High Street (east): No. 75 (now Methodist Church)

A substantial house occupied this large site by 1665, when it had at least 10 fireplaces. In 1609 Robert Veysey settled it on his sister Ann on her marriage to Richard Osbaldestone of Chadlington (died 1619). Ann later married Thomas Atkinson, and in 1661 her heirs sold the house to John Jordan, gent, who was tenant by 1652. The existing mansion was erected for a later John Jordan c.1725, recalling the influential design of Powis House in Bloomsbury (c. 1714).

Jordan apparently fell into debt, and around 1746 the house passed to John Hyde following foreclosure of a mortgage. Hyde’s widow sold it in 1766 to William Chapman (died 1792), who was succeeded by his wife (died 1811) and son John (died 1845, aged 79). The next owner, the Burford cooper Edward Bayliss, died c.1848, when the house was sold to the Wesleyan Methodist circuit for conversion into a chapel. The domestic interior was removed, creating a large open space, and the sash windows were replaced. The Oxford architect Thomas Rayson further remodelled the interior in 1949.

See: Hearth Tax Oxon. (Oxfordshire Record Society), 218; A Gomme, Smith of Warwick (2000), 396; Listed Buildings Description; RH Gretton, The Burford Records (1920) 403, 452, 454