Hidden Britain AtlasOpen the map
All places › Towers & follies
Tower or folly

Freston Tower

Near Ipswich, Suffolk

A Tudor tower with a different lesson on every floor.

Freston Tower is a six-storey Tudor brick tower beside the River Orwell. A Victorian novel spread the legend that it was built for Ellen de Freston to study in, with a different subject on each floor: charity at the bottom, then tapestry, music, painting, reading, and astronomy at the top.

Read the full story, see it on the map, get directions and find what else is nearby in the free Hidden Britain Atlas map.

Open Freston Tower on the mapReport a sighting here
When
Built in the 1500s
Where
52.0080, 1.1575
Group
Towers & follies

Visiting

Landmark Trust holiday let, with open days now and then. Seen from the Orwell footpaths.

Nearby mysteries