Diuma, a wandering Celtic evangelist who probably died at Charlbury on 7th December 658 A.D., first brought the Christian faith to this district. Christianity spread through the neighbouring villages during Saxon times. After the Norman conquest, Ernulf de Hesdin appointed Theodard, a Fleming, as his chaplain; Theodard may be reckoned the first Rector of this parish. In 1081, Ernulf and his wife granted Norton church to the Abbey of St Peter in Gloucester; the Dean and Chapter of Gloucester Cathedral are still the patrons of the parish and nominate the vicar. A violent dispute took place in 1293 between William of Cherington and Richard of Gloucester as to which of them was the rightful rector of the parish. William threw Richard out of his house and seized its contents. Richard appealed to the king who decided in favour of William, one of his senior officials.


Chipping Norton flourished as a wool town in the fifteenth century. Wealthy merchants of the Guild of the Holy Trinity gave Chipping Norton a Guildhall, Grammar School and almshouses and rebuilt the parish church. Six priests, three of whom served chantry chapels where masses were said for the souls of the departed, staffed the church in Henry VIII’s reign, but under his son, Edward VI, all chantries were closed down. There was widespread local resistance to the changes, and when the new English Prayer Book was introduced, Henry Joyce, the vicar, helped to lead the Oxfordshire Rising against it in 1549. As a punishment, Henry Joyce was hanged in chains from the church tower until he died.


John Norgrove was instituted vicar in 1626, and endeared himself to his parishioners by his conscientious pastoral care. He was ejected in the 1650s, but his family settled here and he continued to live in the town until his death in 1659. In his place, Stephen Ford, a learned and devout Puritan, was installed as minister. Unwilling to accept the restoration of the Prayer Book in 1662, Stephen Ford resigned and led a large part of his congregation away to form a dissenting Independent church in the town, the forerunner of the present Baptist Church. No new vicar was appointed until 1683.


From 1663 to 1676 the pastoral care of the town was in the hands of a Curate, Edmund Hall, who had himself been a Puritan. His sermons, we are told, contained many odd and whimsical passages, and his gestures in the pulpit caused the youthful members of the congregation to laugh and imitate him. The next vicar from 1683 to 1721 was Edward Redrobe, who made generous contributions to the town’s charities. The stipend of a vicar of Chipping Norton was low, so in the eighteenth century the Dean of Gloucester had difficulty in finding a suitable person to accept the parish. When Thomas Evans, an unpopular vicar, died in 1808, the Dean appointed Richard Skillern, but within a few years Skillern moved away from the town leaving the church without a satisfactory ministry for another seventeen years.


Francis Harris, vicar from 1866, began to appoint curates from the Anglo-Catholic wing of the church, who introduced several new practices and ceremonies into the services. This led to a confrontation between the clergy and the townspeople, that ended with Francis Harris’s resignation in 1886.


During the challenging days of the twentieth century, the church benefited from the wise and godly ministry of six vicars: Godfrey Littledale, Henry Arkell, Kenneth Thomas, Richard Jeans, Tony Wharton and Tom Curtis. Today, we have a happy and united congregation, led by Stephen Weston, our Team Rector and his ministry team.