Worcester - Commandery

Southeast of the cathedral, on the bank of the Worcester-Birmingham Canal, lies the Commandery. It is an impressive Tudor house, built on the site of an old hospital founded by St Wulfstan in 1085. In 1545 it came into the ownership of the Wylde family, and was Charles II's headquarters in 1651 during the deciding battle against Cromwell. The final conflicts raged very close to the house; the Duke of Hamilton, leader of the royalists, was wounded in them, and died in one of the rooms of the Commandery. The Civil War Center, based in the Commandery, illustrates by means of modern audio-visual techniques the cause and the course of the Civil War in England.