Heyford was held by Edwin, the son of a Saxon thegn. William the Conqueror granted the land to the powerful Geoffrey de Montbray, bishop of Coutances. The manor passed through various hands until 1533 when Sir Edward Baynton sold it to Corpus Christi College, Oxford. Corpus Christi College still owned the estate in the 1950s. Churches Church of England Wufwig, Bishop of Dorchester consecrated a parish church at Lower Heyford in the 11th century. The current Church of England parish church of Saint Mary was built in the 13th century. It was largely rebuilt in a Decorated Gothic style in the first half of the 14th century, with north and south aisles joined to the nave by two-bay arcades. The east end of the south aisle is a chapel with niches for statues or figurative reliefs. In the 15th century the Perpendicular Gothic clerestory and south porch were added, and a rood screen with a rood loft for which a stair turret was inserted in the south aisle. An opening high in the wall west of the south arcade suggests that the nave once had a west gallery. This has been removed, as has the rood and rood loft, but the 15th-century wooden screen to the chancel survives. The building was twice restored in the 19th century: first in 1848 under the direction of Henry Jones Underwood, and then in 1867–68 directed by Charles Buckeridge. It is a Grade II* listed building. In the reign of Edward VI the west tower had a ring of four bells. It now has a ring of six, of which the second and fourth were cast in 1766 by Matthew III Bagley of Chacombe, Northamptonshire. W&J Taylor cast the fifth bell in 1825, presumably at their then foundry in Oxford. Mears and Stainbank of the Whitechapel Bell Foundry cast the tenor bell in 1867 and the treble and third bells in 1925. The church is said to have had a 17th-century clock that was made in 1695 and removed during the 1867–68 restoration. St Mary's is now part of the Benefice of Cherwell Valley along with five other parishes: Ardley, Fritwell, Somerton, Souldern and Upper Heyford. Quakers and Methodists In the latter part of the 17th century Lower Heyford had also a Quaker congregation. Lower Heyford had a Methodist congregation by 1804, which soon had a chapel in the village and eventually became part