[Illustration:  Fifteenth-century House, Market Place, Evesham]

[Illustration:  Fifteenth-century House in Cowl Street, Evesham]

Amongst the remains of the abbey buildings may be seen the Almonry, the residence of the almoner, formerly used as a gaol.  An interesting stone lantern of fifteenth-century work is preserved here.  Another abbey gateway is near at hand, but little evidence remains of its former Gothic work.  Part of the old wall built by Abbot William de Chyryton early in the fourteenth century remains.  In the town there is a much-modernized town hall, and near it the old-fashioned Booth Hall, a half-timbered building, now used as shops and cottages, where formerly courts were held, including the court of pie-powder, the usual accompaniment of every fair.  Bridge Street is one of the most attractive streets in the borough, with its quaint old house, and the famous inn, “The Crown.”  The old house in Cowl Street was formerly the White Hart Inn, which tells a curious Elizabethan story about “the Fool and the Ice,” an incident supposed to be referred to by Shakespeare in Troilus and Cressida (Act iii. sc. 3):  “The fool slides o’er the ice that you should break.”  The Queen Anne house in the High Street, with its wrought-iron railings and brackets, called Dresden House and Almswood, one of the oldest dwelling-houses in the town, are worthy of notice by the students of domestic architecture.

[Illustration:  Half-timber House, Alcester, Warwick]

[Illustration:  Half-timber House at Alcester]

There is much in the neighbourhood of Evesham which is worthy of note, many old-fashioned villages and country towns, manor-houses, churches, and inns which are refreshing to the eyes of those who have seen so much destruction, so much of the England that is vanishing.  The old abbey tithe-barn at Littleton of the fourteenth century, Wickhamford Manor, the home of Penelope Washington, whose tomb is in the adjoining church, the picturesque village of Cropthorne, Winchcombe and its houses, Sudeley Castle, the timbered houses at Norton and Harvington, Broadway and Campden, abounding with beautiful houses, and the old town of Alcester, of which some views are given—­all these contain many objects of antiquarian and artistic interest, and can easily be reached from Evesham.  In that old town we have seen much to interest, and the historian will delight to fight over again the battle of Evesham and study the records of the siege of the town in the Civil War.

CHAPTER X

OLD INNS