Architectural, Cultural sights in Eastern England
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Ancient House
A glorious 17th-century facade of sugary-white wedding-cake pargeting decorates the front of Ipswich's most famous building. Built in the 15th century, Ancient House (aka Sparrowe's House) is one of the finest examples of Restoration artistry you'll see and crawls with mythological creatures and characters.
There are four relief panels each representing the continents discovered at the time - Asia is an Oriental dome, America is a tobacco pipe, Europe is a Gothic church, and Africa has an African astride a crocodile (eh?)
The building now houses a not-so-ancient kitchen outfitters, but you can take a peek at the hammer-beam roof inside.
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A
Oliver Cromwell's House
A short hop across St Mary's Green is the attractive half-timbered Oliver Cromwell's House, where England's warty warmonger lived with his family from 1636 to 1646, when he was the tithe collector of Ely. The house now has Civil War exhibits, portraits, waxworks and echoes with canned commentaries of - among other things - the great man's grisly death, exhumation and posthumous decapitation.
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Christchurch Mansion, Art Gallery and Park
Set in a lovely rolling park, this multigabled 16th-century Tudor mansion is filled with period furniture, a King Arthur tapestry and paintings by the likes of Constable and Gainsborough. Outside, look for the statue of a delightfully cantankerous granny - immediately recognisable to Britons as being the creation of local comic strip artist Carl Giles.
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Great White Horse Hotel
The Great White Horse Hotel first opened in 1518 as simply 'The Tavern'. It appears in Dickens' Pickwick Papers as the 'overgrown tavern'. Rumour has it that ghosts frequent the rooms. DJs spin their decks Friday and Saturday nights, and draught beer and real ale are readily downed; breakfast and lunch are also on offer.
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B
True's Yard Museum
North of the Tudor Rose Hotel, on the corner of St Ann's St, is True's Yard, where the two remaining cottages of the 19th-century fishing community that used to be here have been restored and now house a museum detailing the life of a shellfish fisherman around 1850.
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C
King's School
Historic sites cluster about the cathedral's toes. Within spitting distance of the tower are both the former Bishop's Palace, now used as a nursing home, and King's School, which keeps the cathedral supplied with fresh-faced choristers.
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D
Bishop's Palace
Historic sites cluster about the cathedral's toes. Within spitting distance of the tower are both the former Bishop's Palace, now used as a nursing home, and King's School, which keeps the cathedral supplied with fresh-faced choristers.
reviewed
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E
St Margaret's House
An important historical landmark to tick off is the 15th-century St Margaret's House, once the warehouse or 'steelyard' of the Hanseatic League (the Northern European merchants' group).
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F
Tudor Rose Hotel
On St Nicholas St is the Tudor Rose Hotel, a late-15th-century house with its original main door.
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