Charles Dickens

A frequent visitor to Suffolk, Dickens made many references to the county in his works and stayed in the hotel.

This hostelry was made “the more conspicuous by a stone statue of some rampacious animal with flowing mane and tail”.

In one humorous episode in The Pickwick Papers, our eponymous hero, having taken rooms at the Great White Horse, mistakenly disrobes within the room of “a middle-aged lady, in yellow curl- papers” - in the middle of the night. The consequences which ensue contribute greatly to the humour of the novel.

Dickens opened the lecture hall for the Ipswich Institute Mechanics in 1851; he reported for the Morning Chronicle on elections; toured the county giving recitals of his works - he even came for fishing on the River Gipping.

The plaque was unveiled in 2010.