The Cotswold Guide
A view of Church of St John the Baptist
Church · Burford, Oxfordshire

Church of St John the Baptist

Cromwellian Levellers were imprisoned here in 1649; one carved 'Anthony Sedley 1649 Prisner' on the lead font, still legible.

About

Cromwellian Levellers were imprisoned here in 1649; one carved 'Anthony Sedley 1649 Prisner' on the lead font, still legible.

In Burford

A long, sloping high street drops to a triple-arched bridge over the Windrush — a perfect first stop arriving from Oxford.

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Gallery

  • St John the Baptist, Burford — the spire rising above the churchyard, alliums in the foreground
  • Carved gargoyles and buttressed pinnacles on the tower of St John the Baptist
  • Looking down the chancel — east window, painted reredos, and a brass eagle lectern
  • The carved stone reredos behind the altar, with statues in gothic canopied niches
  • A painted reredos detail — gilded statues set against a richly patterned panelled wall
  • The east window above the altar — five-light stained glass and an embroidered altar frontal
  • A tall lancet stained-glass window in mid-20th-century style
  • Another arched stained-glass window framed by the church's pale limestone walls
  • An interior arch with a painted panel of a saint set into the wall
  • A wooden Perpendicular screen with a vase of flowers and the chancel beyond
  • Detail of the carved oak screen — quatrefoil tracery and turned spindles
  • Looking through the screen into a side chapel with floral arrangements
  • A stone archway looking down the nave, tiled floor leading toward a far doorway
  • A polygonal hoop chandelier suspended from the timbered roof
  • Looking straight up into the tower vault — Norman arches and a timbered ceiling
  • Looking out through an iron gate to the churchyard beyond

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Curfew Tower

16th-century clock tower at the corner of Oxford Street; the bell was rung at 10pm every night until 1860 to call shepherds home.

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A view of Curfew Tower