Ipswich Cycling Club in Edwardian times

“The photograph shows, I believe, a meeting of the Ipswich Cycling Club outside the Safe Harbour Inn c.1909 which was in Borough Road (now Grimwade Street). My grandmother is the small girl at the front standing with her step-father and she was born 1904. She was Lily Cant (née Watling); like so many, her mother died in childbirth and her father put her up for adoption. I think that the step-parents lived off Rope Walk in some houses that were pulled down certainly before I was born (1962). Was it Woodhouse Street? I do remember my grandmother saying to me when we walked past Woodhouse Square that it was near there.”

Sally Goddard

The Safe Harbour was on the corner of Dorkin Street and Borough Road. Dorkin Street was directly opposite Waterworks Street: the bit that runs along the north side of the Church of St Clement. Originally Borough Road, later Grimwade Street, only ran as far north as Rope Walk - the prison yard was beyond (the 1902 map shows it extended). Dorkin Street was parallel with New Street, the next street south, today the exit from the University Car Park; thus, the Safe Harbour was built on the acute angle, great for photographs like this one. J.N.