About this objectAn oil painting on canvas of The Biggin Almshouses. This work is by Suffolk artist Phyllis Morgans (1911-2001) and was one of a set of works depicting Hitchin almshouses.
Almshouses were institutions that housed poor mainly older people. The current Biggin building dates from the 1500s and became an Almshouse upon the death of the owner Joseph Kempe. In his lifetime Kempe had operated a school at the building. As the Hitchin historian Anthony M Foster writes "Joseph Kempe died on August 3rd 1654 and left his Biggin Manor House to six of his Hitchin friends in trust for the benefit of "Ten poore auncient or middle aged women" and for the binding of "Fower poor children out of the Parish of Hitchin to be apprentices in some honest occupation". Any surplus funds were to be spent as the Trustees felt fit and, for their trouble, they were to have an annual dinner at a cost of forty shillings."
