In the 1100 and 1200s, the Bishop of Lincoln gave fifty acres of land to create New Thame’s wide High Street, burgage plots (long, narrow strips of land behind a street-facing building) and space for temporary market stands.
Permanent structures gradually replaced the temporary ones, forming Buttermarket. By 1575, number 7 Buttermarket was owned by Lord Williams School, whose estates were managed by New College, Oxford. It became the Saracen’s Head, and was a public house for the next four hundred years.
Since 1992, the building has been used by several estate agents and is now occupied by a funeral director. The pub sign can still be seen hanging above the entrance to No. 7, Buttermarket.