Sir William Drake's Almshouse, High Street, Amersham, Buckinghamshire
These 6 almshouses were built in 1657 for Sir William Drake of Shardeloes (1606-69) who was an MP for the town. The almshouses were for six poor women of the parish, widows over fifty years of age. Among their benefits were “a gown of London brown at Christmas each year for the first three years and alternate years thereafter; a pair of shoes, a pair of stockings and a shift twice a year at Christmas and Easter; and a load of billets four feet in length each year for firings”. Billets were used as firewood.
