The Hill (east): Roman Catholic Church

Roman Catholics, who were earlier recorded in Burford in only very small numbers, became established in the 1930s, when a small congregation met in a wooden building in the grounds of Windrush School.

In 1953 Irish construction workers employed at Brize Norton airbase attended mass there, and offered to build a larger church in their spare time. Working at weekends they made good progress on the walls, and the work was completed by a contractor after their local employment ended. The new church, dedicated to St John Fisher and St Thomas More, was eventually opened in 1955.

Transepts were added in 2002, designed by Daniel Hurd Associates of Birmingham. They are the only significant examples of ‘modern’ architecture in Burford, their striking curved roofs are supported on slender posts.

See: R and J Moody, A Thousand Years of Burford (2007), 49; Hugh Ellis-Rees, The Church of SS John Fisher and Thomas More in Burford (2006)