Abingdon County Hall Museum

Abingdon County Hall Museum stands in the heart of Abingdon, Oxfordshire, on a site once chosen for its central position in Berkshire. The building itself is a Grade I listed example of 17th-century Baroque architecture, designed by Christopher Kempster, who trained with Sir Christopher Wren at St Paul’s Cathedral. It was completed in 1683 as the county hall for Berkshire, serving as the main sessions house for the Justices of the county. The structure rests on tall pilasters, leaving an open ground floor once used for markets and municipal events. Nikolaus Pevsner called it the grandest of England’s free-standing town halls with such an open base. After 1867 it no longer hosted the assize courts, which moved to Reading. The museum’s collections began in 1919 and now include permanent displays alongside rotating temporary exhibitions. Among its notable items is a reproduction of the Anglo-Saxon Abingdon Sword, found in the river and now held by the Ashmolean Museum. The Monks’ Map of the River Thames around Abingdon in the 16th century has been in the town since 1907. In 2011 the last MGB Roadster ever made, built in Abingdon in 1980, was lifted through a window thirty feet up to go on display. A two-year restoration finished in 2012, partly funded by the National Lottery, and the Duke of Gloucester officially reopened the building in March 2013. Visitors enter a grand Baroque hall with high ceilings and classical details. The main gallery now shows the MGB Roadster alongside changing local exhibits. A café occupies the basement, reached by a staircase that preserves the building’s original layout. Temporary shows appear several times each year, while smaller monthly displays focus on local themes. The open ground floor still shelters the space beneath the pilasters, echoing its original municipal use. The building’s restored interiors reveal fine woodwork and period fittings.