Compton Bassett Church
Compton Bassett church was standing in the late 12th century. Although it was given then to Bicester priory, which received an income from it until the Dissolution, the living was a rectory in the earlier 13th century and remained one. Inhabitants of Compton Bassett may have been buried at Calne before Compton Bassett church was built, and a claim to oblations on the burial of parishioners of Compton Bassett was only given up by the owner of the revenues of Calne church, then the treasurer of Salisbury cathedral, in 1228. In 1983 the rectory was united to the benefice of Oldbury to form a new Oldbury benefice.

Under an agreement of 1220 × 1228 with Bicester priory, the bishop of Salisbury was to hold the advowson of the rectory. In 1265 and in the 17th and 18th centuries the lord of Compton Bassett manor claimed it, but no lord of the manor is known to have presented. On the few occasions on which the bishop did not collate, presentations were presumably made by grants of a turn: Andrew Blunt presented a rector in 1337, as did the prior of Bicester in 1432 and Nicholas Snell in 1552. In 1968 the advowson was conveyed by exchange to the Crown, which was not, however, a member of the patronage board set up for the new Oldbury benefice in 1983.

Presumably because Bicester priory took some of the church's revenues, the rectory was among the poorer livings of Avebury deanery in 1291, when it was valued at £5. The rector's income was possibly reduced c. 1381, when tithes may have been granted to the vicar of Calne, but at £13 6s. 9½d. it was above average for the deanery in 1535, Bicester priory's portion having been commuted to a pension of £4. About 1830 the rectory was valued at £497 and was among the wealthier livings of the diocese.

From between 1220 and 1228 the rector was entitled to all tithes from the parish except two thirds of the grain tithes. In 1535 he evidently received all the tithes except those taken by the vicar of Calne, and in 1838 took all tithes from 2,542 a. of the parish; by 1838 the tithes from the 228 a. of Cowage had been replaced by a modus of £1 6s. 8d. The rector's tithes and the modus were valued at £576 in 1838 and commuted in 1839. Land was assigned to the rector between 1220 and 1228, and in 1341 he held a messuage and 2 yardlands. In the later 17th century and the early 18th the glebe included c. 19 a. of meadows, c. 32 a. of arable, and pasture for 60 sheep. The arable and pasture rights were replaced at inclosure in 1725, and in 1838 the rector had 46 a.; 36 a. was sold in 1922 and 8 a. in 1924.

There were two houses on the glebe in 1671. The rectory house was said to need repair in 1783, and to be fit for residence c. 1832. In 1842 a large new house, incorporating part of the old, was built of stone in a 16th-century style. It was sold in 1968.

Robert Holghan, rector 1414-32, also held livings in Ireland and perhaps lived there. William Eyre, rector from 1641, assisted the commission for ejecting scandalous clergy in the 1650s and was a Congregationalist minister. He was succeeded in or before 1650 by James Nisbett, a Scot, who was succeeded in 1653 by John Frayling.

In 1662 either Frayling or Eyre was deprived for nonconformity, and the church then had no cover for the communion table and no carpet, surplice, or parish chest. Charles Moss, rector 1743-50, was later bishop of St. David's and of Bath and Wells. In the later 18th century and the early 19th the rectory was sometimes held in plurality and the church was often served by a curate. In 1783 one service was held each Sunday in winter, two each Sunday in summer; additional services were held on Ash Wednesday, Good Friday, and Easter Monday.

Communion was celebrated at Easter, Whitsun, and Christmas, and was received usually by 16 parishioners; the rector was sometimes absent and the curate, who lived at Calne, also served Yatesbury. In 1851 the rector refused to answer the questions asked in the ecclesiastical census, considering them likely to produce deceptive results.

In 1864 his successor, who apparently had no curate, held a morning and an afternoon service each Sunday; services were also held on Wednesdays and Fridays in Lent, on Christmas Day, Good Friday, and Ash Wednesday, and at the feasts of the Circumcision (1st January), the Ascension, and All Saints (1st November).

The average congregation was 170; communion, celebrated 15 times, was received by c. 40 parishioners at festivals, 30 on other occasions. From 1968 there was no resident incumbent. The living was held in plurality with Hilmarton and Highway benefice 1968-78, and as part of the new Oldbury benefice Compton Bassett was served by a group ministry from 1983.

St. Swithun’s church, so called in 1763, is built of rubble and freestone and has an aisled chancel with north vestry, an aisled and clerestoried nave with north porch, and a west tower. Of the 12th-century nave, part of the west wall survives. The north aisle was added to the nave in the late 12th century, the south aisle in the early 13th; the chancel, partly rebuilt in the early 13th century, remained small. The walls of the aisles were rebuilt, probably on their original lines, in the 15th century; that of the south aisle may have been rebuilt again in the 18th. Also in the 15th century the tower and the clerestory were built, the chancel arch was enlarged, and an ornate stone screen with rood loft and integrated pulpit was erected. A medieval north porch was rebuilt apparently in the 18th century and again in the later 19th. In 1865-6 the chancel was replaced by one, with the aisles and the vestry, designed by Henry Woodyer.

In 1553 plate weighing 2 oz. was taken for the king, and a 9-oz. chalice was left in the church. In the later 19th century the church had a chalice with a paten cover hallmarked for 1638 and a paten and a flagon each hallmarked for 1700. Those and other smaller items of plate were held for the church in 1994.

Three bells hung in the church in 1553. One of them, possibly cast by John Walgrave c. 1420, a bell of 1603 cast by John Wallis, and three bells of 1621 perhaps by the Purdue family hung there in 1994. In 1983 the ring was increased to six by a bell cast in that year by John Taylor & Co. of Loughborough Leicestershire.