Moyse's Hall is a building in the

Suffolk Suffolk ( ) is a ceremonial county in the East of England and East Anglia. It is bordered by Norfolk to the north, the North Sea to the east, Essex to the south, and Cambridgeshire to the west. Ipswich is the largest settlement and the county ...

town of

Bury St Edmunds Bury St Edmunds (), commonly referred to locally as ''Bury,'' is a cathedral as well as market town and civil parish in the West Suffolk District, West Suffolk district, in the county of Suffolk, England.OS Explorer map 211: Bury St. Edmunds an ...

. It is a Grade I

listed building In the United Kingdom, a listed building is a structure of particular architectural or historic interest deserving of special protection. Such buildings are placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Hi ...

and is thought to have been originally built circa 1180. It is probable but not certain that it was a Jewish merchant's house. In 1895, before it became a museum, part was in use by the

Great Eastern Railway The Great Eastern Railway (GER) was a pre-grouping British railway company, whose main line linked London Liverpool Street to Norwich and which had other lines through East Anglia. The company was grouped into the London and North Eastern R ...

as a Parcel Receiving and Enquiry Office, with another section being incorporated into the Castle Hotel. It has also been used as the town's jail, police station, and as a

workhouse In Britain and Ireland, a workhouse (, lit. "poor-house") was a total institution where those unable to support themselves financially were offered accommodation and employment. In Scotland, they were usually known as Scottish poorhouse, poorh ...

Probable identification as a Jewish merchant's house

The early usage of Moyse's Hall is often said to have been as a "Jew's house"; more recent opinion tends towards this view, but it cannot be confirmed. The tradition that it was a

synagogue A synagogue, also called a shul or a temple, is a place of worship for Jews and Samaritans. It is a place for prayer (the main sanctuary and sometimes smaller chapels) where Jews attend religious services or special ceremonies such as wed ...

however seems unlikely. The earliest known usage of the name is in 1328, when it is noted by scribes in the phrase "''ad

aula Aula may refer to: *Avola, a city in Sicily (''Àula'' in Sicilian) *Aula, Eritrea, a village in western Eritrea *Aula (river) Aula is a river of Hesse, Germany. The 22.6-km Aula is a 22.6 km long tributary of the Fulda, joining it in Niederau ...

m Moysii''" (at the Hall of Moyse). Subsequent uses in records and locally carried this tradition into the nineteenth century, but the origin of the building and its name became a topic of controversy among Jewish scholars and the Anglo-Jewish community in 1895–96, when the building was for sale, just before it became a museum. Hermann Gollancz suggested that it was likely to be a Jewish building on the basis of the architectural style and the name evidence and tradition. Frank Haes however objected that no records show a contemporary Jew with this name or similar in Bury St Edmunds and pointed to concurrent gentile families in the area bearing the name of Moys, Moises, Mose and Moyse. Overall, a panel of academics concluded that the evidence in favour of it being Jewish owned were not strong and found Haes' evidence about local names convincing. In 1973, however, Edgar Samuel argued that its size and location near a market make it unlikely to be a synagogue, but concluded that it is "highly probable" that it was owned by a Jewish merchant family. Firstly, he points out that there are simply no records of the Jewish community in which to look for a "Mosheh" or "Mosse". Secondly, stone houses are rare in England except among the Jewish community at the time, who were used to stone houses from France, and found them more secure. Thirdly, the building's date of c. 1180 corresponds to the period when the Jews of Bury St Edmunds were at the height of their prosperity. Fourthly, the 'ii' of the Latin rendering ''ad aulam Moysii'' strongly suggests "Mosheh" or Angevin "Mosse" rather than the monosyllabic English "Mose" or "Moys".

History

After the early mentions by chronicles, there is limited evidence to suggest that the building was in use as an inn and tavern from 1300 up to 1600. The building has undergone several restorations including one in 1858, funded in part by the town municipality, 36 years before the building came into the care of the town. A tower clock was installed in the 1860s. A refurbishment extending the museum into rundown buildings at the rear was carried out in 2000-2002.

Museum

On 31 May 1899 Lord John Hervey opened the building as Moyse's Hall Museum. Horace Ross Barker was the curator. The museum is home to the Gershom-Parkington clock collection, and artefacts concerning the

Red Barn Murder The Red Barn Murder was an 1827 murder in Polstead, Suffolk, England. A young woman, Maria Marten, was shot dead by her lover William Corder at the Red Barn, a local landmark. The two had arranged to meet before eloping to Ipswich. Corder se ...

of 1827, as well as important finds such as an aestel found in Drinkstone. Works by artists such as

Mary Beale Mary Beale () (16331699) was an English portrait painter. She was part of a small band of female professional artists working in London. Beale became the main financial provider for her family through her professional work a career she maintai ...

Sybil Andrews Sybil Andrews (19 April 1898 – 21 December 1992) was an English-Canadian artist who specialised in printmaking and is best known for her modernist linocuts. Life in England Born in 1898 in Bury St Edmunds, Andrews was unable to go straight t ...

and

Angelica Kauffman Maria Anna Angelika Kauffmann ( ; 30 October 1741 – 5 November 1807), usually known in English as Angelica Kauffman, was a Swiss people, Swiss Neoclassicism, Neoclassical painter who had a successful career in London and Rome. Remembered prima ...

are also in the collection.

Notes

References

External links