Burford Cotswolds
Burford is one of the finest and most completely preserved Cotswold market towns, a settlement on the River Windrush in Oxfordshire whose long High Street descending steeply to the medieval bridge provides one of the most satisfying townscapes in the English countryside. The combination of the fifteenth-century church of St John the Baptist, the former wool merchant houses of the High Street and the surrounding Windrush Valley landscape creates a destination of exceptional quality and historical depth.
The church of St John the Baptist at the foot of the High Street is one of the largest and most richly decorated medieval churches in the Cotswolds, its interior containing elaborate perpendicular Gothic stonework, brasses and monuments of considerable quality and a remarkable collection of seventeenth-century wall tablets. The church has a specific historical association with the Levellers, the radical democratic movement of the English Civil War whose soldiers were imprisoned in the church by Cromwell's forces in 1649 before three of their leaders were shot in the churchyard in the suppression of the Leveller mutiny.
The High Street descends between buildings of consistent Cotswold limestone quality from the broad upper market area through progressively steeper and narrower sections to the medieval bridge over the Windrush. The range of independent shops, galleries and the quality of the accommodation available in this relatively small town reflects the sustained popularity of Burford as a destination for visitors who seek the Cotswold experience in a genuinely historic rather than a commercialised context.