Witney Street (north): No. 45 (including medieval archway)

This site formerly included two cottages, shown in 1920s photographs. That on the right collapsed in 1955 and was demolished, leaving only a stone-mullioned window and a 14th-century doorway. Both those features were part of the cottage shown here in 1926, though the medieval doorway may have been reset from elsewhere in the town. The surviving cottage is an almost complete rebuilding of the house shown here in the 1920s, which had a central front doorway.

In the 19th century the two cottages were occupied by labourers, tailors, and by a grocer, innholder, millwright and furniture dealer, sometimes with multiple boarders including a fellmonger. From c.1922 to c.1941 the whole site was Bond's bell foundry: a carriage entrance occupied the site of the present gateway, with a taking-in door above.

See: A Jewell, Burford in Old Photos (1985), 76, 79; N Pevsner, Buildings of England: Oxfordshire (1974),  521; drawing (1955) by B.C. Boulter in the Tolsey Museum, Burford