Gainsborough's House

Gainsborough's House is the birthplace museum of Thomas Gainsborough (1727–1788), one of the founders of English portrait and landscape painting. It holds the largest collection of his work anywhere in the world — over 140 paintings, drawings, and prints — in the actual house where he grew up, which gives the place a particular intimacy that major galleries rarely achieve.

The collection is displayed across the original Georgian house and a modern extension. Alongside major portraits and Suffolk landscapes, there are working prints and drawings that reveal how prolific and experimental Gainsborough actually was. The garden behind the house is pleasant for a break. Open Tuesday to Sunday, entry around £12.50. Advance booking recommended in summer.

things to do museum historic house
A story
Thomas Gainsborough was born here in 1727, the youngest of nine children of a cloth merchant. He was sent to London as an apprentice at fourteen and never really returned to Sudbury, yet the Suffolk landscape stayed with him — the soft light, the elms, the winding Stour. When he painted the Blue Boy in 1770, he was living in Bath, but the boy's pose echoes the gentle countryside he had painted as a teenager along this very river.