Vale of Evesham History Portal

The Building ...

Before 1794 two pieces of 15th-century stone carving, perhaps salvaged from the ruins of the abbey or from demolished parts of the present building, were inserted in the internal walls on the ground floor. In the long passage is an elaborate canopy set into what was the outside of the west wall of the medieval north wing. To the right of Prior Lichfield's chimney-piece, in what was the inside of the west wall of the ground floor of the 14th-century hall, has been inserted in reverse the head of a four-light window with miniature vaulting on its underside.

The extent of the stabling in 1835 suggests that the building may once have served as an inn. By 1845 it was divided into separate dwellings. In 1929 it was sold by the Rudge family to Evesham corporation. The borough council hoped that it would one day be used as a museum but that became possible only in the 1950s when a voluntary body able and willing to manage a museum, the Vale of Evesham Historical Society, came into existence. The Almonry Museum was opened in 1957 though some parts of the premises remained in other tenants' hands until 1973.