Church of St Mary Burford, England

Text courtesy of Historic England. © Crown Copyright, reprinted under the Open Government License.

BURFORD

SO56NE Church of St Mary 582-1/8/23 12/11/54

GV I

Church. C12 chancel, C14 nave and tower, extensively restored 1889 by Sir Aston Webb. MATERIALS: generally stone rubble with ashlar dressings, with ashlar tower. Plain-tile roofs with ashlar-coped gables and battlemented parapets with corner pinnacles. PLAN: chancel with north vestry, nave with south porch, and west tower. EXTERIOR: crenellated cornice to nave and chancel with twin cusped niches and carved panel over each merlon including east wall return of chancel. String course at eaves level with carved figurative and armorial bosses on underside corresponding to each embrasure. 3 bay chancel with short shallow buttresses and clasping buttress to north-east. Restored arched 3-light east window with Perpendicular tracery, and hoodmould with king and queen label stops. South wall has 2 C19 flat-headed mullion windows with cusped ogee and mouchette tracery with hoodmould over, flanking chancel door: flat-headed doorway with recess and cross-boarded door. To left is restored window of twin cusped lancets with Perpendicular tracery over. North wall partly masked by C19 north vestry. Nave: mostly restored 3 bays of buttresses with gabled offsets with cusped niches and pinnacles rising and piercing battlemented parapets. Window in each bay of twin cusped lancets and Perpendicular foiled tracery over and hoodmoulds with label stops. West bay of nave has south door with ogee arch with double-ovolo arch chamfer and plain chamfered jambs. Tower: angle buttresses with ashlar offsets. Late C19 west door and window over with Perpendicular-style moulding and tracery. Slit windows in north face. Upper stage with late C19 work by Sir Aston Webb: each face with 2 arched openings, each incorporating twin cusped lancets with louvres flanked by 2 tiers of cusped niches. Cusped arcaded battlemented parapet. Angle buttresses terminated with gablets with crockets. INTERIOR: chancel with late C19 decorative barrel vault featuring angels. C19 pointed chancel arch. Angle piscina on south window jamb. Nave: C14 restored trussed rafter roof. Tall tower arch with chamfered and hollow-chamfered reveals. C14 font: octagonal with recessed panels with raised carvings over stem with lancet arcading. Holy water stoup set in wall to right of south door. Wrought-iron candelabrum and lamps by Webb. C14 or C15 octagonal font with flower pattern carvings on the panel faces, supported on an octagonal stem with blind niches. Remarkable series of medieval, C16 and C17 monuments to Cornewall family, restored by Prof. EW Tristam 1938, all with the shields of the family: Heart of Edmund Cornewall d.1436; arched recess over stone tomb with trefoil arcading below, possibly a re-sited altar. Life-size painted wooden recumbent effigy of Edmund Cornewall 1508. Life-size painted stone recumbent effigy of Elizabeth, daughter of John of Gaunt, under enriched ogival canopy, d.1426. Immense wooden tryptych, 3.45 metres high by 3.05 metres wide, to Richard Cornewall d.1568 and Janet his wife d.1547, and son Edmund d.1585. Frame with fluted Ionic pilasters, inscribed fascia and pedimented head with painted tympanum; interior has 3 painted full-figure portraits in upper section and a 2.21 metre tall cadaver of Edmund Cornewall is depicted in lower section; the wings are painted inside and outside with figures and armorial shields. Paintings are signed by Melchior Salabossh, 1588. Early C17 wall monument with 2 kneeling figures of Sir Thomas and Anne Cornewall 1630 (`now living, he aged 58 and she 55'). Similar monument to Thomas and Katherine Cornewall also 1630. Baroque wall tablet to Elizabeth, wife of Thomas Cornewall d.1675. Monuments to Rushout family of 1822 and 1827 both by Richard Westmacott R.A. of London and of 1852 by Charles Geerts of Louvain. Monument to Thomas Morres d.1752 and wife Elizabeth d.1742 by Richard Squire of Worcester. (The Buildings of England: Pevsner N: Shrop