St Helen's Church

St Helen's sits where the River Ock meets the Thames, surrounded by almshouses that frame one of the most photogenic spots in Oxfordshire. The church itself is unusual: it has been expanded sideways rather than lengthened, giving it five parallel aisles and that broad, hall-like interior that English churches almost never have.

The painted ceiling of around 1390 is the great treasure — bring binoculars or use the church's mirror, since craning your neck is the only other way to see it. Outside, Long Alley Almshouses (1446) and Twitty's Almshouses (1707) form a quiet courtyard between the church and the river, and the small lawn beside the porch is the start of the riverside walk along the Thames.

things to do sight church
A story
St Helen's is one of the very few English churches that is wider than it is long — five aisles span 33 metres of nave but only about 30 metres of length. The fourteenth-century painted ceiling in the inner north aisle, showing kings, prophets, and the Tree of Jesse, is one of the oldest surviving wooden church ceilings in the country.