Buscot

Buscot is a small village and medium-sized civil parish on the River Thames about southeast of Lechlade. Buscot was part of Berkshire until the 1974 boundary changes transferred it to Oxfordshire.Many of the properties are owned by the National Trust and are let to long-term residents, some of whom work the farms on the agricultural estates 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, Italian water garden, and 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.Parish churchThe 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. The treble bell was cast by Thomas Gefferies of Bristol in about 1520. A further bell was cast by William and Robert Cor of Aldbourne in Wiltshire in 1708. The ring was completed by the addition of the present tenor bell, cast by Mears & Stainbank of the Whitechapel Bell Foundry in 1891. St. Mary's has also a service bell, cast by Edward Neale of Burford in 1661.