The Hungerford Almshouses in

Corsham Corsham is a historic market town and civil parish in west Wiltshire, England. It is at the south-eastern edge of the Cotswolds, just off the A4 national route, southwest of Swindon, southeast of Bristol, northeast of Bath and southwest o ...

, Wiltshire, England, were built in 1668 for Lady Margaret Hungerford of

Corsham Court Corsham Court is an English country house in a park designed by Capability Brown. It is in the town of Corsham, 3 miles (5 km) west of Chippenham, Wiltshire, and is notable for its fine art collection, based on the nucleus of paintin ...

. It has been designated as a Grade I

listed building In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Irel ...

. The

almshouses An almshouse (also known as a bede-house, poorhouse, or hospital) was charitable housing provided to people in a particular community, especially during the medieval era. They were often targeted at the poor of a locality, at those from certain ...

were founded to provide homes for six (later eight) poor people and education for ten children, on a site on the eastern edge of the town, near the south entrance to Corsham Court. The L-shaped building has six houses for single women along its north-east side, each with a gable and

mullioned windows A mullion is a vertical element that forms a division between units of a window or screen, or is used decoratively. It is also often used as a division between double doors. When dividing adjacent window units its primary purpose is a rigid supp ...

; at the centre is a

Baroque The Baroque (, ; ) is a style of architecture, music, dance, painting, sculpture, poetry, and other arts that flourished in Europe from the early 17th century until the 1750s. In the territories of the Spanish and Portuguese empires including t ...

carving of the Hungerford arms described as "flamboyant" by Orbach. The west side has the warden's house and a combined schoolroom and chapel, and a full-height porch which is also elaborately embellished. Margaret Hungerford was the daughter of William Holliday, a wealthy London merchant and alderman, and the widow of Sir Edward Hungerford. In 1802,

Edward Hasted Edward Hasted (20 December 1732 OS (31 December 1732 NS) – 14 January 1812) was an English antiquarian and pioneering historian of his ancestral home county of Kent. As such, he was the author of a major county history, ''The History and To ...

was given the Mastership of The Hungerford Almshouses by his friend William Bouverie, who had become

Earl of Radnor Earl of Radnor, in the County of Wiltshire, is a title which has been created twice. It was first created in the Peerage of England in 1679 for John Robartes, 2nd Baron Robartes, a notable political figure of the reign of Charles II. The ear ...

in 1765. Hasted remained Master of the Almshouse from 1807 until his death in 1812. The site, also known as Lady Margaret Hungerford Almshouses & Schoolroom and Corsham Almshouses & 17th Century Schoolroom, is operated as a visitor attraction.

References

External links

* * {{Official website, https://www.corshamalmshouses.org.uk/ Corsham Grade I listed buildings in Wiltshire Grade I listed almshouses Historic house museums in Wiltshire Education museums 1668 establishments in England Almshouses in Wiltshire