From a spectacular funerary monument to a victory Armada portrait: Here are our must-see treasures in the East of England

Fit for a king

Sutton Hoo, Suffolk

Today, all you can see at Sutton Hoo itself is a grassy mound. However, you can imagine the excitement when, with the Second World War looming, the first imprint of timbers from a 7th-century Anglo-Saxon ship burial was found beneath it. The ship turned out to be nearly 90ft long. The timbers (and the corpse) had dissolved in the acidic soil, but other non-organic items had survived intact. Could this have been the final resting place of King Raedwald, a powerful ruler of East Anglia? He was a well-connected man — the grave goods included Byzantine silverware, Frankish coins, a helmet from Scandinavia and Saxon jewellery. The finds from Sutton Hoo are exhibited in the British Museum, London (until they are taken to Normandy, France, in 2026, for display in exchange for the Bayeux Tapestry), but there is an excellent visitor centre at the burial site, with replicas of the grave goods.

Take a rain check

Wenhaston Doom, St Peter’s Church, Wenhaston, Suffolk

Although no longer located in its intended site at the end of the nave, this painting of the Day of Judgement can still be seen in the church for which it was originally created in about 1520. The work would have been completed by a journeyman painter, someone who moved from parish to parish producing Biblical scenes, and depicts the Archangel Michael weighing the goodness of human souls. It is known as a Doom (as in ‘doomsday’) and there would once have been a wooden crucifix and figures of Mary and St John nailed over the top. The unnamed artist compensated for these, ensuring that the naked figures, saints and devils were not obscured. The sculptures were torn off during the Reformation and the Doom painted over. It finally came to light in 1892, when the whitewashed boards were placed outside on a rainy night during a refurbishment of the church — and the painting was revealed. Divine intervention?

Send her victorious

The ‘Armada’ portrait of Elizabeth I, Woburn Abbey, Bedfordshire

Elizabeth I understood that portraits were propaganda. She kept tight control on who could paint her likeness — Walter Raleigh went so far as to say she ordered poor-quality (and perhaps unflattering) portraits to be destroyed. Styling herself the Virgin Queen, she chose to age slowly in official portraits, living up to her motto of Semper Eadem (Always the Same). The ‘Armada’ portrait in Woburn Abbey, Bedfordshire, is one of three versions by an unknown artist or artists that commemorates her victory over Spain when the Spanish Armada attacked the English fleet in 1588. It is a painting of majestic assertion. The Queen wears an ornate gown strewn with pearls, her bejewelled crown visible on a table nearby. Behind her, we see British fireships attacking the invading vessels as a storm destroys much of the Spanish fleet. Elizabeth stands steadfast and victorious, but her right hand, positioned on a globe, reveals her true ambition: it rests on the Americas.

Home, sweet home

Gainsborough’s House, Sudbury, Suffolk

Thomas Gainsborough was born in Sudbury, Suffolk, in 1727, and spent his childhood there. A precocious talent who would play truant from school to go sketching in the countryside, he trained in London from 1740, but returned to Sudbury when his father died in 1748. It was in his family home that (in about 1750) he painted his early masterpiece Mr and Mrs Andrews. Gainsborough became highly regarded as a deft portraitist who often placed his figures within the English countryside, employing increasingly feathery brushstrokes to bring each scene to life, although his preference was for the less-commercial landscape genre. In 1958, the Gainsborough’s House Society was able to acquire his childhood home and it opened as a museum in 1961. A significant refurbishment in 2022 allows Gainsborough’s birth-place to be seen with changing exhibitions.

This green and pleasant land

Constable country, Suffolk

Few places remain as unchanged as the flat green fields and picturesque river views of Constable country, the rural Suffolk setting that was home to the acclaimed 18th-century landscape painter John Constable. His father inherited Flatford Mill and the artist’s childhood was spent playing on the banks of the Stour and by the locks of The Navigation, a canal that facilitated the movement of wheat and supplies inland. Today, you can walk along the riverbank and see where Constable stood to paint his 6ft The White Horse (1819) and The Hay Wain (1821), as well as the smaller Flatford Mill (1816–17). You can stay in East Bergholt, the village where the artist was born, and follow trails from Manningtree to Dedham, where he went to school.

Art of the home

Kettle’s Yard, Cambridge

When you step through the door at Kettle’s Yard, there’s a palpable sense of balance and harmony. This was the former home of Tate curator Jim Ede and his wife, Helen, and is filled with the Edes’ art collection, which includes paintings by Joan Miró, William Scott and Winifred Nicholson, as well as sculptures by Henri Gaudier-Brzeska, Henry Moore and Constantin Brâncuşi. Ede began collecting in the 1920s, buying work from the Hampstead Modernists and the outsider Alfred Wallis. In 1957, he moved to Kettle’s Yard, a house he created from four derelict cottages in Cambridge and, until 1973, anyone could ring the doorbell and take a tour with him. Today, knowledgeable guides take his place, allowing you to contemplate the Edes’ outstanding collection, together with pleasing spirals of spherical pebbles, vases of flowers and the worn furniture of lives well lived.

You can see the previous series on places in Ireland here.

This feature originally appeared in the December 31, 2025, issue of Country Life. Click here for more information on how to subscribe.