High Street (east): No. 91

Behind the 18th-century ashlar façade, rebuilt in the 1970s after a collapse, is a 5-bay late medieval house, whose roof has principal-rafter trusses, windbraces, and clasped purlins. Vestigial smoke-blackening indicates a medieval open hall: fireplaces and floors were inserted only in the early 17th century. Documentation from the 1650s to 1840s suggests that by then the site comprised two properties, each separately owned and occupied, though this is difficult to reconcile with the smart, unified 18th-century frontage. Owners of the northern part included members of the Bartholomew family (1650s–1723), the butcher John Whiter (1723–37), and the maltster William Upston (from 1741), and in 1723 there was an attached malthouse, barn, and garden. From the 1840s the whole site was occupied by successive members of the Hunt family, wine and spirit merchants related to the owners of Hunt Edmunds Brewery in Banbury, which owned the premises by the 1890s. By 1910 it was called the Golden Ball, and was still run by one of the Hunts in 1939. The name was changed to the Golden Pheasant Inn c.1980.

See: RH Gretton, The Burford Records (1920) 449, 457, 499

(Photo by Mark Casson, Oxfordshire Buildings Record)