Christchurch Mansion facts for kids
Christchurch Mansion from the front
|
|
| Former name | Withipoll House |
|---|---|
| Established | 1885 |
| Location | Christchurch Park Ipswich, England |
| Visitors | 53,201 (2019) |
Christchurch Mansion is a large, old house made of bricks. It was built in Ipswich, Suffolk, England, around 1548–50. This amazing building is in Christchurch Park, right near the town centre.
The mansion has been owned by many important families over the years. In 1884, the Ipswich Borough Council bought it. Since 1885, it has been a museum. Today, the Colchester and Ipswich Museums Service runs it.
Inside the museum, you can see rooms that look just like they did when people lived there long ago. You'll find old furniture, fancy clothes, and even children's toys. The museum also has paintings by famous local artists like John Constable and Thomas Gainsborough.
It's free to visit Christchurch Mansion, and you don't need to book ahead!
The Mansion's Story
The land where Christchurch Mansion stands was once part of a large religious building called the Priory of the Holy Trinity. This priory owned many square miles of land.
During the time of Henry VIII of England, many monasteries and priories were closed down. This was called the Dissolution of the Monasteries. After this, a rich merchant named Paul Withypoll bought the land.
His son, Edmund Withypoll, built the mansion, then called Withipoll House, between 1548 and 1550. The stone walls of the ground floor are still original. You can even see a stone from 1549 with a Latin saying: "Frugalitatem sic servas, ut dissipationem non incurras." This means, "You save money this way, so you don't waste it."
Later, the mansion passed to the Devereux family. After a fire around 1670, they rebuilt the top floors and added the main entrance porch. In 1734, Claude Fonnereau bought the mansion. There's even a street near the park named after his family!
In 1894, a wealthy local businessman named Felix Cobbold bought the mansion. He wanted to save it from being torn down. Cobbold was a philanthropist, meaning he gave money to good causes. He offered to give the mansion to the Ipswich Corporation (the town council) to create a museum and art gallery. He also offered a lot of money to buy artworks.
His offer came with a condition: the council had to buy the surrounding parkland for the people of Ipswich. It took him three tries, but in February 1895, the mansion was given to the town. In April 1895, the council bought the main part of the park. Felix Cobbold and his family gave a lot of land to Ipswich, including the old racecourse.
The Ipswich architect John Shewell Corder helped restore the mansion for its public opening. Frank Woolnough, who was the Curator of the Ipswich Corporation Museum from 1893 to 1920, turned it into a museum. He also made it a place for meetings and educational events.
Under the next curator, Guy Maynard (1920–1952), the museum continued to grow its collections of art, decorations, and furniture. In 1927, a big exhibition for Thomas Gainsborough showed that the mansion held a very important collection of art. A new art gallery, the Wolsey Art Gallery, was added to the back of the building. They even added a two-story wing from another old Tudor house that was being torn down in 1924.
In 2019, the museum hosted a special exhibition called "Made in Suffolk." It was all about the famous singer Ed Sheeran, who grew up in Suffolk. The exhibition showed many of his personal items, like sketches, song lyrics, school reports, and awards from the Brit Awards and Grammys.
In 2021, the museum showed three costumes from Marvel Studios' Black Panther movie. These outfits belonged to the characters T’Challa, Shuri, and Okoye. They were part of an exhibition called "Power of Stories." This exhibition also included Marvel comics, old museum objects, and local stories. It even won an award for Temporary Exhibition of the Year!
Famous Artworks
Christchurch Mansion is home to several important artworks, including:
- Lady Drury's Closet
- Golding Constable's Flower Garden and Golding Constable's Kitchen Garden (paintings by John Constable)
- A collection of seventy-seven pastel drawings by Blanche Georgiana Vulliamy showing First World War searchlights.
On TV
The mansion was featured in two episodes of BBC One's Antiques Roadshow. These episodes were filmed in 2020 and shown in January and March 2021.
