View of the County Hall building that houses the museum.
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Established | 1678–1683 (building) 1919 (museum collection) |
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Location | Abingdon, Oxfordshire, United Kingdom |
Coordinates | 51°40′12″N 1°16′53″W / 51.67°N 1.2815°W |
Type | Local museum |
Collection size | Local history |
Owner | Abingdon Town Council |
Website | www.abingdon.gov.uk |
Abingdon County Hall Museum (a.k.a. Abingdon Museum) is a local museum in Abingdon, Oxfordshire, England. The museum is run by Abingdon Town Council and supported by Abingdon Museum Friends, a registered charity.
The museum is housed in a Grade I listed 17th-century County Hall building, located in the market place in the centre of the town. It is in the Baroque style and originally housed a courtroom for Assizes.Nikolaus Pevsner said of the building: "Of the free-standing town halls of England with open ground floors this is the grandest". The building was formerly the county hall of Berkshire; Abingdon was the county town until it ceded that title to Reading in 1867. The hall was built 1678–83 and was most likely designed by the Oxfordshire-born stonemason Christopher Kempster, who trained with Sir Christopher Wren on St Paul's Cathedral. It stands on pillars with a sheltered area beneath for use as a market or other municipal functions.
The museum's collections were started in 1919. The museum has permanent collections and presents temporary exhibitions several times a year. There are also smaller exhibitions on local themes that are changed every month.
On 1 December 2011, with the help of British Motor Heritage, the last MGB Roadster sports car off the production line in Abingdon in 1980 was lifted through a window 30 feet up, for display in the museum's main gallery from 2012.