From "The Ipswich Star": Monkey Lodge stands on the hill at Freston. It was originally a gate house to what is now the Ipswich High School for girls at Woolverstone. The lodge was referred to in "Kindred Sprits" by Tom Scrivener of Heron Road, Ipswich, who remembers visiting there as a child.
June Ward of Bramford Lane, Ipswich, can explain the story behind Monkey Lodge. June said: “I was born at Monkey Lodge and know its history. Squire Berners who lived at Berners Hall at Woolverstone (now Ipswich High School for girls) kept moneys as pets. One night there was a fire at Berners Hall and the monkeys made such a noise and woke the squire which saved his life. That is why the stone monkeys were placed on the gates, the entrance to Berners Hall, through the park for the carriages.
When the squire moved to Berkshire he removed the monkeys and took them with him. Incidentally, on each end of the roof of the Almshouses in Woolverstone there is a small stone monkey”.
Woolverstone Hall was built by William Berners (1709-83) in 1776 as his country house, set in 80 acres on the banks of the Orwell. It is a grade one listed building and is one of the finest examples of Palladian architecture in England. It was in the family's ownership until the 1930s when it was sold to Lord Nuffield, who bought it as an investment for Oxford University. It was requisitioned as a naval training establishment during the Second World War and became HMS Woolverstone, a shore-based naval station. Dummy landing craft were made there as part of the deceptions that went on around D-Day. After the war the London County Council took it over as a boys' boarding School. In 1992 it was sold to Ipswich High School for Girls. |