Nina Layard

Nina Layard was an archaeologist and writer. She is credited with the first excavations of the old Dominican Friary in Blackfriars, Foundation Street in 1898. Her work on the Valley Brick field in Foxhall Road, has been acknowledged as highly significant, and her paper on the Hadleigh Road Anglo-Saxon site was presented to the Society of Antiquaries in London, where she was one of the first women to become a Fellow.

Following a newspaper appeal by her, public subscriptions were raised for the memorial to nine Ipswich Martyrs (now) in Christchurch Park (1903). She also published Seventeen Suffolk Martyrs and other local history books. She was a founder member and first woman president of the Prehistoric Society of East Anglia.

The Blue Plaque on Unicorn House, by Blackfriars in Foundation St, Ipswich was unveiled on 8th October 2016 by members of the Ipswich Women’s Festival Group which aims to research and celebrate local women’s achievements, organising events and developing resources. It was replaced in March 2017 when an inaccuracy was noticed in the wording - Layard was a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries and this featured on the new plaque.

The Group started in the 1980s when it held various women’s festivals in the town. It built on the work done by a Community Education Local Women’s History Group in the 1990s, which compiled the first leaflet, and held an exhibition of Women and Work.

In 2011, the group decided to celebrate the centenary of the Census Boycott, when thirty local women avoided completing their Census forms by staying at the Old Museum Rooms overnight in a campaign to get Votes for Women. Almost 150 women came to the site of that action (now Arlington’s Brasserie) for dinner, talks and singing.