Minories

The Minories is one Colchester’s largest Tudor buildings was rebuilt in 1776 by the influential merchant family of Boggis. The building passed through several ownerships including a local German doctor Becker whose son Harry was destined to become one of East Anglia’s best loved painters. In 1915 it passed to the Bensusan-Butt family and Ruth Bensusan-Butt a local doctor had her consulting rooms in the front of the building. She was coincidentally the sister-in-law of painter Lucien Pissarro. Eventually the house and gardens and the Gothic Folly were sold to the Victor Batte-Lay Trust in 1956. Since the purchase of the Minories, the building has afforded a cultural and artistic centre for Colchester and North-East Essex for over half a century.

Over the years the Minories has exhibited a variety of works largely by East Anglian artists or practitioners with local connections. These include Edward Bawden, Leon Underwood, Eric Ravilious, brothers John and Paul Nash, Lucien Pissarro, Cedric Morris, Christopher Wood, Hugh Cronyn, Bill Brandt, Maggi Hambling, Roderic Barrett, Peter Coker, Jacob Epstein and Valerie Thornton. Mark Wallinger held one of his very early exhibitions in August 1983 at the Minories. By the early 1990's the Trust's resources diminished to the extent that the gallery was forced to closed through lack of funding in 1992. In 1994 the Minories reopened using public money from Essex County Council, Colchester Borough Council and East of England Arts and went through a major refurbishment in 2007/8.