Church Of St Mary

Church of St Mary, Burford

This is a church of medieval origin with a 12th-century chancel and 14th-century nave and tower. The building was extensively restored in 1889 by Sir Aston Webb.

The church is constructed of stone rubble with ashlar dressings throughout, and the tower is wholly of ashlar. The roofs are covered with plain tiles and topped with ashlar-coped gables and battlemented parapets with corner pinnacles.

The plan consists of a chancel with north vestry, a nave with south porch, and a west tower.

The exterior features a crenellated cornice to the nave and chancel with twin cusped niches and carved panels over each merlon, including a return on the east wall of the chancel. A string course at eaves level bears carved figurative and armorial bosses on its underside corresponding to each embrasure.

The chancel has three bays with short shallow buttresses and a clasping buttress to the north-east. A restored three-light east window contains Perpendicular tracery with a hoodmould featuring king and queen label stops. The south wall has two 19th-century flat-headed mullion windows with cusped ogee and mouchette tracery and hoodmoulds, flanking the chancel door. A flat-headed doorway with recess and cross-boarded door sits between them. To the left is a restored window of twin cusped lancets with Perpendicular tracery over. The north wall is partly obscured by a 19th-century north vestry.

The nave has three mostly restored bays of buttresses with gabled offsets, cusped niches, and pinnacles rising through and piercing the battlemented parapets. Each bay contains a window of twin cusped lancets with Perpendicular foiled tracery over and hoodmoulds with label stops. The west bay has a south door with an ogee arch with double-ovolo arch chamfer and plain chamfered jambs.

The tower features angle buttresses with ashlar offsets. A late 19th-century west door and window above display Perpendicular-style moulding and tracery. Slit windows appear in the north face. The upper stage contains late 19th-century work by Sir Aston Webb, with each face showing two arched openings, each incorporating twin cusped lancets with louvres flanked by two tiers of cusped niches. A cusped arcaded battlemented parapet crowns the tower, and angle buttresses terminate with gablets with crockets.

Interior

The chancel has a late 19th-century decorative barrel vault featuring angels and a 19th-century pointed chancel arch. An angle piscina is set on the south window jamb. The nave retains a 14th-century restored trussed rafter roof. A tall tower arch has chamfered and hollow-chamfered reveals. A 14th-century octagonal font has recessed panels with raised carvings over a stem with lancet arcading. A wrought-iron candelabrum and lamps by Webb are present, along with a 14th- or 15th-century octagonal font with flower pattern carvings on the panel faces, supported on an octagonal stem with blind niches. A holy water stoup is set in the wall to the right of the south door.

The church contains a remarkable series of medieval, 16th-century and 17th-century monuments to the Cornewall family, restored by Professor E.W. Tristam in 1938, all bearing the family shields. These include the Heart of Edmund Cornewall, who died in 1436, in an arched recess over a stone tomb with trefoil arcading below (possibly a re-sited altar); a life-size painted wooden recumbent effigy of Edmund Cornewall dated 1508; and a life-size painted stone recumbent effigy of Elizabeth, daughter of John of Gaunt, who died in 1426, under an enriched ogival canopy.

An immense wooden triptych measuring 3.45 metres high by 3.05 metres wide commemorates Richard Cornewall (died 1568), his wife Janet (died 1547), and their son Edmund (died 1585). The frame is composed of fluted Ionic pilasters with an inscribed fascia and pedimented head with painted tympanum. The interior displays three painted full-figure portraits in the upper section and a 2.21 metre tall cadaver of Edmund Cornewall in the lower section. The wings are painted inside and outside with figures and armorial shields. The paintings are signed by Melchior Salabossh, dated 1588.

An early 17th-century wall monument displays two kneeling figures of Sir Thomas and Anne Cornewall, dated 1630, with an inscription noting they were then living, he aged 58 and she 55. A similar monument records Thomas and Katherine Cornewall, also dated 1630. A Baroque wall tablet commemorates Elizabeth, wife of Thomas Cornewall, who died in 1675.

Monuments to the Rushout family date from 1822 and 1827, both by Richard Westmacott R.A. of London, and 1852 by Charles Geerts of Louvain. A monument to Thomas Morres (died 1752) and his wife Elizabeth (died 1742) was created by Richard Squire of Worcester.