It was in the year 1681 that the Newmarket spring meeting was transferred to Bibury.  Parliament was then sitting at Oxford, some thirty miles away; so that the new rendezvous was more convenient than the old.  Nell Gwynne accompanied the king to the course.  For a hundred and fifty years the Bibury club held its meetings here.  The oldest racing club in England, it still flourishes, and will in future hold its meetings near Salisbury.

In 1695 King William III. came to Burford in order to influence the votes in the forthcoming parliamentary election.  Macaulay tells us that two of the famous saddles were presented to this monarch, and remarks that one of the Burford saddlers was the best in Europe.  William III. slept that night at the priory.  The famous “Nimrod,” in his “Life of a Sportsman,” gives us a picture, by Alken, of Bibury racecourse, and tells us how gay Burford was a hundred years ago: 

“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.”