Burford Tolsey Museum
Housed in an elevated 16th-century timber-framed building on High Street, the Burford Tolsey Museum sits at the ancient crossroads of the town's historic market. Built around 1525, the structure originally functioned as a market house where visiting merchants paid tolls for trading rights and local magistrates convened the Borough Court. Raised on stone pillars to allow shelter for traders beneath, it remains a quintessential symbol of Cotswold civic heritage. The museum holds a varied array of local historical curiosities. During the 17th century, Burford established a national reputation for specialized industries, including saddle making, bell founding, and gunsmithing. Master stone mason Christopher Kempster, who supplied local stone to Sir Christopher Wren for the construction of St Paul’s Cathedral after the Great Fire of London, lived locally, and his original 17th-century daybook is preserved in the collection.Inside, visitors explore a cozy upper room filled with artifacts detailing town life across the centuries. Highlights include civic maces, medieval documents, early 19th-century pistols crafted by local gunsmith Henry Holland, and hand-made clarinets by instrument maker Henry Titcomb. Guests can view a detailed 1930s doll's house modeled on Burford's Great House, displays of traditional leatherworking tools, and the heavy iron door from the old town lock-up, offering a charming window into rural Oxfordshire social history.
Burford United Kingdom
You will find it at The Tolsey, 126 High Street, Burford, Oxfordshire OX18 4QU, halfway down Burford's famous hill. It sits in the old Tudor market and court house from the early 1500s, right where the old London to Bristol road used to cross the High Street. This was where traders once came to pay their tolls and where the town court met, and now it is a charming local museum full of character. The museum itself is small but really interesting, with the town maces, old charters, seals and collections about Burford's old crafts like clock making, clarinet making and even a beautiful 1930s dolls house. It is open from April to December and you can easily combine it with a wander around town. Burford is often called the gateway to the Cotswolds, so you have so much nearby. The High Street is full of old stone houses, tearooms and antique shops, and St John the Baptist Church is worth a look. Just outside town you have the Cotswold Wildlife Park and Gardens, Crocodiles of the World in Brize Norton, and Cogges Manor Farm in Witney. For bigger days out, Blenheim Palace in Woodstock is about half an hour away, and Oxford with its castle, Ashmolean Museum, Bodleian Library and colleges is not far either. You are also close to Minster Lovell Hall ruins and lots of lovely Cotswold villages.