Christchurch Park
Christchurch Park is a 70-acre (280,000 m2) area of rolling lawns, wooded areas, and delicately created arboreta in central Ipswich, Suffolk, England. It contains Christchurch Mansion which holds a public museum and art gallery. The park opened as the town's first public park in 1895.
From the 12th century the park was the site of the Augustinian Priory of the Holy Trinity. In 1536 the Priory's estates were seized by the crown during Henry VIII's Dissolution of the Monasteries. The land was purchased by a London merchant, Paul Withipoll in 1545, and between 1548 and 1550 his son Edmund had the priory demolished and built Christchurch Mansion in its place. The Mansion remains the impressive Tudor centrepiece of the park and contains a museum, art gallery and tea room.
Apart from a small disused lion's head water fountain provided for the poor of Ipswich by the Augustinians, there is no trace left of the priory buildings, although the Round Pond and Wilderness Pond in the park are thought to have originally stocked fish for the monks. St Margaret's Church, which was built by the monks in the 13th century and which served as church and burial place to the lords of the Manor, is also still standing in a corner of the park on St Margaret's Plain.
During the 1560s there was an ongoing dispute with the Ipswich Corporation in relation to various alterations carried out and public access to the annual fair. In 1567 Edmund Withypoll constructed a new pond, now known as the 'Wilderness Pond'. Queen Elizabeth I stayed at the mansion for six days during August 1561. She returned to the town for four days in 1575.
Edmunds's granddaughter Elizabeth Withipoll 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. Claude Fonnereau bought the Christchurch estate in 1734 which at the time totaled more than 114 acres (0.46 km2) of land (today's park covers about 82 acres). By 1772 the public were granted some access to the park and tried to introduce keys for those who would sign an agreement with conditions of entry.
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