magnificent church than your neighbours.

The final proof that St Mary's was indebted to wool was the cute carving of a sheep overlooking the nave!

The nave - spacious. There's another column of
pews both to the left and right

View across both transepts. Columns, arches and
 windows. So much to see!

A trilogy of stained glass

Carvings of the Apostles in the chancel

Ornate misericords (choir seats).
These are actually Victorian,
created to be pews for rich landowners,
 but still damn impressive all the same

I was quite tickled by this little tale

The sheep that made all this possible

A good 'earliest grave' contender.
Not sure if the artwork is contemporary,
but if it is then it's aged incredibly well

And I think I've only shown you about half of the things to see in the interior. There were ancient gargoyles that had been rescued from the roof and the weather, a Norman-era stone slab (locked up safely in the tower), a full set of architectural projections meticulously hand-drawn in the 1950s, and every corner was crammed full of carvings in both stone and wood. If you're going to visit a Twyford, you could do far worse than this one.

But there were still more treats outside. The corbel tables (what we'd probably call a gutter soffit if it was on our house) on all sides were crammed full of carvings representing the everyday people who made the church a joy. Musicians, merchants, hunters, animals: they were all represented. And we finally found a fish!

Drummers and hunters and tame animals...

...contortionists, pipers, and birds....

...clowns and bell-ringers
(the two terms are not mutually exclusive)...

...harpists and lutists, drummers and trumpeters...

...nuns and - hooray - fishermen!

A likely 'oldest grave' in the
(somewhat crowded) churchyard.

After a conveniently-timed rain shower trapped us inside, we also ventured out to find the oldest genuinely-outdoor grave, an impressive 1663 with no named inhabitant but a rather charming little verse...

Sadly, the charming and locally-owned Bell Inn wasn't doing food at lunchtimes, so we headed up to the Red Lion for lunch, via the village shop and a tasty-looking souvenir:

Souvenir on toast, anyone?

After lunch, we went ford-hunting. I had already marked up a likely searching location on the OS map, and the local history page confirmed that the original farmers on the land headed north-east towards the mill, crossing fords as they went, so we drove out and parked by the canal, crossing over the road bridges as we headed towards the mill.

Head down Twyford Road, over the M40 and park at
 Twyford Wharf, which is now a canal-boat rental place

The canal is very pretty, but obviously much too
new for what we're looking for

On our second bridge, we hit the jackpot! A proper, still navigable, still-used ford! Sadly it's not the one over the main river - the Cherwell, which flows into Oxford to meet the Thames (the 'Isis' if you're pretentious). But even so, I was inexplicably pleased with this - it felt like by far the most 'real' ford we had found thus far.

A proper ford!

What's this...?

I'll use the bridge for now
though, thanks...

The old mill building, and likely second ford in front

One thing that is impressed us is how the area has retained its history. The 'mill' site is still used for grain storage, in modern silos of course, and the old mill building still stands in between the silos and an Volvo commercial vehicle site, as a reminder of the legacy of the place. Just in front is what I strongly suspect is the second ford, over the Cherwell. But sadly there was no public access into this field to check. Google Earth is pretty convincing though:

If that's not a ford, then I'm a corbel carving of a contortionist.

This was an all-round thoroughly satisfying Twyford, despite its original unprepossessing appearance, and we only had a half-hour drive to reach our next destination: Twyford, Buckinghamshire.