Combe

Extract from Discovering Wychwood by Charles Keighley

Just north of the River Evenlode, 5 km (3 miles) west of Woodstock. From the Celtic cumb, meaning 'at the valley'. The parish dips steeply south to the river. Some suggest the village moved up from the valley to its present site in the Middle Ages. St Laurence Church was rebuilt by Eynsham Abbey in 1395 and has been little altered, broad and simple with some interesting wall paintings.

There is a village green, where Combe Feast is held on the second Sunday in August, with a fair on Monday and Tuesday following.

• The Cock Inn, with bar meals. Combe Stores.
• Combe Mill, 1 mile SE towards Long Hanborough, is Blenheim's saw mill. Its 19th-century beam steam engine runs from time to time in the summer as a public display.
• Very few trains to and from Oxford stop at Combe Station, near the mill.
• Woodland is a dominant feature of the local landscape, including Notoaks Wood west of the village and copses in the Evenlode valley.
• Limestone grassland and scrub, especially near the railway and to the west of the parish, contain characteristic species such as clustered bellflower, thyme, cowslip and marjoram, and support populations of small blue butterfly and marbled white butterfly.
• Access to remnants of ancient wood pasture in the west of Blenheim Park via Combe Gate.

Further information about St Laurence. The present church dates from the late c12th, although there was a church in the village before this time. The nave dates from c1390, is in the Perpendicular style and is very wide; there are no aisles.

Wall paintings cover some of the walls. In particular, there is a well preserved Last Judgement over the chancel arch. Other paintings include a Crucifixion, which has been repainted, the Ten Commandments, flanked by Moses and Aaron, and the Creed. The paintings date mostly from the c15th and were painted over during the reformation, only to be re-discovered in 1892 by the Revd. Stephen Pearce.