Historic Ipswich

Ipswich is steeped in history. It has played a major role in the history of England for nearly 1,500 years. The town was awarded a Royal Charter by King John in 1200 and has been a gateway to Europe for centuries. By the year 1500 the town was made a King's Port - one of only eleven enjoying many trading priveleges. Adventurers from the town were among the first to settle in the New World, founding, in 1607, Jamestown, Virginia. The town was a centre for emigration to America throughout the 1600's.

King Henry VIII's Chancellor, Cardinal Thomas Wolsey, was born in Ipswich. Wolsey's Gate, near the town's Waterfront renaissance, is testament to the great college that was destroyed in the Reformation. Shakespeare, in his play "Henry VIII", reminds us of the importance of the town in Wolsey's day: "Those twins of learning that he rais'd in you, Ipswich and Oxford".

Other famous people connected with Ipswich include artist Thomas Gainsborough who, lived in the town in the 1750's, and John Constable, who was born a few miles away and visited Ipswich frequently to study and to paint. Admiral Lord Nelson was High Steward of Ipswich when he died at Trafalgar and Charles Dickens stayed in the town where local characters inspired him to write "Pickwick Papers". More recently, cartoonist Carl Giles worked in Ipswich. His immortal "Grandma" is commemorated by a portly statue in Princes Street.

Ipswich's history is all around you, from its town centre medieval churches to fine buildings such as the Ancient House, Christchurch Mansion, the Isaac Lord merchant's house on the Waterfront and the timber-framed Unitarian Meeting House.

It is no surprise that the town now boasts the most significant collection of works by Constable and Gainsborough outside London. The collections are housed in Christchurch Mansion, a fine Tudor manor house in the town centre surrounded by beautiful parkland.

Many of our historic buildings are attractions in their own right