Churches of the British Isles

St Thomas Becket opened for worship in 1798. Unfortunately it quickly gained the reputation of being the ugliest church in the county. It was superseded in 1903 by yet another new church, Holy Trinity, on another site for unspecified reasons (maybe as St Thomas was also on the edge of the village). It was demolished in April 1913, apart from its tower which still serves as a mortuary chapel. A stone in the graveyard marks the site of the Shirley transept, 1800-1913.

Holy Trinity & St Thomas of Canterbury, Ettington, is positioned on the south-western side of Halford Road as it merges with Banbury Road, and is the village's third (and still current) church. When it was decided after just a century that the second church, St Thomas Becket, was to be replaced, a fresh site was selected upon which to construct Holy Trinity. The work was completed in in 1903, in the fourteenth century style using glorious yellow-hued stone.

The church consists of a chancel, north tower and organ chamber, south vestry, and nave. The walls are of Bourton stone. The tower contains four bells, three of which are from the old church. Two of these date to 1595 by Edward Newcombe, and the other is from 1624 by R Purdue of Bristol. The fourth bell, a tenor, was recast in 1803. In the precinct of the present church stands the village war memorial, a small granite cross bearing the names of twenty-five fallen.

All photos on this page kindly contributed by Aidan McRae Thomson.