Henry VIII,the Reign

Cardinal College Ipswich 

Eight monasteries were suppressed to fund the building of Wolsey’s Cardinal College School in Ipswich and the Church of St Peter became the school chapel.

Wolsey’s planed to build the school in the manner of Winchester and Eton. There was no stone available locally and the Countess of Oxford declined Wolsey permission to quarry her cliffs at Harwich for fear of damaging the town below.

Instead, he looked to France and his French allies. ‘Mr. Daundy has sent 121 tons of Caen stone from Normandy, and promised 1,000 more before Easter’. This was not enough and a letter from Wolsey dated 26 January 1528/9 requests the Comte de Beaumont to obtain from his master, Francis I, King of France, the grant of a special quarry at Caen, “pource que…ay commencé a bastir et ediffier deux collèges, l’un a Ypswich, qui est le lieu de ma nativite, et l’autre en l’Université de Oxenford”. 

After Wolsey’s fall, the college was dissolved and demolished.

The Remnants of Wolsey's School in Ipswich - Wolsey's Gate