Burford

The High Street and the Tolsey

Halfway down the High Street stands the Tolsey, the sixteenth-century market house where traders paid their tolls, first recorded in 1561 and listed Grade II*. It is now a small museum of the town, run by volunteers. It is open every afternoon from 2pm to 5pm from April to October, and at weekends in November and December, and it is free, though donations are welcome.

The street was a stop on the coaching roads until the last coach passed through in 1850, and many of its inns and houses date from those years and earlier. The Lamb Inn still takes guests and diners, and welcomes dogs. For the old inns and the rest, see where to stay in Burford. On Witney Street, the Angel at Burford, run by the King family, has an AA Rosette for its cooking and a walled garden.

St John the Baptist

Burford's church is listed Grade I, and it rewards a long look. It began in the twelfth century, and the west door and the tower crossing are from then; by the end of the fifteenth century it had grown into the large, irregular church you see now, with its spire and a three-storey porch. Inside are the Tanfield monument of 1628, with its carved cadavers behind an iron railing, and a memorial to Christopher Kempster, a local quarryman whom Christopher Wren employed at St Paul’s, who died in 1715.

The church is also part of the story of how England looks after old buildings. G. E. Street restored it heavily in the 1870s, and it was cases like this one that led William Morris to found the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings.

The Levellers

In May 1649 soldiers of the New Model Army who had mutinied for the Leveller cause were caught at Burford, and some 340 of them were locked in the church. Three were shot as ringleaders; tradition, and the organisers of Levellers Day, put the executions in the churchyard, though the church says there is no evidence of where they took place. A plaque on the church wall commemorates them, and inside, one prisoner, Anthony Sedley, carved his name in the lead of the font with the date 1649. Every May the town holds Levellers Day, with singing, a commemoration, talks and a march, on a Saturday in May: 9 May in 2026, and Saturday 15 May in 2027. Our story of the Civil War in the Cotswolds puts the Levellers in the wider war.

The bridge and the river

The bridge over the Windrush at the bottom of the town began in the fifteenth century and was remodelled in 1791. It has four low arches with pointed cutwaters and is listed Grade II*. The Cotswold Voluntary Wardens lead occasional guided walks from Guildenford car park, such as a 10-mile circuit by Signet, Holwell and Westwell in June 2025. The 1.7-mile town walk is on our list of short walks.

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The Cotswold Wildlife Park

At Bradwell Grove, 2 miles south of the A40 at Burford and under 3 miles from the town, is the Cotswold Wildlife Park. It opens daily from 10am (to 6pm in summer and 4pm in winter), and in 2026 an adult ticket was £19.50 at the gate or £17.50 online. Parking is free, dogs are allowed on leads outside the indoor and walk-through areas, and a narrow-gauge railway runs from April to October. It fills the Sunday morning of our Cotswolds weekend with children, which ends with the town and river walk.

Food and drink

Away from the old coaching inns, Huffkins on the High Street is the tea room, and the Cotswold Arms, also on the High Street, serves food every day from 11am to 9pm, lets dogs in everywhere and has live music on Friday and Saturday nights. The Royal Oak on Witney Street is a family-run Wadworth pub known for its pies, with a fire in winter and a garden for summer. On the southern edge of the town, the glasshouse café at Burford Garden Co. on Shilton Road cooks breakfast and lunch every day (no cooked breakfast on Sundays), but takes no bookings, and only assistance dogs.

Every place to eat in the town, with what each suits, is on our page of places to eat in Burford.

When to come

Like most of the Cotswolds, Burford is busiest on summer weekends. A weekday morning is quieter, and the church is at its best in the low light of autumn and winter. Levellers Day in May is the town's own occasion, and worth planning around. Down the Windrush towards Witney are the ruins of Minster Lovell Hall, with three stories of doom attached. By car, a Cotswolds touring route loops for three days from Burford.