Ipswich Museums

Ipswich Museums Explore Ipswich’s past with stories that will inspire you.

This fascinating and unique museum gives you the opportunity to meet the famous woolly mammoth, the elegant towering giraffe and other wonderful curiosities from the natural world.

A faceless figure with bright red beads, layered embroidery and a neat red overskirt. This is a Ukrainian motanka doll.M...
07/10/2025

A faceless figure with bright red beads, layered embroidery and a neat red overskirt. This is a Ukrainian motanka doll.

Motanky were made as protective talismans or as children’s toys. They are typically faceless so a single soul can’t be attached to them. This one was handmade here in Ipswich by the donor, using cotton, plastic flowers and beads, cotton threads and dry wheat as a filler.

Objects of care can be small, simple and full of meaning. Do you have a family good‑luck charm or protective tradition you still keep today?

Before bathrooms were tiled in white gloss, ceramic could tell a story.These blue and white delft tiles are more than de...
06/10/2025

Before bathrooms were tiled in white gloss, ceramic could tell a story.

These blue and white delft tiles are more than decoration: they’re snapshots of 17th- and 18th-century taste, trade, and storytelling. Imported from the Netherlands, delftware tiles were popular for their gleaming tin-glazed surfaces and crisp cobalt designs.

These tiles once lined the walls and fireplaces of homes that could afford such luxuries. Each square may be only a few inches across, but their impact was much larger — adding both warmth and worldly charm to 18th-century interiors.

Come see them up close and learn more about the artform in Colour Shape Pattern, and discover how these everyday objects combined artistry and storytelling in just a few brushstrokes.

📍 Christchurch Mansion
🗓️ 24 May 2025 – 22 February 2026
👉 Plan your visit: ipswich.cimuseums.org.uk/colour-shape-pattern

What's one word you would use to describe the mansion? ✨Let us know in the comments👇
05/10/2025

What's one word you would use to describe the mansion? ✨

Let us know in the comments👇

Remember when making a call meant standing in the hallway, twisting the curly cord, and hoping no one picked up the exte...
05/10/2025

Remember when making a call meant standing in the hallway, twisting the curly cord, and hoping no one picked up the extension? This ivory Trimphone lived through that era.

Made popular in Britain from the late 1960s, Trimphones swapped the old bell for a distinctive electronic “warble” and were designed to be lighter with a long stretchable cable you could just about snake into the next room. Our example keeps the rotary dial many of us learned to use by counting the clicks. Mid‑cable sits a grey connector moulded with “British Telecom”, which is a reminder of the days when you rented your phone and BT handled the lot.

For many households this wasn’t just a gadget. It was how birthdays were sung across counties, job interviews arranged, and teenagers negotiated precious minutes of privacy. If you grew up timing calls to cheaper evening rates, this one’s for you.

What do you remember about the Trimphone, the shared family phone, or the strict rules about how long you could chat? Tell us below.

Can you place this view?This graphite drawing of Ipswich Docks, around 1800, is by George Frost, a self-taught Suffolk a...
04/10/2025

Can you place this view?

This graphite drawing of Ipswich Docks, around 1800, is by George Frost, a self-taught Suffolk artist who sketched the town’s streets, mills and river life with quiet accuracy.

Low sheds, a forest of masts and figures on the quay set a working scene long before the wet dock opened in 1842. If you stood there today, where do you think this would be on the modern Waterfront: near St Peter’s Dock, by the Old Custom House, or closer to Stoke Bridge? Tell us your best guess and why.

Smoke, clay, and steady graft. This 1909 photograph shows the Brickfields in Ipswich, where thousands of handmade and ma...
03/10/2025

Smoke, clay, and steady graft. This 1909 photograph shows the Brickfields in Ipswich, where thousands of handmade and machine-pressed bricks fed a town that was growing street by street.

You can see the tall chimney on the left and stacks of drying bricks laid out on tables. Sites like this sat close to good clay and transport, with long days shaping, turning, and firing. It was tough, skilled work. Pay was often by the piece, so a quick hand meant a better week. Whole families could be tied to the yard’s rhythm: men at the clamp or kiln, women and children turning, stacking, and barrowing when work was available.

In this part of town, the Dales and Grove brickyards even ran a narrow‑gauge line to Westerfield Station to move bricks and coal. Whole streets grew out of that industry, along with tight‑knit working lives around the kilns.

These bricks built terraces, schools, chapels, and factories across Ipswich. If your home has old brick, it may well have started life on ground like this.

Do you have family stories of brickmaking in Ipswich, or know which works this might be? Add your memories in the comments.

They look like two charred dowels, but these are trenails - wooden pegs used to fasten heavy timbers without iron nails....
02/10/2025

They look like two charred dowels, but these are trenails - wooden pegs used to fasten heavy timbers without iron nails. Shipbuilders and carpenters prized them because wood swells, locking joints tight.

This pair is especially curious. The old label tells us they were buried in debris after a destructive event in October 1896 and came to light during excavations in 1949. Time and pressure have compressed the grain, turning them into dense, dark cylinders. The neat green stand is a later mount for display.

Objects like these are small, everyday bits of craft, yet they hold the story of how buildings and boats held together long before screws took over. Not glamorous - just essential.

Have you spotted trenails in historic timber framing or on old boats locally? Tell us where.

The final Peep into the Past tours of 2025 are here! If you haven’t joined the Friends of Ipswich Museums yet, now’s you...
01/10/2025

The final Peep into the Past tours of 2025 are here! If you haven’t joined the Friends of Ipswich Museums yet, now’s your chance to uncover the fascinating layers of Christchurch Mansion before the season ends.

🏰 Historic tales, beautiful collections, and plenty of charm.
🕚 Tours every Sat, Sun, Tues & Weds

Free and open to all — come take a last look before winter draws in.

For International Translation Day we are looking at a teaching scroll written in the Ge’ez script. Ge’ez is a classical ...
30/09/2025

For International Translation Day we are looking at a teaching scroll written in the Ge’ez script. Ge’ez is a classical Ethiopian language used in the liturgy, and the script is shared by modern languages such as Amharic and Tigrinya. It works as an abugida, where each character is a small bundle of sound, a consonant modified to show the accompanying vowel. Pupils would speak the rows aloud, turning signs into sounds and then into meaning.

Translation is the same kind of bridge building. It carries rhythm, culture, and intent from one reader to another. What first text helped you cross that bridge - a prayer, a comic, a schoolbook?

Velvet walls? Not quite, but Christchurch Mansion’s Green Room comes close.What you’re looking at is flock wallpaper, th...
29/09/2025

Velvet walls? Not quite, but Christchurch Mansion’s Green Room comes close.

What you’re looking at is flock wallpaper, the 18th-century equivalent of high-end interior design. Flock wallpaper was made by glueing wool or silk fibres (called 'flock') onto paper to mimic expensive woven fabrics like damask or velvet. The result? Bold, textured patterns that looked luxurious and felt even better.

If you look closely, you can still see signs of its handmade origins: overlapping joins, subtle colour shifts, and centuries of wear. It would have cost a pretty penny—more than many earned in a year—but it made a clear statement: wealth, taste, and fashion lived here. Today, it’s a reminder that art doesn’t stop at paintings and sculpture. Walls can speak volumes too.

Want to discover how colour, shape and pattern have been used across time to inspire, impress and influence? Come explore the Colour Shape Pattern exhibition at Christchurch Mansion, open now through 22 February 2026.

👉 Plan your visit: ipswich.cimuseums.org.uk/colour-shape-pattern

28 September 1066: William of Normandy landed on the Sussex coast. The invasion would culminate at Hastings in October a...
28/09/2025

28 September 1066: William of Normandy landed on the Sussex coast. The invasion would culminate at Hastings in October and reshape law, language and landholding across England.

From our collections comes a quieter chapter in that story. This silver penny of William I was struck in Ipswich between 1083 and 1086. It is the PAXS type, a design that sets the word for peace alongside a cross. On the reverse you can read the moneyer’s name, Lifwine, showing that local specialists worked under royal authority to produce coins that travelled in markets and tax payments.

A landing, a battle, then decades of administration and everyday exchange. What detail on the coin catches your eye first, the crowned portrait or the bold cross?

27 September 1822: Champollion announced that he had cracked Egyptian hieroglyphs. His reconstruction of the script, bui...
27/09/2025

27 September 1822: Champollion announced that he had cracked Egyptian hieroglyphs. His reconstruction of the script, building on work by many others and energised by the Rosetta Stone, transformed how the world could read the ancient Nile.

Our link to that moment is local and luminous. We hold a set of 46 glass lantern slides showing Egyptian inscriptions and other early writing systems. They are marked HLC and were probably made for a Mr HL Clodd, who lectured on the evolution of the alphabet. Before PowerPoint and projectors, these slides would have been shown to a packed audience in a darkened hall, the shapes of letters and signs appearing large on a white sheet. Scholarship met showmanship.

What first sparked your interest in ancient Egypt? A school lesson, a TV documentary, or a visit to a museum?

Address

High Street
Ipswich
IP13QH

Opening Hours

Tuesday 10am - 5pm
Wednesday 10am - 5pm
Thursday 10am - 5pm
Friday 10am - 5pm
Saturday 10am - 5pm
Sunday 11am - 5pm

Telephone

01473 433551

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