Sheep Street (south): No. 23

The ashlar façade of No. 23, with its large central gateway, dates from c.1845, when the building was occupied by the auctioneer, surveyor, house-agent and insurance-agent Thomas Streat (recorded here 1840s–70s). Streat's businesses must have required a variety of spaces, and the central archway leads to a passage through which the items he dealt in could be brought. The building itself is probably earlier, the slightly undulating ridge suggesting an 18th-century date. In the 1840s it seems to have been in multiple occupation like many other Burford houses, inhabited possibly by a basket maker, carpenter, blacksmith, and agricultural labourer.

In the early 1890s the occupant was Thomas Paintin, a cab and omnibus driver, who before 1899 opened it as the Lenthall Temperance Hotel. In 1908–9 it was also listed as a Cyclists' Touring Company house, reflecting the arrival in Burford of recreational tourism. From the 1910s it became a private house called Greyhounds, the right-hand part housing the editorial offices of Countryman magazine from 1949 to 2003 (save for a short break). In 2006 it was still used for both domestic and business purposes.

See: Listed Buildings Description; Oxon. and District Trades Directory; A Jewell, Burford in Old Photos (1985),  28–9