Architectural evidence shows that there was a church in Wick Rissington by the 12th century. In 1227 the advowson belonged to the estate held by the heirs of Hugh de Cuillardeville. When Paulinus of Theydon gave the rest of the estate to his brother he evidently retained the advowson, for it later belonged to Paulinus's successors as lords of Little Rissington manor. The record of the consecration by the Bishop of Worcester in 1269 of a church of Wick in honour of St. Lawrence presumably refers to Wick Rissington, since there is no other likely church; Wick Rissington church, however, though rebuilt at that period, had been standing for many years by then.
The right of presentation to the rectory was exercised by the lords of Little Rissington manor up to 1529. After that manor had passed in 1540 to the Crown, however, the advowson was not alienated with it, and successive rectors were presented by the Crown and the Lord Chancellor until c. 1870. Then the new owner of Wick Rissington manor acquired the advowson, which descended with the manor until c. 1935 when it passed to the Diocesan Board of Patronage.
The living was valued at £4 6s. 8d. a year in 1291, and at £16 2s. 6d. clear in 1535. In 1650 it was valued at £80, and the increase was perhaps due in part to the enlargement of the glebe from 13 a. in 1535 to three yardlands at the end of the 16th century. The total value had risen to c. £150 a dozen years after inclosure under the Act of 1729, as a result of which the endowment of the living included 76 a. of land and rent-charges of £84. The value of the living rose to over £200 in the mid-19th century.
In 1301, during the minority of an heir to the advowson, the Crown presented Adam de Brome, a royal clerk and one of the founders of Oriel College, Oxford. The next two rectors were both licensed to be absent. Adam of Witchford, rector 1323–34, served as chaplain to his patron, Aline Burnell. It may have been the non-residence of successive rectors that stimulated Thomas le Spencer to grant land, in 1331, for the support of a chaplain. This chantry, called Our Lady's service, survived in 1547 when its income was 36s. 6d.; there was then, however, no chaplain. In the early 15th century there were frequent changes of rector, but from 1436 to 1474 the rector was John Wakefield, who may have made some of the alterations in the church though clearly he was not, as has been stated, responsible for its building.
The rector instituted in 1529 put the living to farm, and left the parish in the care of a curate. His successor, Henry Bassingbourne, had been Prior of Woodbridge (Suff.) and in 1548 was said to have allowed the parsonage to decay, to have celebrated neither mass nor matins for a fortnight, and to pass his time in an ale-house in Bourton-on-the-Water; in 1551 he was enjoined to correct himself and to preach more often. The next rector was deprived in 1553 for marrying; four of the next five after him were pluralists, and two at least were non-resident. The succession of not wholly satisfactory rectors culminated with Robert Knollys, rector 1614–41, who also held the livings of Hampnett and Bibury, and against whom his parishioners of Wick Rissington alleged that he had neither read prayers nor prayed in their church for five years, employed the cheapest curates he could get, and was thus responsible for the lack of services, sermons, and spiritual consolation for the dying. In the late 17th century and for most of the 18th and early 19th pluralist or absentee rectors appointed curates for the parish. The last but one of such curates was William John Deane (1823–95), the theological writer, and the last nonresident rector was George Leigh Cooke (d. 1853), Sedleian professor of natural philosophy at Oxford. From 1853 the rectors were normally resident, but unlike most other parishes Wick Rissington had no rector that remained more than 20 years. From the Second World War the livings of Wick Rissington and Little Rissington were held jointly, as they were in 1962, though there was no formal union of the parishes or the benefices.
The church of ST. LAWRENCE is built of ashlar and rubble with a Cotswold stone roof, and comprises chancel, nave, north aisle, north porch, and west tower. The church is remarkable for its 13th century work, which survives with little change in the chancel and tower. Traces of a corbel-table in the north and south walls of the nave and the massiveness of the walls of the tower (nine feet thick at the bottom) indicate the 12th-century origin of the fabric. The chancel and tower were rebuilt in the mid-13th century. Later changes in the building, apart from minor changes in the chancel, cannot be traced until the 19th century. The church was described c. 1700 as 'one entire aisle', which suggests that the nave and chancel roofs were continuous. The church, said to be in excellent repair in 1828, was enlarged in 1822, when proprietary north and south transepts were added, and in 1836. The work in 1836 may have included the blocking of the 12th century north doorway, the removal of mullions and tracery from the south windows of the nave, and the further lowering of the nave roof, for up to 1879 it was lower than that of the chancel, which had a western corbie-gable. The church was extensively altered in 1879, under the direction of J. E. K. Cutts. The transepts were removed; the nave was thoroughly restored, its roof-line being raised to the steep pitch of an earlier roof marked on the east wall of the tower; the north aisle was built, with a lean-to roof; a new north doorway was opened; and a porch was added, with a door to the aisle through a re-used 12th-century arch that was the original north doorway.
The chancel is lit by two pairs of tall lancets in the east wall and by two windows in each of the north and south walls. The north windows are lancets in deeply splayed openings; the south windows were originally similar, but have been replaced by a 14th- and a 15th-century window, each of two lights with tracery. Both internally and externally the windows, together with a small south doorway, are drawn into a coherent design by continuous string-courses, which are somewhat interrupted by the new work to the windows on the south. The treatment of the east end is particularly elaborate. Pairs of small buttresses ornament rather than support the angles, each pair of lancets is surmounted by a concave lozenge-shaped light, and near the apex of the gable is a plain lozenge-shaped light, once filled with masonry; the upper and lower string-courses are carried round these various features. Internally the upper string-course forms a sort of arcading, and the lower is connected with two piscina niches (one trefoil-headed with rich moulding and a scalloped bowl), two aumbries, and four other recesses, of which one contains a rectangular stone tank with drain. Below, stone benching survives along the south and much of the north wall. The chancel has a medieval trussed rafter roof; in the windows are a few fragments of 14th-century coloured glass.
The tower is of four stages separated by stringcourses; the western angles have buttresses to the two lower stages similar in style to those of the chancel. To the first stage there is an external west door, to the second a tall single-light west window with a stringcourse around the arch and extending across the west face of the tower. The third and fourth stages are each stepped back; on each face of both, except the east face of the third stage, is a single louvred light. The parapet is pierced by trefoil openings, and the angle pinnacles repeat the style of the buttresses.
The tub-shaped font of c. 1200 was for many years buried in the churchyard. In the chancel are 12 carved wooden plaques, found c. 1890 at Wick Hill, depicting scenes from the life of Christ; they are thought to be Flemish, and of the 16th century. The altar-table stands on a stone slab that was once the top of a medieval altar and was subsequently used as a memorial floor-slab; part of a carved and coped stone coffin lid is reset in the porch. In the tower are four bells: there were four c. 1700 and in 1828, but in 1844 only three were recast; a fourth was added in 1888. The plate includes a chalice, paten, and flagon of the 18th century. The organ bears an inscription recording that Gustav Holst (d. 1934) played on it as parish organist in 1892 and 1893. The registers begin in 1739.
In or before the 17th century land that produced £2 a year c. 1700 was given for the repair of the church. The land, known as Clerk's mead, was just under 3 a. and produced £7 a year in 1828, and £8 10s. a year in 1962.