Wolsey Gate

Very historic 16th Century, red-brick Water Gate, to be found near Ipswich Waterfront, backing onto St. Peter's churchyard. (There's a sculpture of Ipswich's favourite son, Cardinal Thomas Wolsey, located within easy walking distance, a little north towards the town centre on the corner of Silent Street). Wolsey's Gate was built in 1528, marking the entrance to his ecclesiastical College for trainees intending to study at Cardinal College & take Holy Orders. It's a site where the Catholic Cardinal visited with personal interest, being his pet project to raise the status of his home town. Considered the most important man in the country, after the king, Wolsey spent a lot of his time in London, returning to Ipswich by sail from the Thames Estuary, & would have entered by the Water Gate from the Orwell. His long-term vision for the site was never realised due to his fall from grace with Henry 8th, when Wolsey failed to obtain the marriage annulment requested from him. Only a year after Wolsey's Gate was erected, the Cardinal lost his important position & was arrested. He died the following year after his health declined rapidly from the shock of his imprisonment. Today, Wolsey's Gate is in an obvious state of neglect & decay, the red-brick pointing having been eroded from the roots of ivy & buddleia. It's now deteriorating yearly from the constant attack from traffic fumes & road salt, to such extent that the carved stone indicating Wolsey's Gateway, is almost illegible. It suffers terribly from having become isolated on the appallingly designed no-mans-land traffic island, inside this section of the town centre 1-way system. From behind, Wolsey's Gate is acting as no more than a wall to keep trespassers out of a disused yard. Amazing how such a venerable curiosity, listed Grade 1, can be so abused as this & just left to decay...
Jan 30th, 2023

Wow its a gate and it's so fantastic. Because my wife is so annoying I told her to dress up we was going to a special day out so took her to mcdonalds and then here. Best day ever was for me as I just left her there.
Jan 4th, 2023

Visited on Weekday Wait time No wait Reservation recommended No More
Dec 2nd, 2022

Nice garden centre. A bit overpriced however.
Mar 29th, 2020

Mar 17th, 2020