Gainsborough Lane is a rural road in the

South East Area, Ipswich The South East Area, Ipswich is one of five administrative areas in Ipswich, through which Ipswich Borough Council divides its spending and enables feedback from local residents, businesses and community groups. The area is composed of three wards, ...

which has been noted for its charm since the nineteenth century. In 1888 John Ellor Taylor, curator of

Ipswich Museum Ipswich Museum is a registered museum of culture, history and natural heritage, located in a Grade II* listed building on High Street in Ipswich, the county town of Suffolk. It was historically the leading regional museum in Suffolk, housing ...

, described it as the "dearest walk" available locally for Ipswich people. In 1901 William Dutt wrote: :"When Gainsborough resided in Ipswich much of his time was spent on the banks of the Orwell, and a lane not far from the town, now known as Gainsborough's Lane, is depicted in his picture ''The Market Cart'', which is in the National Gallery. This lane owes its beauty to its magnificent oaks, which interlace their branches above the turf-bordered footpath leading to the Priory Farmhouse in which Margaret Catchpole was employed as a domestic servant. This house was formerly an Augustinian monastery". It proved a popular topic for local artists in the late nineteenth century such as John Postle Heseltine and Henry George Todd. Gainsborough Lane leads from Pipers Vale to Priory Farm, once the workplace of

Margaret Catchpole Margaret Catchpole (14 March 1762 – 13 May 1819) was an English servant girl, chronicler, and Convicts in Australia, deportee to Australia. Born in Suffolk, she worked as a servant in various houses before being convicted of stealing a horse ...

. Nowadays the

Orwell Bridge The Orwell Bridge is a concrete box girder bridge just south of Ipswich in Suffolk, England. Opened to road traffic in 1982, the bridge carries the A14 road (England), A14 road (formerly the A45 road, A45) over the River Orwell. History Design ...

crosses over it.

Gainsborough Lane in art

File:Gainsborough Lane, Ipswich, (1874) by John Postle Heseltine.png, 1874 by John Postle Heseltine File:Gainsborough Lane, Ipswich by Henry George Todd.png, 1887 by Henry George Todd

References

South East Area, Ipswich {{England-road-stub