Agriculture, the weekly market and the wool trade formed the early basis of Thame’s prosperity. In the 1500s and 1600s, cattle trading brought further wealth, especially for yeoman farmers, market tradesmen and local inns, and other trades started to flourish.  These included brickmakers, wheelwrights, carpenters and blacksmiths.

The Georgian houses lining the High Street, bear witness to the prosperity of the upper-class families in the first half of the 1700s. New professions such as attorney, a bodice-maker, and a hat-band maker appeared.

However, by the late 1700s farming was in decline, and the town declined because of extremely low agricultural wages. It wasn’t until the late 1800s, and the arrival of the railway, that farming was gradually replaced by local industries, including garages, workshops and an ironworks.