About this objectThis token would have been exchanged for bread at the Hitchin Union Workhouse at Oughton Head.
North Hertfordshire Museum's first virtual volunteer Jennie Gillons chose to research this object as part of a task to research five objects that interested her, in January 2022. After the establishment of Hitchin Poor Law Union in 1835, its guardians agreed they needed a new workhouse. The new building, with room for 250 inmates, opened in 1836 – it cost £3,019 & 15 shillings to build, roughly £205,000 today. The workhouse was on a large site in the Oughtonhead area of Hitchin; the boundary was Maxwells Path (Union Path at the time) to the north, Oughton Head Lane to the south, Lucas Lane to the west, and Chalkdell Path to the east.
