Christchurch Mansion
Description
Christchurch Mansion, originally called by its builder "Withipoll House", is a substantial Tudor brick mansion house within Christchurch Park on the edge of the town centre of Ipswich, Suffolk, England. It is now owned by the town and since 1895 has formed one of the two principal venues of the Ipswich Corporation Museums, now part of the Colchester and Ipswich Museum Service.The Grade I listed building mansion houses a collection of pottery and glass, a contemporary art gallery and a collection of paintings by artists including John Constable and Thomas Gainsborough. There are rooms preserved as past inhabitants would have known them, complete with original items of fine clothing. The house sits within a 70acre public park which features many beautiful trees, rolling lawns and ponds.History of Christchurch MansionChristchurch Park was originally the grounds of the Priory of the Holy Trinity, with an area of many square miles, coming up to the medieval town walls. During Henry VIII's Dissolution of the Monasteries, the monastery was dissolved and the land was purchased by Paul Withypoll, Master Merchant Taylor and Merchant Adventurer, who died in 1547. Upon the manor, known as Christ Church Withipoll, his son and heir Edmund Withypoll built Withipoll House in 1548-50, the ground floor masonry of which remains, although refurbished internally under subsequent owners. A survival from the original is the house's Latin motto, on a stone dated 1549:"Frugalitatem sic servas, ut dissipationem non incurras." His granddaughter Elizabeth Withypoll married Leicester Devereux, 6th Viscount Hereford and the mansion passed to the Devereux family, who rebuilt the upper floors after a fire in about 1670, when the main porch was also added. In 1734, Claude Fonnereau purchased the mansion from Price Devereux, 10th Viscount Hereford. A street next to the park is named after the family.
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