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About our Collection

Social history items form the bulk of the Museum and Archive’s object collection. With some notable exceptions, the majority of the objects in the collection date from the 18th century onwards. In addition, there is a varied collection of framed and unframed paintings, prints and engravings (yet to be fully catalogued). These works are predominantly topographical, with some portraiture, and represent the output of artists working in the town from the 19th century onwards.

 

Trades and crafts

A particular strength of the collection is objects relating to the range of trades and crafts practised in the town from the post-medieval period. Within this broad range of material notable collections include:

 

  • Bronze-casting. A Keble leaded-bronze mortar, cast in 1659, the largest recorded, dated and named example from the foundry of Edward Neale of Burford.

  • Bell founding. Bells cast by three generations of the Bond family who were making bells in Burford from 1861 to the late 1930s

  • Tin smithing. Examples of locally made products for domestic use

  • Leather working. Tools and products representing the saddles for which the town was once famous

  • Glove-stitching represented by a variety of equipment and examples of locally stitched gloves

  • Musical instruments including three clarinets made by Henry Titcomb, an early 19th century resident of Burford

  • Clock-making including examples of clocks made in Burford in the tradition of the North Oxfordshire Quakers

  • Firearms. Early 19th century pistols by Henry Holland of Burford

  • Brewing and coopering. Objects and printed ephemera relating to Garne’s Brewery in Sheep Street

  • Quarrying and stone working including various specialist tools and the Day Book compiled by Christopher Kempster, one of Christopher Wren’s favoured masons who supplied stone for the building of St. Paul’s Cathedral

  • Examples of local straw bonnet-making/decorating dating from the 18th century

 

Social/community life

This is represented in the museum collections by material relating to

  • Early 15th century parish chest and a 17th century chest of drawers both used to store town records

  • Entertainments including horse racing

  • Burford Hospital

  • Education (collecting in relation to Burford School will take place with reference to the existing school archive)

  • Activity / social groups & clubs

  • Sports clubs

 

Visitor economy

An important contributor to Burford’s prosperity the collection includes objects related to the following themes

  • Coaching

  • Inns etc

  • Souvenirs dating from the 18th century

 

Personal life

  • A collection of wedding dresses, christening robes/ children’s clothes (East family) dating from 19th century

  • Shirt and shoe buckles worn by Warren Hastings

  • Locally made leather boots & clogs

  • An elaborately embroidered late 16th/early 17th century cushion cover from the coach of Sir Lawrence Tanfield (c1551-1625) who lived at the Priory in Burford.

  • Country clothes including smocks and bonnets

 

Arts and Crafts

  • A doll's house modelled on the Great House in Witney Street portraying Regency high society. Created by in the late 1930s by members of the Burford Committee of Art and Craftsmanship.

  • A collection of locally stitched 19th century samplers

  • Painted panels that once formed, and a screen in Christopher Kempster’s  house near Burford

  • A collection of etchings of Burford by the 20th century artist Leonard Russell Conway who lived in Fulbrook

  • Paintings and a collection of greetings cards by artist and graphic designer Helen Byrne Bryce, the latter printed at Cocklands Press in Fulbrook.

 

PHOTOGRAPHIC COLLECTION

The Burford Tolsey Museum and Archive holds a large collection of images including postcards, original and copy prints dating from the 1860s to the present day. These depict people, places, events and activities relating to Burford and adjoining parishes. They feature the work of Burford local photographers operating in the late 19th and early 20th century. The collection is currently in the process of being fully recorded.

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ARCHIVE COLLECTION

The Burford Tolsey Museum and Archive holds an extensive collection of documents and printed material. Many of these items formed part of the original Museum collection and represented loans of various types from the Cheatle Trustees, the Town Council and other charitable bodies within the town. To this has been added a variety of printed ephemera related to aspects of life in Burford. More recently large collections of documents have been donated by local historians Raymond and Joan Moody and more recently by the Mills family.

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  • The Cheatle Collection includes Letters Patent issued by King Edward III confirming the Burford Charters dated 1350; Charter of Henry VII granting Burford its fair and allowing the town to keep its profits and income dated 1497; Letters Patent from Edward VI dated 1547 and from Mary I dated 1554; Letters Patent issued by King James I in 1605 and a Commission of the Peace issued under the Commonwealth dated 1659. In addition, the collection includes a large number of early deeds, leases, wills, records of lawsuits etc. Although much of this material has previously been listed in the earlier 20th century, this extensive collection still needs to be fully accessioned and entered on to our cataloguing system.

 

  • The Moody Collection is a recent acquisition of great significance to the history of Burford. It consists of almost 500 deeds and documents, dating from the late 17th to the early 20th century, once part of a larger collection they represent the survivors of a disastrous fire in storage of material from a local solicitor. Also included in the collection are manuscripts, published works and information on memory sticks amassed by Raymond Moody during his years of research into and writing, with his wife Joan, about aspects of the history of Burford.

 

  • The Mills Collection is a recent acquisition from the Mills family, former owners and occupants of the Priory, and lords of the manor of Burford. The family were significant landholders in Little Barrington and Burford, where their holdings included Bury Orchard, the ownership of which carries with it the title Lord of the Manor. The family have had a close involvement with the town over many centuries, in more recent times donating land to build Burford cottage hospital and for the municipal cemetery. The collection consists of material relating to all their landholdings (including those beyond Oxfordshire), family letters and other papers dating from15th to 20th century. Whilst still in the possession of the family the Collection was sorted and the majority listed and housed in conservation grade storage boxes. The Collection is now being transferred to BTMA in phases and stored in the Swan Lane Archive where work has begun on accessioning it onto e-Hive.

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