Church of St Mary, Banbury

St Mary's Church was built in the 1790s to replace the Medieval one damaged during the English Civil War. The church was designed by Samuel Pepys Cockerell, with a tower and portico added by Charles Robert Cockerell in 1818 to 1822. The inside of the church was re-ordered in the 1860s and 1870s by the then vicar Henry Back, an Anglo-Catholic, to make it more suitable for Eucharistic worship. He commissioned Arthur Blomfield to oversee the re-ordering and to decorate the church in a Byzantine style. It was during this time that stained-glass windows designed by Robert Turnill Bayne (1837 1915) were added, including one depicting The Parable of the Talents.

St Mary's Church stands in the central tradition of the Church of England. It is a member of Inclusive Church. This agreement ended by the time of the 2019 vacancy. The church's Resurrection Chapel is home to one of the 84 Lamps of Brotherhood that were made after World War II as a sign of reconciliation between nations.