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Witney Street (north): Nos 55, 57, 59

No. 55 probably has 16th-century origins, and shows evidence of timber framing. The gables are 17th-century, though the oriel windows (in place by 1908) are modern. Nineteenth-century occupants included a nurse (later a pauper) and her 6 children, one of whom worked as a gloveress, followed mostly by agricultural labourers.

Nos. 57–59 stand on part of the plot of No. 55, and before restoration in 2005–6 comprised two poorly built cottages at the town edge, dating probably from the 17th century. No. 57 may have begun as a low extension to 55; in the 18th century its roof was raised, and a wall was built within it to create a passageway to No. 55's rear garden (entered through the doorway in the front wall). No. 59 may have originated as a back wing, but by the 1840s the two parts were separate cottages, occupied probably by an agricultural labourer and a woman with 3 children and a lodger. Later occupants included other labourers, a leather dresser, and a sawyer.

See: A Jewell, Burford in Old Photos (1985), 76; Ditchfield, PH, Vanishing England (1910), 109

Content generated during research for the paperback book 'Burford: Buildings and People in a Cotswold Town' (ISBN 13 : 9781860774881) for the England's Past for Everyone series

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