Burford Priory
Burford Priory is a Grade I listed country house and former priory in Burford, West Oxfordshire, England. It sits on the site of a 13th‑century Augustinian hospital. In the 1580s Sir Lawrence Tanfield built an Elizabethan house there, incorporating remains of the priory hospital, and James I stayed at the priory in 1603.
In the 17th century the house was remodeled in Jacobean style after William Lenthall bought the estate around 1634; it stayed with the Lenthall family until 1828. That year the Greenaway family bought Burford Priory, and their descendant Nicholas Greenaway Mills is the current Lord of the Manor. In 1912 philanthropist Emslie John Horniman purchased it and restored the house and chapel under the guidance of architect Walter Godfrey.
From 1949 the priory housed The Society of the Salutation of Our Lady, a community of Anglican nuns. In 1987 it became a mixed community with Benedictine monks, and in 2008 it was sold and returned to private use. The monks later moved to Mucknell Abbey in Worcestershire. The current owners are Elisabeth Murdoch and Matthew Freud, with their family. A 2011 party at the house drew attention from the Chipping Norton set.
The site is said to be haunted, with stories of a monk in the old graveyard and bells or chanting heard at times. Another tale speaks of an elderly man with a gun seen in October; some say prayers by the nuns in 1949 helped calm the ghost. An unused room is also said to contain a poltergeist.
This page was last edited on 3 February 2026, at 20:05 (CET).