"Those were Bibury's very best days. In addition to the presence of George IV., then Prince of Wales, who was received by Lord Sherborne for the race week at his seat in the neighbourhood, and who every day appeared on the course as a private gentleman, there was a galaxy of gentlemen jockeys, who alone rode at this meeting, which has never since been equalled. Amongst them were the Duke of Dorset, who always rode for the Prince; the late Mr. Delme-Radcliffe; the late Lords Charles Somerset and Milsington; Lord Delamere, Sir Tatton Sykes, and many other first-raters.
"I well remember the scenes at Burford and all the neighbouring towns after the races were over. That at Burford 'beggars' description; for, independently of the bustle occasioned by the accommodation necessary for the club who were domiciled in the town, the concourse of persons of all sorts and degrees was immense."
Old Mr. Peregrine told me the other day that during the race week the shopkeepers at Bibury village used to let their bedrooms to the visitors, and sleep on the shop board, while the rest of the family slept underneath the counter.
Ah well! Tempora mutantur! "Nimrod" and his "notables" are all gone.
"The knights' bones are dust,
And their good swords rust,
Their souls are with the saints, I trust."
And whereas up to fifty years ago Burford was a rich country town, famous for the manufacture of paper, malt, and sailcloth--enriched, too, by the constant passage of numerous coaches stopping on their way from Oxford to Gloucester--it is now little more than a village--the quietest, the cleanest, and the quaintest place in Oxfordshire. Perhaps its citizens are to be envied rather than pitied:
"bene est cui deus obtulit
Parca, quod satis est, manu."
Let us go up to the top of the main street, and sit down on the ancient oak bench high up on the hill, whence we can look down on the old-world place and get a birdseye view of the quaint houses and the surrounding country. And now we may exclaim with Ossian, "A tale of the times of old! The deeds of days of other years!" For yonder, a mile away from the town, the kings of Mercia and Wessex fought a desperate battle in the year A.D. 685. Quite recently a tomb was found there containing a stone coffin weighing nearly a ton. The bones of the warrior who fought and died there were marvellously complete when disturbed in their resting-place--in fact, the skeleton was a perfect one.
"Whose fame is in that dark green tomb? Four stones with their heads of moss stand there. They mark the narrow house of death. Some chief of fame is here! Raise the songs of old! Awake their memory in the tomb." [4]