Between 1575 and 1972, there were twenty-nine licence holders of the Saracen’s Head, including two widows – Eleanor Pitman and Mrs Slaughter. The longest tenancy was that of Francis Seymour from 1846 to ‘99. He acquired the freehold in 1877 from Lord Williams’s School.
In the early 1900s, Thame Football Club used the Saracen’s Head as its headquarters. Thame FC was founded in 1883, but did not acquire its base at Windmill Road until the late 1960s, moving to its current site at Meadow View Park in 2010. Their hosts at the Saracen’s Head would have included James Harrison and his wife, landlords from 1951-63 (see panel).