Buscot Explained

Buscot should not be confused with Buscott.

Official Name:Buscot
Static Image Name:St. Mary's Church, Buscot - geograph.org.uk - 341334.jpg
Static Image Caption:St Mary's parish church
Coordinates:51.677°N -1.667°W
Os Grid Reference:SU2397
Area Total Km2:11.58
Population:173
Population Ref:(2011 census)[1]
Civil Parish:Buscot
Shire District:Vale of White Horse
Shire County:Oxfordshire
Region:South East England
Country:England
Post Town:Faringdon
Postcode District:SN7
Postcode Area:SN
Dial Code:01367
Constituency Westminster:Witney
Website:Buscot Parish Council

Buscot is an English village and civil parish on the River Thames, about south-east of Lechlade. Buscot was part of Berkshire until the 1974 boundary changes transferred it to Oxfordshire. Two houses there contain notable collections of paintings.

Amenities and sights

Many of the properties are owned by the National Trust and let to long-term residents, some of whom work the farms surrounding the village. There is a village hall, tea shop and adjacent car park, and a children's playground. In the parish, Buscot Park houses the notable Faringdon Collection of paintings, an Italian water garden, and a walled vegetable garden and fruit orchards. A short walk from the end of the village leads past Buscot Weir field to Buscot Lock on the River Thames. The Old Parsonage, built in 1701, was sold by the Church Commissioners to the author Peter Francis Carew Stucley, who in turn left it in his will to the National Trust in 1964. It still contains Stucley's collection of contemporary paintings acquired in the 1950s and 1960s.[2] The house is open by appointment.[3]

Parish church

The Church of England parish church of Saint Mary was built in about 1200. The stained glass in the east window of the chancel was made by Edward Burne-Jones in 1891. The bell tower has a ring of four bells, the oldest of which was cast at Bristol in about 1399.[4] The treble bell was cast by Thomas Gefferies of Bristol[5] in about 1520.[4] A further bell was cast by William and Robert Cor of Aldbourne[5] in Wiltshire in 1708.[4] The ring was completed by the addition of the present tenor bell, cast by Mears & Stainbank of the Whitechapel Bell Foundry[5] in 1891.[4] St Mary's also has a service bell, cast by Edward Neale of Burford[5] in 1661.[4]

Sources

Notes and References

  1. Web site: Area selected: Buscot: Parish: Key Statistics . Neighbourhood Statistics

    Full Dataset View

    . . 30 March 2016 . 11 February 2003 . https://web.archive.org/web/20030211201309/http://www.neighbourhood.statistics.gov.uk/ . dead .
  2. Christopher Winn: I Never Knew That about the Thames (London: Ebury Press, 2010), p. 29.
  3. BBC arts site. Retrieved 11 December 2013.
  4. Web site: Buscot S Mary . Marchant . Andrew . 26 May 2010 . Dove's Guide for Church Bell Ringers . . 12 January 2011.
  5. Web site: Bell Founders . Dovemaster . 31 October 2012 . Dove's Guide for Church Bell Ringers . . 12 January 2011.