Memorials & the Churchyard

There are some interesting memorials ranging from the late 15th century to 1978. On the wall between the pulpit and the chancel are most of those to the Coker family who owned Bicester House from 1584 to 1978; one or two others are elsewhere in the church. Several brasses include one of 1498 to William Staveley and his wife; two others commemorate the Hunt family who came from Lancashire in the 16th century; a lady in Tudor costume was probably the wife of one of them; the companion brass of her husband was stolen some years ago. The famous sculptors Delvaux and Scheemakers created the imposing bust of Sir Thomas Grantham (d. 1718) which looks down from the North wall of the nave flanked by weeping cherubs. In the choir vestry is a large mid-18th century monument to Sir Edward Turner and his wife Dame Cassandra; Turner was twice M.P., once (1754) for Oxfordshire. In the chancel is a 17th century marble tablet, showing five small skulls, a memorial to the children of the Reverend Samuel Blackwell; it reminds the careful reader that until 1752 the new year began on March 25th; so that John Blackwell born in April 1681 and dying in February 1681 was a few days short of ten months old and the carver did not make a mistake! A tablet to Robert Jemmett (d. 1736) on a pillar in the South transept describes him as “Sole giver of the Branch in this church”. This refers to the brass chandelier which hung in the nave until the 19th century restoration.

The Churchyard

The original churchyard is no longer used for burials and many of the headstones have been taken up and placed round the outside of the church. As the visitor moves on into the cemetery he may notice a gradual increase in the average age of those buried there. Three memorials are unusually interesting. At the back of the old churchyard the sixty-four victims of the cholera epidemic of 1832 are commemorated. Beside the gate that leads into Piggy Lane are buried two of the French nuns who took refuge in Bicester in 1902 after the separation of church from state, when the monasteries had been taken over by the state and their members expelled. These nuns were Benedictines from Olivet, a small town near Orléans. Their chapel in Priory Road was used by the local Catholics until the present church was built. They ran a school for little girls, leaving the town when their order became an enclosed one. Those who read French may be interested in a spelling mistake on the later headstone. “Ci-git” (here lies) has been rendered “Ci-jit”.