Witney Street (north): Nos 47, 51, 53 and Leather Alley

This further row of probably 17th-century cottages has also been repeatedly altered, re-divided, and recombined. No. 47 combines separate houses marked by different rooflines, the higher (right-hand) part once forming part of the adjoining building. The lower part was formerly two cottages, occupied in the 19th century by agricultural labourers, a leather dresser, and a milkman; the late 20th-century garage door on the left replaces a former door and window. The doorway and window opening of the higher part were there by 1926, but have remains of a large carriage entrance in surrounding stonework. One of the openings was a passage to another of Burford's 19th-century cottage yards, called Leather Alley, which in the 1850–60s accommodated 5 households of labourers with another 3–4 cottages unoccupied.

Nos. 51 and 53 next door share a central entrance passage giving access to both properties. Both were refronted in the 18th century, with the pointing spread over the rubblestone and lined to suggest squared ashlar. Elegant new windows were also added, but the lack of fashionable stonework around the doorway and the window above signals its status as a common alley. Nineteenth-century occupants probably included a bone-gatherer, leather dresser, sawyer, and sack-mender (No. 49), and a cordwainer, labourer, and freestone quarryman (No. 51).

See: A Jewell, Burford in Old Photos (1985), 76, 79; Listed Building Description