St Nicholas Church

The Church of St Nicholas* was built in the 14th century on the site of an Anglo-Saxon church dedicated to St Michael. Saxon and Norman stone reliefs from this church are now on the interior north chancel wall; they are of great historical value. The church with its treasures was made redundant in 1984.

(*Saint Nicholas of Myra,also known as Nicholas of Bari, was an early Christian bishop of Greek descent from the maritime city of Myra in Asia Minor (Turkey) during the time of the Roman Empire. Because of the many miracles attributed to his intercession, he is also known as Nicholas the Wonderworker. Saint Nicholas is the patron saint of sailors, merchants, archers, repentant thieves, children, brewers, pawnbrokers, unmarried people, and students in various cities and countries around Europe.)

St Nicholas stands among the high-rise offices between the docks and the town centre in an area that 1960s planners foresaw as the business district of an Ipswich that would eventually be home to half a million people. Fortunately, that didn't happen and the area has been developed with less brutal and lighter office blocks. One of the best is next door to the church, Churchgates House, and it was to here that in 2001 the Anglican Diocese of St Edmundsbury and Ipswich moved its offices.

The church is Listed Grade II*. From 2004 the Diocese developed a conference centre, linked by a new glass building to their offices. The church is in the care of Ipswich Historic Churches Trust.

Back in the 1470s, it may have been that a butcher, whose shop lay opposite the east wall of the churchyard, presented his baby for holy baptism at the new church of St Nicholas. It would have been a highly symbolic and moving occasion – as all medieval baptisms were – with the administration of salt and saliva, oil and water, candles and white garments. What would have been the most memorable in later years for those present, though, was that the baby grew up to be Cardinal Thomas Wolsey, Lord Chancellor of England. (There's actually no evidence for this; in fact, more recent research suggests that Wolsey was born in St Mary Elms parish, perhaps even in the building which is today the Black Horse public house – but it is a good story – however, Wolsey's parents are very likely to have worshipped at St Nicholas.

The entire St Nicholas complex was put on the market by the Diocese in 2022 and seeks a new role in the town.

Cromwell Street used to run along the front of the houses on the left in the top photo and many of the houses on the other side of Cromwell Street still stand today, although some were demolished for the Willis Faber building in the 1970s.

The buildings this side of the road were demolished in the early 1960s to make way for the new dual carriageway ring road, which, as in so many other towns, was never completed. The new Civic Drive (this bit was called Franciscan Way) ended here at traffic lights on St. Nicholas Street and was intended to eventually carry on right through to a roundabout by the then Civic College on a dualled up Grimwade Street, and a dual road from the end of Crown Street to the top end of Grimwade Street would have completed the circuit, with mass demolition along the way.

When the rest of the unbuilt route was abandoned, the road was eventually re-routed along a newly created Franciscan Way and a widened and extended Star Lane taking it across Fore Street. The Novotel Interchange was created and Stoke Bridge was dualled up, which also deals with increased Wherstead Road traffic coming in from the Bourne Hill junction on the new by-pass over the River Orwell. Fore Street/Salthouse Street/Key Street/College Street was made one way to carry the incoming traffic down Bishops Hill and clockwise circuit traffic on the makeshift ring road.

This piece of dual carriageway became redundant and was blocked off and eventually made into Cromwell Square car park.

Sources: Ipswich Society Image Archive, Suffolk churches website, St Nicholas Center [sic], Ipswich Historic Churches Trust.

Links: Listing text.