Abingdon County Hall Museum 2.96

Abingdon County Hall 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.BuildingThe 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.