Gainsborough's House secures £4.5 million

Gainsborough's House to be redeveloped with £4.5m from National Lottery

The world-famous artist's Suffolk childhood home is to be redeveloped with £4.5m from National Lottery

Gainsborough's House has been awarded £4.5m of National Lottery money towards a five-year project to transform the site into a national centre celebrating the life of 18th-century artist, Thomas Gainsborough.

Famed for his portraits of the late 18th-century's 'Great and The Good', Gainsborough was the son of a clothier who was brought up in the market town of Sudbury in rural Suffolk. His Grade I listed childhood home, a popular local visitor attraction, will build on its existing success with an ambitious project to renovate and extend the house.

The new centre will tell the story of Gainsborough's meteoric rise from merchant's son to high society portraitist – despite his preference for landscape painting – and a founding member of the Royal Academy.