ver the centuries St Andrew's Parish Church has been visited by many distinguished and famous people. In our own day we continue to have celebrities calling in at our Church for the sacraments and for other great events. Over the centuries St Andrew's has served Oxford well. It has provided a platform for distinguished writers such as C S Lewis and J R R Tolkein as well as affording an opportunity for great preachers like John Henry Newman and Pusey.

In the ancient churchyard we have one of the most famous epitaphs in the country. It refers to a person who lived at the time of the English Civil War and who lived to be 100 years old. His name was John Young.

Here lieth John
Who to ye King did belong.
He lived to be old
and yet died Young.

King Ethelred the Unready is thought to have been christened here in the Tenth Century. King Henry 1st died in 1135 and was perhaps the last King to reside in the Parish. Prior to the building of Westminster Abbey, the royal village of Headington was an annual retreat for the Court.

Our written records of baptisms begin on 14 April 1678 when William Drinkwall's daughter, Maria, was christened. Ten days later Maria Howard was baptised "the daughter of a single woman". There were 15 christenings recorded in that year, four named Maria, four Ann, three Thomas, a John, William, Edward and a George.

The first recorded burial is of John Morris' wife, Catherine, on 11 May 1678. Our earliest marriage records seem to have been lost, but some early entries were copied so that Randall and Mary Fell's marriage of 10 June 1598 becomes our earliest entry.

People would have received the sacraments of the Church at St Andrews for centuries before books were introduced and registers of baptisms, marriages and deaths became compulsory.

We have a fascinating East window in the Lady Chapel purchased by the pennies of the poor. It refers to a smallpox epidemic in the Parish, avoided by those who could afford to move away and which claimed the life of a faithful Assistant Curate who stayed behind to care for the poor of the area.

A member of the family of Sir Hugh Pluggenait, a Knight from Brittany who was Lord of this Manor in 1142, was miraculously cured of blindness and deafness and paralysis. Sir Hugh bestowed a lamp to burn perpetually before the Altar in thanksgiving to God. It still burns today (by electricity) and marks a place where the Holy Sacrament is reserved for emergencies.

Ancient wall paintings in the south aisle survived until 1864 when they were recorded by the son of the then architect, Mr Butler. Even now, green, blue and red pigments from the Middle Ages appear on the sides of the Norman Arch at particular times of the year. The Church must have been a riot of colour!

Our Parish Church is in proud possession of a silver gilt chalice and pattern for administering Holy Communion. The pattern is dated 1634 and the chalice 1701; both of these handsome vessels are hallmarked and are inscribed "Headington Parrish" (sic).

The Vicar's daughter painted a beautiful watercolour of our Church in 1859. It shows how the Church looked before the 19th Century additions to the Nave.