Abington Park

Abington Park, in the Abington district of Northampton, has lakes, aviaries, and a museum, as well as trees and grassy open spaces.The park contains the ruins of the former village of Abington, the site of a medieval manorhouse with a mill attached, mentioned in the Domesday book in 1086. The Abington gallows used for the five hangings in 1612 following the Northamptonshire witch trials, amongst the first in England to use trial by ducking stool, are believed to have been situated at the crossroads in Abington Park. The village was enclosed and depopulated when the manor was enlarged and parklands created by the Thursby family in the late 17th century.Abington Park MuseumLand for the park was given to the town by Lady Wantage in 1892 and the park was opened to the public in 1897. Two years later, in 1899, Abington Park Museum was opened in the centre of the park.The museum was originally a manor house built at the turn of the 16th century. The Great Hall, now called the Oak Room because of its oak panelling, dates back to 1500. It was once home to William Shakespeare's granddaughter, Elizabeth Bernard née Elizabeth Hall, who was buried in 1670 in the adjacent late 12th-century church of St Peter and St Paul. Her second marriage was to Sir John Bernard or Barnard, the MP for Huntingdon from 1660, who successively enlarged the house in the 1660s. It passed to the Thursby family in 1669 and was further enlarged and remodelled in the classical Georgian style between 1738 and 1743 by William Thursby. While owned by the Thursbys, the actor David Garrick planted a mulberry tree in the grounds in 1778, in recognition of his friendship with Anne Thursby. In 1821, during repairs to the church, all but the main tower of the church was blown down in a storm; the Thursbys rebuilt the main body of the church, which retains few of its original features.