Tudor House

Tudor House, until 2003 The Museum of Local Life, is situated in Friar Street which contains some of the oldest surviving buildings in the City. The Tudor House is now run by a group of volunteers called W.H.A.T. Their website is: http://www.tudorhouse.org.uk/
The building lies opposite land acquired by the Greyfriars (Franciscans) in 1235 - now Laslett's almshouses - although the friary itself lay outside the city walls (accessed by Friar's Gate at the end of Union Street).

The building we know as Tudor House is made up of two separate structures. If you stand on the opposite side of the street, you can see a jettied timber framed building on the left ("jetty" describing the overhanging first floor which "juts" out from the face of the building), and a three storey brick building on the right. In addition the timber framed building itself was once made up of three dwellings; two were to the left of the present entrance and one to the right.

Tudor House has been a home and a workshop for weavers, cloth makers, tailors, a baker and a painter. Some of the trades people who lived there brewed ale as a side-line, and so for over the greater part of two hundred years part of the building was used as a brewing house and as an inn see The Cross Keys.

At the start of this century the building was bought by the Cadbury family and became a confectioners. With a tea room and restaurant upstairs, the building became known as the "Tudor Coffee House". In 1921 it was purchased by the Worcester Corporation for use as a school clinic, and many local people remember coming here as children for inoculations and dental checks. For a short time during the Second World War, the building was used as an Air Raid Warden's Post and Billeting Office. Tudor House was opened as a branch of Worcester City Museums in 1971, and closed on 31st March 2003 as a result of budget cuts.