High Street (west), no. 18

An earlier house here is documented from 1435. In 1492 it was given to the churchwardens, and from c.1571 to c.1958 belonged to the trustees of Burford Grammar school. The coursed and squared front is 17th-century, and the stone-mullioned casement windows with drip-moulds are high-quality features of the period, possibly paid for by the trustees. Blacksmiths lived here as tenants from the 1650s to at least the 1730s, followed in the 19th century by plumbers, glaziers, and another blacksmith. The doorway goes with the 17th-century front; its lintel had cracked before the tinsmith Bertram Richards had his name carved on it in the 1920s, when he lived and worked here. In the 1950s the school headmaster lived here.

 [BR 328–9, 331–2, 346, 422, 424, 426–7, 449, 458; RM]