NATIONAL HORSERACING MUSEUM
The Subscription Rooms of the Jockey Club closed in 1981 and Major David Swannell (1919-1992), horseracing official, set up the National Horseracing Museum which opened on 30 April 1983. In 2016 the National Horseracing Museum, together with the British Sporting Art Trust and Retraining of Racehorses, moved to their current premises on the former ruins of the sporting palace of Charles II on Palace Street and the three charities combined to form the National Heritage Centre for Horseracing & Sporting Art, which was opened by Queen Elizabeth II on 3 November 2016. The Palace Street premises occupy the site of the former Newmarket palace and stables of King Charles II with only Palace House remain of the original palace, the rest having been demolished after Queen Victoria sold the property to Mayer Amschel de Rothschild (1818-1874) in 1857. In 1874 the property was inherited by Leopold de Rothschild (1845-1917), who in 1903 built the Rothschild Yard and Stables adjacent to the King's Yard Stables. During World War II Palace House was used to house Jewish refugees and the Palace House estate remained in the hands of the Rothschild family until 1985, when it was sold by Leopold's grandson Sir Evelyn de Rothschild (1931-2022). Owing to the poor condition of the site to which it had been allowed to deteriorate by the new owners, in 1992 Forest Heath District Council acquired the estate with a compulsory purchase order and with support from the National Lottery Heritage Fund and English Heritage, Palace House was restored and was used as a civic building. In 2005 Forest Heath District Council and the National Horseracing Museum set up the Home of Horseracing Trust and a new museum opened in 2016. Equine artists represented in the collection include George Stubbs (1724–1806), Sir Alfred Munnings and Lucy Kemp-Welch (1869–1958). Other Suffolk artists who have paintings or who have exhibited at the National Horseracing Museum or at Palace House Gallery include Sarah Colley, Thomas Percy Earl, Trevor Walter Osborne, Sandra Pond, Annie Rice and Allen Culpepper Sealy.
Works by This Artist
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