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Burford in Oxford County England History and GeographyBURFORD, a parish in the hundred of BAMPTON, county of OXFORD, comprising the market town of Burford, and the hamlet of Upton with Signet, and containing 1686 inhabitants, of which number, 1409 are in the town of Burford, 18½ miles (W.N.W.) from Oxford, and 73 (W.N.W.) from London, on the road from Oxford to Cheltenham. This place is of considerable antiquity, and was by the Saxons called Beorford, of which its present name is a variation. In 685, an ecclesiastical synod was held here, by the kings Ethelred and Berthwald, at which Aldhelm, Bishop of Sherburn, was ordered to write against the error of the British church respecting Easter. In 752, a battle was fought at Battle-edge, a little westward from the town, between Ethelbald, King of Mercia, and Cuthred, King of the West Saxons, who had revolted against his authority, in which Ethelbald was defeated, and the royal standard, bearing the device of a golden dragon, captured. This event was commemorated by an annual festival on Midsummereve, for several ages, when the inhabitants paraded the streets, bearing the figures of a dragon and a giant. Soon after the Conquest, the town was bestowed on Robert, Earl of Gloucester, natural son of Henry I. In 1649, an encounter took place between Fairfax and the royalists, when the former was victorious. The town is pleasantly situated on the banks of the small river Windrush; the houses are indifferently built, but the inhabitants are well supplied with water. Races were formerly held here, but they have been long discontinued. The making of saddles, and a considerable trade in malt and wool, that formerly flourished, have much declined; this added to the diversion of the line of road, which now avoids the town instead of passing through it as before, has reduced it from a flourishing condition to a state of comparative poverty. The market is on Saturday: fairs are held on the last Saturday in April, for cattle, sheep, and cheese; July 5th, for horses; and September 25th, for horses, sheep and cheese. A charter was granted by Henry II., conferring on the inhabitants ';all customs enjoyed by the free burgesses of Oxford,' of many of which they were deprived by Lord Chief Justice Tanfield, in the reign of Elizabeth. They are entitled to elect an alderman, a steward, two bailiffs, and twelve burgesses, at Easter, but of late years these officers have not been regularly appointed; they do not possess magisterial authority, the town being wholly within the jurisdiction of the county magistrates, who hold here a petty session for the division of the county: a court leet and a court baron are also held. The living is a discharged vicarage with the curacy of Falbrook, in the archdeaconry and diocese of Oxford, rated in the king's books at £31. 13., and in the patronage of the Bishop of Oxford. The church, dedicated to St. John the Baptist, is a spacious structure, exhibiting a mixture of the Norman and the later style of English architecture, with a tower surmounted by a beautiful spire. At the west entrance is a very fine Norman arch; and the south porch, which is in the later English style, is exquisitely rich. There are places of worship for Baptists, the Society of Friends, and Wesleyan Methodists. The free school was founded by Simon Wisdom, aiderman of this town, in 1571, who assigned property for its endowment, which, with subsequent benefactions, produces £84 per annum: it affords instruction in English grammar writing, and arithmetic, to all boys resident within the parish. An apartment over the school-room is used as the town-hall, where the assizes for the county were held in 1636. Two school-wardens are annually appointed by the corporation. John Wilmot, the celebrated earl of Rochester, received the rudiments of his education in this school. The Great Almshouse was founded in 1457, by the Earl and Countess of Warwick, for eight poor widows. Wisdom's almshouse was founded before 1628, for four widows: the inmates of both almshouses receive, in addition, certain allowances derived from lands and tenements devised for their benefit, under the direction of feoffees. Four messuages were assigned for almshouses in 1726, by the will of Dr. John Castle, for four aged widows, with a small endowment. There are also various charitable endowments, the principal of which are, Church estate, which yields £56 per annum, applicable to the repairs of the church; and Pool's estate, producing £62 annually, which is distributed in various ways: some of the charities have been curtailed by the decreased value of property, and others injured by mal-administration. A small priory or hospital, dedicated to St. John the Evangelist, was valued, at the dissolution, at £13. 6. 6. Lenthal, the speaker of the long parliament, resided here; and his descendants occupied a mansion called the priory, near the town, erected on the site of a religious house that belonged to the abbey of Keynsham, in Somersetshire. The eminent cosmographer, Dr. Peter Heylin, was born here in 1600. Burford gives the title of earl to the Duke of St. Alban's. From Lewis's Topographical Dictionary of England 1831, courtesy of Databases 4 Sale |
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