Downton Abbey Connection: The Church of Saint Mary the Virgin , Bampton
The Church of Saint Mary the Virgin, Bampton This evening, I am posting information on an Anglican church in Oxfordshire, England which in recent times has experienced a big uplift in visitors due to the church featuring in scenes, including weddings, of the T.V. series Downton Abbey . Bampton is located about forty miles north of Highclere Castle , aka Downton Abbey. Bampton is an Old English name which translates as 'farmstead made of beams or by a tree'. This church welcomes visitors and is normally open during daylight hours throughout the year. Norman-era chevron carvings around arch. A brief history of the Church (as sourced from the Church's website). Lies at the centre of an ancient parish within an Anglo-Saxon royal estate and on the site of a late Anglo-Saxon Minster from 950 or earlier. The parish was the largest in Oxfordshire and incorporated some 11,238 acres as late as 1877. Evidence suggests that there was a church on the site much before the Norman Conqu...