Oliver Cromwell
Making the Most of your Visit
Location
Come to Oliver Cromwell’s House to meet the Cromwells! Discover unusual object such as hives, urns, couvre feu, leather jugs, forage caps and bumrolls!
Have a guess at their purposes and listen to tales of rations & portions ! Are you brave enough to taste some of the unusual flavours that the kitchen maid will present to you?
Our historic character in the Civil War room will tell you about events on the battlefields and the shortage of food. Take your own ration book home and compare it with your cupboards!
Normal admission prices apply, free event for resident pass holders.
Traditional Local Fare
The kitchen table in Oliver Cromwell's house in Ely shows an array of traditional local fare from Cromwell's time. The fireplace dominates the room now, as it would have in Mrs Cromwell's life. There are tied cloth bags of beans on the table, which would have been placed in the cook pot with the boiling meat over the fire. During meals, men would help themselves to the great cuts of cured and cooked meat, and game, by slicing off meat with their own pocket knives.
Oliver Cromwell was born in 1599 and died in 1658. He was a religious man, a successful politician, and fiercely close to his family.
Born in Huntingdon on 25th April 1599, Cromwell went to the local grammar school and then onto Sidney Sussex College in Cambridge. He married Elizabeth Bourchier in 1620, and they moved to Ely in 1636 when her uncle, Sir Thomas Steward, died. Along with his inheritance came the post 'Farmer of the Tithes'.
