Absolute Touring

Church of St. John The Baptist, Burford

• Beautiful town whose wide main street runs down the hill to the three-arched packhorse bridge over the River Windrush (packhorse bridges are so called, because they have very low sides. The 'pack' horses would be laden with wool and sheepskins: if the bridges had sides the horses would not have been able to get across).
• Burford was first established over 1200 years ago. As with many places in the Cotswolds, its prosperity derived from the wool trade, which flourished from the 14th to 17th centuries
• High Street contains all manner of houses, shops and inns, some dating from the 15th century. The Tolsey, now a museum, was built in 1600: it was used to collect tolls, rents and market dues.
• Burford church, dating from the 15th-century and earlier, is magnificent and its spire can be seen for miles around. The striking memorial to King Henry VIII's barber, Edmund Harman, shows four Amazonian Indians, said to be the first representation of Native Americans in England
• In May 1649 at the end of the English Civil War, 340 'Levellers' were rounded up and imprisoned in Burford Church by Oliver Cromwell and his men. Carvings from the incarcerated soldiers and the bullet holes of the three executed ring leaders can still be seen.

Back to Location List

Approx 30 minutes west of Oxford