Burford Priory

Burford Priory is the large stone house at the west end of Priory Lane in Burford, on the site of a small medieval hospital. Largely Jacobean, it was remodelled by William Lenthall, Speaker of the House of Commons, in the seventeenth century, and his chapel of 1661 to 1662 stands beside it. The house is listed Grade I and is a private home, seen only from the lane.

History

The Priory's name comes from a hospital, not a priory. The Hospital of St John the Evangelist, a small house first recorded in 1226, stood here until the Reformation, and the entrance hall of the present house keeps three early thirteenth-century arches and piers, put back in place.

Tudor surgeon and Jacobean judge

In 1543 the hospital was granted to Edmund Harman, one of Henry VIII's barber-surgeons, who seems to have built a mansion on the site; his memorial is in St John the Baptist. Sir Lawrence Tanfield, later Lord Chief Baron of the Exchequer, bought the house and entertained James I here in 1603. The listing notes that he was unpopular in the town for reducing the power of its burgesses. His tomb, too, is in the parish church.

Speaker Lenthall

William Lenthall, Speaker of the Long Parliament, bought the Priory in 1637 and extended and remodelled it before his death in 1662; the six-bay long gallery wing on the south side is of his time. His chapel was built in 1661 and 1662 and is listed Grade II*, as is the link that joins it to the house. Charles II dined here in 1681 on his way to the Burford races.

Decline, rescue and a convent

After 1808 the house was greatly reduced, and its outer wings were taken down in the early nineteenth century. Colonel de Sales de la Terriere saved it from dereliction in 1908, and Emslie John Horniman, who bought it in 1912, continued the work, restoring the south wing in a Cotswold style with Voysey-like detail. For 59 years from the middle of the twentieth century it was the home of an enclosed Anglican community, the Society of the Salutation, which took Benedictine vows there in 1952, and the listing links the half-moon yew screen at the entrance to them. In 2008 the community decided to sell the house, and it moved to its new monastery, Mucknell Abbey in Worcestershire, in 2010; the Priory has been a private home since.

What to see

The listing describes the main front, which faces the gates on Priory Lane: roughly U-shaped, of three storeys and attics, with stepped outer gables, long mullioned windows on the first floor and a showy central porch, with the yew screen curving in front of it. The chapel stands to one side, joined to the house. How much you see from the lane depends on the gates and the trees.

Inside, which visitors cannot see, the listing records the thirteenth-century arches in the hall, an eighteenth-century staircase with barley-sugar balusters, and a first-floor former ballroom with a plaster ceiling and a fireplace carrying the Lenthall arms.

Visiting

Burford Priory is a private house, so it can only be seen from Priory Lane; please do not go through the gates or block the lane. There is no entry and nothing to book. The lane is narrow and quiet, and best walked in the morning before Burford fills up.

Getting there

Priory Lane runs between Sheep Street and the High Street, by Falkland Hall. Park in the free Guildenford car park by the river and walk up through the town. Buses stop at the Oxford Road layby above the town.

On foot, Burford's lanes and fields, a 1.7-mile town walk from Guildenford, comes back down Sheep Street past the Lamb and along Priory Lane past the Priory's gates before returning by Church Lane.

Nearby

The Lamb Inn and the Bay Tree are a few doors away on Sheep Street, and the Bull and the Tolsey Museum are on the High Street. St John the Baptist, with the Harman and Tanfield monuments, and Burford Bridge are at the bottom of the town. At Swinbrook, St Mary's Church holds the monuments of another great local family, the Fettiplaces.