Vestry House Museum is a history

museum A museum ( ; plural museums or, rarely, musea) is a building or institution that cares for and displays a collection of artifacts and other objects of artistic, cultural, historical, or scientific importance. Many public museums make th ...

Walthamstow Walthamstow ( or ) is a large town in east London, England, within the ceremonial county of Greater London and the ancient county of Essex. Situated northeast of Charing Cross, the town borders Chingford to the north, Snaresbrook and Sout ...

focusing on the heritage of the local area. The collection includes various artefacts dating from the

Victorian era In the history of the United Kingdom and the British Empire, the Victorian era was the period of Queen Victoria's reign, from 20 June 1837 until her death on 22 January 1901. The era followed the Georgian period and preceded the Edwa ...

to the 20th century, including numerous archived documents and photographs. Vestry House was originally built as a

workhouse In Britain, a workhouse () was an institution where those unable to support themselves financially were offered accommodation and employment. (In Scotland, they were usually known as poorhouses.) The earliest known use of the term ''workhouse' ...

and was later used as a

police station A police station (sometimes called a "station house" or just "house") is a building which serves to accommodate police officers and other members of staff. These buildings often contain offices and accommodation for personnel and vehicles, a ...

and also as private housing (amongst the exhibits is a replica police cell demonstrating one of the building's previous uses). The building became a museum in 1931. On permanent display in the museum is the Bremer Car, the first British motor car with an

internal combustion engine An internal combustion engine (ICE or IC engine) is a heat engine in which the combustion of a fuel occurs with an oxidizer (usually air) in a combustion chamber that is an integral part of the working fluid flow circuit. In an internal co ...

, which was built by

Frederick Bremer Frederick William Bremer (12 July 1872 in Stepney, London – 1941 in Walthamstow, England) was a British gasfitter, plumber, engineer and inventor recognised as the man who built the first petrol-fuelled car in Great Britain in 1892. Bremer ...

(1872–1941) in a workshop at the back of his family home in Connaught Road, Walthamstow. The car first ran in 1892 and was donated to the museum by Bremer in 1933.

References

Residential buildings completed in 1730 History of the London Borough of Waltham Forest Local museums in London Museums in the London Borough of Waltham Forest Walthamstow 18th-century architecture in the United Kingdom Grade II listed buildings in the London Borough of Waltham Forest {{UK-museum-stub