Walk down Market Hill in Sudbury and you could be back in 1727 – the year the town’s most famous son, Thomas Gainsborough, was born. The painter would recognise the splendid medieval churches of Sudbury: St Gregory, St Peter and All Saints. He would know the 16th-Century, half-timbered Black Boy Hotel – and surely love its ales brewed by Greene King. Most of all, he would recognise the house where he was born – now called Gainsborough’s House, on Gainsborough Street. His house is one of Britain’s most charming museums. If you missed the recent Gainsborough show at the National Portrait Gallery, even more reason to visit his birthplace. From the outside, the grand, red-brick house looks much as it did in his youth – he lived there until 1740, before being sent to London to study art. The late medieval building was given its lovely facade by the artist’s father soon after he bought it in 1722.
Suffolk is as pretty as a picture
Published on: April 10, 2019 1:27 AM