A significant event took place at the University IWIC (Ipswich Waterfront Innovation Centre) on the 28th of February. James Divine, an intern at the Suffolk Records Office, had been entrusted with the celebration of the burial of a time capsule, one of eight around the county,  on the site of The Hold – the new centre of Suffolk Records Office here in Ipswich.

At a recent Heritage Forum meeting representatives there had agreed to submit offerings to be included in the capsule. This was an opportunity for various organisations  to present a description of the contents offered as well as expressing hopes for the intervening years between burial of the time capsule and its disinterment in 2119.

Included in the presentations were representatives of two primary schools from the area. Cliff Lane Primary School and Clifford Road Primary School sent two pupils each who very capably described what they were enclosing for their descendants to find in one hundred years time.

Stars of the various bodies on the Heritage Forum: John Field for the Historic Churches Trust,  Des Pawson of the Ipswich Maritime Trust, Keith Wade for the Ipswich Archaeological Trust, Bob Allen for the Ipswich Building Preservation Trust and our own Vice-Chairman, Tony Marsden, spoke briefly.  Terry Hunt, Chairman of Ipswich Vision, brought the presentations to an optimistic close before we went on to the site of the interment.

In the bright setting of a daunting building site, clad in hard hats and yellow vests we all gathered as the pupils and our Mayor, Councillor Jane Riley, lowered the capsule and enthusiastically spaded sand over it,  County Council Cabinet member for Ipswich, Paul West (a voice on the Ipswich Vision partnership), joined the activity and many photographs were taken.

In their optimistic hopes, all felt that Ipswich might see a future which insisted on improvement, one that guarded against complacency so that in one hundred years time a trace of the intentions of these worthy participants – the legacy – might be perceived in the capsule’s contents by our great-grand- children.

Tony Marsden