Abingdon County Hall Museum
Abingdon County Hall Museum (also known as 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. It is a Grade I listed building. Building The building was built as a county hall for Berkshire, Abingdon being Berkshire's county town; it was to serve as the principal sessions house and administrative home for the Justices of the county. The county hall was designed in the Baroque style by Christopher Kempster who trained with Sir Christopher Wren on St Paul's Cathedral. It stands on large pilasters with a sheltered area beneath for use as a market or other municipal functions and was completed in 1683. Nikolaus Pevsner said of the building: "Of the free-standing town halls of England with open ground floors this is the grandest". It housed a courtroom for the assizes until 1867 when Abingdon ceded that role to Reading Assize Courts. Following the completion of a major restoration of the building, Queen Elizabeth II, visited the town hall, signed the visitor's book and unveiled a plaque in November 1956. Collections and exhibitions The museum's collections were started in 1919. The museum