The Commandery

The Commandery is a historic building open to visitors and located in the city of Worcester, England. It opened as a museum in 1977 and was for a while the only museum in England dedicated solely to the Civil Wars. The Commandery ceased to be a Civil War museum when it reopened to the public in May 2007, having undergone a year and a half of refurbishments and reinterpretation jointly funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund and Worcester City Council, who own the building. It is a Grade I listed building.

The Commandery has been used for many different purposes over the many years it has been around. These include: a church, a house, a monastic hospital, hotel and in present day, a museum open to the public.

In its current form, it displays six different periods of history, focusing on the characters and stories that affected The Commandery itself at those times. The periods covered are as follows:

The Commandery includes multimedia exhibits, interactive displays and children's activities.

Tradition would suggest that the first building on the Commandery site was constructed in the 11th century on the orders of Wulfstan, Bishop of Worcester (later Saint Wulfstan), as a hospital or almshouse (today a hospice) for the terminally ill and the destitute and pilgrims. Medieval pictures believed to have been made about 1490 were found in 1935 in what may have been a specially painted chamber for the dying, the pictures showing the life to come.

The first written record of its existence does not occur until the 13th century, in 1240 in "The Miracles of St. Wulfstan". This collection of stories refers to a Thomas of Eldersfield who was blinded and castrated after losing a judicial duel. According to the story Thomas was cared for at the Hospital of St. Wulfstan by Ysabel [sic] a lay sister that took pity on him. Thomas went on to make a miraculous recovery, having both his sight and manhood restored by a miracle of St. Wulfstan. The basic facts of this story appear to be true, as the legal case definitely went before the royal justices in 1221. This would suggest that the hospital was certainly in existence at that point and is nearer the dating of the buildings.

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Wikipedia