Christchurch Mansion

Christchurch Mansion , also known as the Withipoll House, is a Class I building in Ipswich in England , a building of particular interest. The mansion was built in the XVI century. A large Tudor-style brick building is located in Christchurch Park in Ipswich. Currently, the mansion belongs to the city. Since 1895, it has been one of the two buildings . The mansion houses collections of ceramics and glass, an art gallery with paintings by artists such as John Constable and Thomas Gainsborough is located. Some of the premises of the building are preserved in their original form, along with original household items. The picturesque park around the mansion covers an area of ​​twenty-eight hectares ^[1] .

Sight
Christchurch Mansion
English Christchurch mansion
2013 photo
A country	Great Britain
Location
Architectural style	Tudor
Building	1548
Status	class I building
condition	1550

Christchurch Park was defeated by the Priory of the Holy Trinity in Ipswich and extended to the medieval city walls. During the Reformation under King Henry VIII, the place was acquired by the merchant and adventurer Paul Whitepole, who founded the estate here. After his death in 1547, the estate, known as Christchurch Whitepole, went to his son Edmund Whitepole, who built the Whitepole House here in 1548-1550. The original masonry was preserved on the ground floor and is visible from the outside of the building, while its interiors were changed by subsequent owners. The motto of the house in Latin, carved in stone in 1549, has also survived: "Treat it with care so that you will not be scattered."

The daughter of the builder of Whitepol House, Elizabeth Whitepol married Lester Devereaux, 6th Viscount Hereford. The mansion came into the possession of the Devereaux family, which rebuilt the upper floors after a fire in about 1670. Then the main porch was added. In 1734, Claude Fonnero bought the mansion from Price Devereaux, 10th Viscount Hereford. Devereaux Street behind the park is named after this family. In 1848, the owners of the mansion arranged the area around it. In 1894, the mansion was bought by Felix Cobbold from a real estate development syndicate, and thus, the building was saved from demolition. Cobbold, a wealthy local entrepreneur and philanthropist, offered to transfer it to the Ipswich Municipal Corporation to create a museum and art gallery in it, and allocated another twenty thousand pounds to buy paintings for this museum ^[2] . The philanthropist’s only condition was that the municipal corporation buy a park adjacent to the building for residents of Ipswich. In February 1895, the mansion was transferred to the city, and in April 1895 the Ipswich municipal corporation acquired the central part of the park, and in 1928 the upper arboretum, which has been in public use since 1848 ^[3] .

The restoration of the mansion, before it was opened to the public, was entrusted to the architect John Shaywell Corder. The reconstruction of the building as a museum was carried out by Frank Woolnow, curator of the museum of the Ipswich Municipal Corporation, or the Ipswich Museum, in 1893-1920. Under Woolnou, an active member of the Association of Museums and the , the mansion held annual meetings of various societies for educational purposes. At the same time, the archaeological collection of Nina Francis Layard was exhibited in it, over which she was entrusted with honorary supervision. Under the curator Gai Meinard from 1920 to 1952, the museum's collections were significantly replenished with decorative art and furniture. In 1927, an exhibition dedicated to the bicentenary of Thomas Gainsborough was held at Christchurch Mansion, which also exhibited paintings by George Frost and John Constable. The museum’s collections turned it into a cultural center of national importance.