The Hill (east): No. 127 (former Swan Inn) and 129

No. 127 contains probably 15th-century remains, notably an internal 2-centred archway at the back of the shop and a nearby rear-facing window. Some of the front may be 16th-century but has been much altered, and an early 17th-century oak window-frame is visible in the gable. In 1652 this was probably the 'mansion house' of John Hanns or Hannes (died 1660), and by 1685 it was the Greyhound inn, which continued as the Swan from the 18th to mid 20th century. In the late 19th century it was also a butcher's: the industrial paviors outside are of that date, providing a non-slip surface when the pavements were washed down. Ranges of various dates extending down Swan Lane were presumably stables and outbuildings for the inn. The first-floor sash windows are early 19th-century, and above them changes in the stonework show that the roof was raised when dormers were inserted, to increase headroom in the attics. The sashes in the ground-floor bays are 20th-century replacements, and fragments of moulded stone in the wall to Swan Lane were probably also inserted in the 20th century. In 2007 the ground floor housed Swan Gallery Antiques.

No. 129 next door, tall and narrow, seems to have once formed part of No. 127, as they share a plot and the second floor extends over the party-wall. A fireplace hints at a 16th-century date, though the façade and sash windows are early 19th-century. By then it was a separate house, occupied in the 1840s by a schoolmistress, and in the 1850s–60s by a land surveyor.

See: Listed Building Description; RH Gretton, The Burford Records (1920), 451, 460; R Moody, The Inns of Burford (2007 edn), 67