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.
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