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Sunningwell is an ancient settlement in a fold of the slopes which lead down from Boars Hill towards Abingdon. Its name reveals its origins. The ‘well’ is the pond still to be seen at the centre of the village: it is fed by an underground spring warm enough to prevent it from ever freezing. ‘Sunning’ preserves the memory of an early Saxon clan led by a certain Sunna, evidently important in the Thames valley, since they also founded Sonning, Sunningdale and -hill and Sunbury, which are grouped near one another many miles downstream. Legend has it that Sunningwell formed the original site of the Benedictine monastery which was then relocated beside the river at Abingdon. At all events the village became part of the extensive lands of the abbey throughout the Middle Ages.
The only survival from that period is the church. The present building is mainly fifteenth-century, in the perpendicular style, though parts of the chancel are earlier. The fine tower, newly restored, and with a good peal of six bells, is typical of that period, but it stands on the site of another where Friar Bacon, the scientific genius of medieval Oxford, is said to have studied and conducted astronomical experiments two hundred years before. Inside the church (which is usually open for visitors during daylight hours) note the fine contemporary roofs and the prominent ‘poppy-head’ bench-ends, worn by the touch of generations of worshippers.
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