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]
Parish church
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]
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]
