Museums - Ipswich Museum

The Ipswich Museum was founded in 1846 and opened in 1847 in Ipswich's Museum Street. In its early years the museum functioned primarily as a center for natural history, but over decades the collections grew to encompass additional scientific disciplines, and the museum was moved to its current premises on High Street in 1881. In around 1895, Christchurch Mansion, a sixteenth-century house located in Christchurch Park near the city center, was developed as a second venue for the Ipswich Museum, devoted mostly to fine and decorative arts. The High Street building received major expansions between 1890 and 1900, affording the museum greatly increased gallery and education space.
Today, the collections at the Ipswich Museum encompass natural history, British archaeology, geology, botany, fine art, and ethnography. The ethnographic collection contains items from Africa, Asia, Oceania, and the Americas. Highlights include a rare royal feather cloak from Hawaii and a fine group of masks from Northern British Columbia.