My initial impression when I turned into Burford High Street was that I wasn't going to like the place. The town itself is very attractive, but part of the attraction of Cotswold towns is their evocation of the past, and it is difficult to evoke the past effectively when the present is rumbling by in a cloud of diesel. The main A40 route from Oxford to Cheltenham now bypasses the town (it was once a busy coaching stop with many travellers' inns) but there is still too much traffic for a beautiful place like this.
Once I had persuaded myself to ignore the traffic I found myself liking Burford a great deal. Sheep Street is one of the finest mixtures of buildings in the Cotswolds, mostly from the 16th. and 17th. centuries, but some are older. The architecture is less "pure" than many Cotswold towns, Burford being on the eastern edge of the Cotswolds, but unless you are a student of architectural history you are unlikely to care whether a 16th. C building is "quintessentially Cotswold". I liked the variety.
This is a town for the window shopper. Not all Cotswold towns are; some are still market towns with functional shops, and in others it is impossible to buy a teapot unless it is a Derby teapot with a gilt ring handle, painted with cornflowers, finial restuck, crossed batons and D mark in puce, c.1795 and retailing for £350. Burford is somewhere between the extremes, and has a wide mixture of antique, high-quality gift and fashion clothing shops.
The Church of St. John the Baptist is worth a visit. Begun c.1175, it has had much rebuilding since, particularly in the 15th. C. It was this church which prompted William Morris to found the Society for the Preservation of Ancient Buildings when he visited Burford in 1876 and found the vicar "restoring" the church by scraping off the medieval plaster. The vicar's response to Morris was "This church, sir, is mine, and if I choose to, I shall stand on my head in it."
The church has a pagan carving c.100 A.D. in the south wall of the tower, and a monument to Edmund Harman (1569) which includes one of the earliest European representations of Amazonian Indians, who had recently been discovered (and prior to that had no idea who or where they were). It also has a carving in the lead of the Norman font: "Anthony Sedley 1649 Prisner". In that year a group of 800 troopers in Oliver Cromwell's Parliamentary Army mutinied at Salisbury, protesting over their conditions of service. They travelled north, hoping to meet up with other groups, and spent the night of the 14th. of May at Burford. Cromwell and Fairfax, the commander in chief, caught up with them and captured 340 troopers who were locked up in the church. On the following day three ringleaders were shot in the churchyard, and a fourth was made to preach a sermon, which he did "howling and weeping like a crocodile".
Another point of interest in the Church is the abominable monument to Sir Lawrence and Lady Tanfield, dated 1628. Sir Lawrence was Chief Baron of the Exchequer during the reign of Elizabeth I and a very powerful man, but he so enraged the people of Burford with his high-handedness over his rights as Lord of the Manor that he was burned in effigy on May Day in the High Street for over 200 years. You only have to take one look at the memorial erected by his widow and you will agree instantly that they should have been burned in effigy as a couple. She took over St. Catherine's Chapel in the Church without permission and filled it with a huge and unsightly monument over his tomb. It includes her pious and self-righteous eulogy to a man who was universally considered to be corrupt and greedy, so corrupt that his pernicious influence on the local government of Burford lasted until it was rooted out by a Royal Commission in the 19th. century.
The monument should be carefully dismantled with a sledge hammer and relocated to the bottom of a mineshaft - I am constantly dismayed by the way in which places of worship and beauty throughout England have been transformed into gloomy mausoleums for the wealthy dead.
It is worth crossing the ancient bridge over the River Windrush (see also Bourton-on-the-Water). The nooks provided for pedestrians to duck into in the days of horse and cart are still useful with 40 ton lorries taking it in turn to cross the single-lane bridge. There are peaceful water meadows on the far side of the river where you can have a picnic and dangle your tired feet in the water.
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Burford isn't boaring, despite this garden statuary overflowing across
the pavement in the High Street. 
The River Windrush viewed from the medieval bridge. 
The 15th. C Lamb Inn in Sheep Street. 
A cock-eyed cottage on The Hill. Check the angle of the upper window on
the left. Return to Contents
In most cases further details can be found in Things to See.
The Tolsey Museum in the High Street, a local history museum.
The Taynton Quarries. This isn't a place for the whistle-stop tourist, but it is a place of great importance in Cotswold history. Some of the finest building stone came from quarries near the village of Taynton, a few miles from Buford, and was used in great public buildings all over England by architects such as Sir Christopher Wren.
The Cotswold Wildlife Park.
Burford House Hotel is a period hotel situated in the heart of Burford.
Cotswold View Guesthouse,
centrally located between Stow-on-the-Wold and Burford deep in the
Cotswold countryside.
The Mill at Burford is a selection of self-catering apartments located in period mill buildings on the River Windrush.
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Copyright Digital Brilliance 1995