Wisbech & Fenland Museum Wisbech & Fenland Museum The Wisbech & Fenland Museum, located in the town of Wisbech in Cambridgeshire, England, is one of the oldest purpose-built museums in the United Kingdom. Originally designed to house both the Museum and Literary Society, the latter ceased in 1877 and the Museum trustees became the sole owners. The building unfortunately suffers from subsidence, due mainly to its location. Having been sited over the location of the former moat to the Wisbech Castle, settlement of the back-fill has resulted in movement to the front elevation of the building closest to St Peter's Church. The museum houses
Wisbech authentic references to Wisbech occur in a charter dated 664 granting the Abbey at Medehamstead (now Peterborough) land in Wisbech and in 1000, when Oswy and Leoflede, on the admission of their son Aelfwin as a monk, gave the vill to the monastery of Ely. In 1086, when Wisbech was held by the abbot, there may have been some 65 to 70 families, or about 300 to 350 persons, in Wisbech manor. However, Wisbech, which is the only one of the Marshland vills of the isle to be mentioned in the "Domesday Book", probably comprised the whole area from Tydd