January 2014 Issue 194
Contents
Editorial
Peter Underwood memorial
Gift Aid, IBPT, IMT
Chairman’s remarks
Community Supported Agriculture
Crossing the Thames
Snippets 1
Letters to the Editor
Slide Collection to Flickr
St Peter’s volunteers
Tesco: the end of the affair?
Planning Matters
10 ways to improve the town centre
Dial Lane sign uncovered
Suffolk Local History Council
Russell Nunn tribute
Peter Bruff and the mammoth
What’s in a picture?
Snippets 2
Landfill mining
Awards Evening
Society Committee
Diary dates
In the bleak midwinter…
The Oak Tree Low Carbon Farm on the outskirts of Ipswich; see the article on page 5
Editorial
This Newsletter benefits and suffers from a wealth of contributions. This is good news for an
editor, but causes headaches when space is running short. In order to at least touch upon some
current events, let’s mention a return to Ipswich by Civic Voice President, Griff Rhys Jones.
The talk was part of the UCS Academy series of public lectures and Griff was on sparkling
form, addressing a packed Waterfront audience. His lecture was entitled Preserving for the
Future. The updated and enhanced talk delivered on a similar theme to the Ipswich Society in
2012 was given with a brilliant balance of pertinent points and amusing deviations. He
championed the role of amenity societies, and related examples of how they, and often they
alone, can be a great levelling device bringing local concerns and common sense to a wide
range of issues. He deviated into the NPPF (National Planning Policy Framework) which in not
many more than fifty pages tries to update years of tried and tested planning legislation.
Dr John Blatchly’s fine new book Miracles in Lady Lane will be reviewed in our next issue.
An odd coincidence linked this story of the Ipswich shrine to the exhibition Masterpieces: art
and East Anglia (which runs until 24 February 2014) at Norwich’s Sainsbury Centre. Two
carved stone half-circles pictured and described in the book are suggested to have come from
the Chapel of Our Lady of Grace – dissolved during the Reformation – and recorded as having bee‘hidden in open view’ on a higgledy-piggledy wall of the Church of St Nicholas. On visiting the exhibition
recently, your editor was amazed to see the self-same carvings on display. Well worth the price of admission alone, but a wonderful and quirkily varied show at UEA.
Electronic Newsletter This will be the first ever Society Newsletter to be partially distributed to members by email. Quite a few publications similar to our own are digital-only, but we maintain a balance with print. If you would like to opt for the
Fame or Winged
Victory, but where does she live?
Answer on page 23
Peter Underwood remembered
I’m a member of St Aidan’s Episcopal Church, Gresham, Oregon, USA and one day, when
chatting to our rector about Peter – and not being able to attend any of the funerals of my
family – he suggested we plant a tree in memory of Peter. I loved this idea since I’m sort of
known as the “head gardener”, and we decided Rogation Sunday would be a fitting day for
this ceremony.
It would be rather nice if this dedication could be made in the Ipswich Society Newsletter. My
brother, Peter E. Underwood MBE, died December 4 2012 at the age of 88. Peter was without
doubt a gentleman and a scholar. He served in the RAF, earned his teaching degree at Oxford
and taught geography for thirty plus years at Northgate School, Ipswich. He was an
enthusiastic promoter of the preservation of old buildings and the renovation of redundant
churches and he served as a
magistrate. In 1998 he was awarded
an MBE by Her Majesty the Queen
for his selfless work for the benefit
of the community.
The tree we have chosen is a Katsura (cericidiphyllum japonicum). The heart-shaped leaves are bronze coloured in spring, then they turn to blue green and in the autumn become apricot yellow.
Gloria Trunk
Gift Aid
Inserted into this Newsletter is a sheet from our Treasurer about Gift Aid. Please read this, as
any additional income for the Society is most welcome. Formalities like Gift Aid are valuable
to the Society, but official guidelines require us to do things in the correct way to gain benefit.
For any members who haven’t signed a Gift Aid form, there’s one on the back of the sheet.
Ipswich Building Preservation Trust
In our next issue we will include an article about this excellent organisation to which The
Ipswich Society is affiliated. An impressive catalogue of renovation and restoration projects in
our town carried out by the Trust includes Pykenham’s Gatehouse, The Globe in St George’s
Street and the Half Moon & Star on Barrack Corner. Look out for the Trust’s new website, too.
Ipswich Maritime Trust
Since our last issue the major Symposium about Admiral Broke has taken place at UCS and the
IMT was centrally involved; by all accounts it was a great success. Broke of the Shannon and
the War of 1812 edited by Tim Voelcker (Pen & Sword) has been published to coincide and we
will include a review of the book in our next issue.
Chairman’s remarks
I will open this quarter’s comments with a massive thankyou to the team who put
together the Society’s Annual Awards evening last November. I unfortunately missed
the presentations but all reports suggest this was an excellent evening, and that is
reassuring given that 2013 had not been a good year for completed projects. In fact
Vice-President Bob Allen critically commented on some very ordinary nominations.
However, as you will read elsewhere in this Newsletter, and thanks to the difficult work
of the judging panel, three projects were singled out for an award.
It is with great sadness that I report the death of Russell Nunn, who had been an
Executive Committee member for some time, with the mandate of reporting on traffic
and transport, a subject in which he excelled (and which was completely different to his
professional background). Russell particularly understood the in-depth workings of
public transport, buses and trains and was always reporting the latest changes that
affected Ipswich residents. We will miss his considered and considerable contributions
to The Ipswich Society. (See page 16.)
I continue to receive emails from members enquiring into the current status of the
revamp of the Cornhill; you will recall Sir Stuart Rose suggesting that improvement
would help regenerate the town centre which was followed by an architectural
competition. The Judging Panel met in September and decided that there was no single
design worthy – at that stage – of being awarded the brief. However two architectural
practices were invited to clarify / modify their submissions which were then considered
by the Panel in November 2013. At the time of writing, late November 2013, no further
announcements have yet been made.
The Cornhill is the most public of our town spaces, the one most visited by the people
of Ipswich and it is central to our town life, therefore we remain disappointed that
public consultation has been, to say the least, sparse. (See Letters, page 9.)
The architectural press and some in the profession locally report that there is an upturn
in interest in building projects, especially those that have lain dormant for a couple of
years. Don’t get over-excited however; there is still very little start-up money about
and professional fees are as low as ever. One underlying cause is that we all rely on
local government as the generator of work, either directly or as a consequential knock-
on effect and almost nothing is on the cards – for obvious reasons.
Perhaps one snippet of good news is that the half-completed flats on the northern quays
of the Waterfront – including ‘the Winerack' – have, reportedly been sold, in at least
one case, to a local developer. Again, if you have money to invest over the long term
you might just get a better return out of Waterfront flats than the financial markets are
currently offering (which means the investor will sit on his assets until the economy
substantially improves – i.e. don’t expect the builders on site any time soon).
John Norman
“In times of profound change, the learners inherit the earth, while the learned find
themselves beautifully equipped to deal with a world that no longer exists.” –Eric Hoffer
Community Supported Agriculture here in Ipswich
The Oak Tree Low Carbon Farm is a twelve-acre field just outside the boundaries of the
borough of Ipswich, in Rushmere St Andrew, but almost all of the households who are
members of Suffolk’s first Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) Scheme based at The Oak
Tree are Ipswich residents.
The Soil Association describes CSA as a way for farmers and customers to share the “risks and
rewards” of farming, giving customers food direct from the farm, and farmers a secure income.
Here at The Oak Tree Farm we take the CSA concept a little further than most; our members
not only enjoy a weekly supply of fresh vegetables from the farm, they also help to grow them.
For £8 per week, and a work commitment of two hours per week (on average) in the
summertime, and one hour a week in the wintertime, members enjoy an equal share of the
vegetable harvest, as well as having the opportunity to buy eggs, flowers and pork from our
rare breed pigs, which are reared largely on waste malt mash from small Ipswich breweries.
We are excitedly awaiting the arrival of our first two beef cattle in the spring!
Our community approach to food production has some surprising, and delightful, side-effects.
Many members join growers Joanne Mudhar and Tom Wilmot, at the weekly Saturday
“working parties”, which is a great way to get to know fellow members who hail from all
walks of life, old and young, well off and less so.
We’ve become a real community of people who know and trust each other, and many members
have noticed health benefits from the regular exercise, good company and ultra-fresh
vegetables. A couple who met while planting out leek seedlings a couple of years ago are due
to be married in 2014.
As the name of the farm suggests, we are serious about reducing the environmental impact of
our food production. Not only do we reduce fossil fuel use to a minimum at every stage of
production and delivery of our food, we also experiment with “Regenerative Agriculture”
techniques. These involve careful management of grazing livestock, moved regularly in
electric fence enclosures, to increase organic matter in the soil. Such techniques are new to the
UK, and have been shown to sequester significant quantities of carbon dioxide from the
atmosphere, making a real contribution to addressing greenhouse gas emissions.
The Oak Tree Low Carbon Farm is a not-for-profit social enterprise, with the concrete goal of
becoming financially, as well as environmentally, sustainable, within the next couple of years.
In the meantime we are grateful to the Esmee Fairbain Foundation and the Big Lottery Fund
for funds which enable us to welcome a number of new members to share in the risks and
rewards of farming.
To find out more about The Oak Tree Low Carbon Farm please visit: www.the-oak-tree.co.uk
Joanne Mudhar
Crossing the Thames
An Ipswich Society trip, 16th September 2013
An 8am start and down to Mucking, a suitable name, you might think, for the century-old London
landfill site; however, the name derives from the Anglo-Saxon “Mucca’s enclosure” and the area
has been occupied since the Stone Age. Landfill ceased in 2010; since then the site has been capped
(methane gas), grassed over and transformed into Thurrock Thameside Nature Park. Cory, the
owners, contributed towards the cost (£1.96 million) of building the Visitor Centre and associated
infrastructure. By 2016 the park should extend to 845 acres. The Centre was designed by Van
Heyningen and Haward (the latter, Birkin Haward’s son) and it includes sustainable features
including recycled car tyres for the roof covering.
The foundations can be adjusted, by means of jacks, to account for ‘land movement’, i.e. sinking,
and the whole structure ‘floats’. It was certainly bright and breezy on the roof, with magnificent
views down the Thames estuary towards Southend. From the bird-hide our other guide talked about
the DP World London Gateway Port which, with the wide river and dredged channels downstream,
will be a serious rival to Felixstowe Docks. It will be able to accommodate the world’s latest,
largest and deepest container-ships. All of this site is on a SSSI and SPA (Special Protection Area);
the extensive mudflats and saltings attract tens of thousands of wildfowl and waders on migration
from the north in winter.
‘Crossing the Thames’ or ‘The Thames Crossings’: London’s ever-increasing traffic demands more
bridges and tunnels. A brief stop at Beckton to view a possible site for a bridge; the structure’s
height would be limited by the nearby City Airport. On to Docklands where we ‘flew’ over the
river in Emirates cable cars (maximum capacity 10): a panoramic but scarily lofty view. Then lunch
and a stroll in the vast O2.
Via Greenwich to Rotherhithe – Anglo-Saxon for ‘cattle harbour’, where they were fattened up for
market on the lush grass. At the Brunel Museum we were met by the museum’s manager, our
guide. We stopped outside St Mary’s Church and saw a plaque commemorating the Mayflower,
which sailed from here in 1620 on the first leg of her epic voyage to the New World. Between
converted warehouses, now upmarket flats, to view Tower Bridge and the Upper Pool of the
Thames. We heard about its insalubrious past, when the sewage went straight into the river – hence
the Great Stench of the 1850s, before Bazalgette constructed the sewer system which is still in use
today. We also heard about the lucrative trade in fishing bodies from the river and selling them to
hospitals on the south bank. All very Dickensian!
Back to the Museum, via awkward steps, an entrance where you had to bend double, down a steel
staircase and into the Tunnel Shaft. Apparently, we were among the first people for 150 years to be
in there. Our guide gave us a fascinating and entertaining history of the 1825 Thames Tunnel. The
shaft had been constructed above ground, then the earth had been dug away so that the shaft sank
until level with the ground; it weighed 1,000 tons. Marc Brunel and his brilliant, famous son
Isambard Kingdom, worked on that revolutionary design and eventually their men dug a tunnel
under the Thames. It took eighteen years, cost lives and didn’t make any money; in 1869 it was
sold for underground train use; we could hear the rumble of nearby trains. It is the oldest tunnel in
the oldest underground system in the world and is now an International Landmark site. All over the
world, every underground system owes its existence to the engineering skills and the genius of the
Brunels who pioneered the ‘tunnel shield’ system based on the technique of the shipworm, which
excretes the wood it tunnels through and uses that to line the tunnel behind it. Briefly, a rectangular
frame with 36 cells, each holding a man with a pick and shovel; as the men dug, the shield was
moved forward with bricklayers following behind to shore up the tunnel and prevent it collapsing
in on itself.
A quick look at the museum and a welcome cup of tea before the long trek home. Fifty-two
members – a coachful – owe their thanks to John Norman for a unique and engrossing outing and
to Paul, our driver.
Richard Worman
[A similar trip on 12 May 2014 is fully subscribed. Contact the Secretary for waiting-list places. Editor]
Snippets 1
‘High Street Campus’
Your Executive Committee has expressed the Society’s warm support for the ambitious
plans to co-ordinate and expand the High Street Museum complex. Four separate buildings
– the Museum itself, the adjoining former Art Gallery, the former Art School and the
Wolsey Studio – would be inter-connected with a new building on the car park of the
former Art School and providing a link to all of the other buildings. A much larger
proportion of the Museum’s collections (several of which are of international importance)
would be accessible to the public. Funding applications to the Heritage Lottery Fund and
the Arts Council will be made. Such an enhanced development would help to put Ipswich
‘on the map’ in cultural and tourist ways.
Refurbished bus stations
‘Street wisdom’ says that the bus stations are much the same and money from the
Government has been largely wasted. Regular users are surely the best judges, so time will
tell. The main criticism of the Old Cattle Market is the lack of public lavatories – fair
comment on a situation which needs to be put right. Tower Ramparts seems mostly
improved in small ways, and especially welcome is the regular stop for Park & Ride buses.
We look forward to ‘real time’ electronic information about the arrival times of buses.
Park & Ride
As most of you know, Ipswich Buses have won back the contract. The Newsletter
speculated on whether ‘bendy buses’ would be used. Not so, and probably just as well
considering the huge space needed for U-turns especially: they’re more suited to the
Bradford-Leeds shuttle service, where the trial buses are rumoured to have ended up. It
would be good news if the Bury Road service could be restarted. The colour scheme for
the P & R ‘new’ buses means that Ipswich Buses now operate with three different liveries.
Splendour in white and gold
The newly re-painted Ancient House, with its re-leaded upper windows, is a credit to the
craftsmen involved, to the Borough Council and to the town. It will give visitors something
gorgeous to admire – and local people too, if we could only stop and stare. The Ancient
House and the Willis Building are surely the two most striking and important buildings in
Ipswich. And they couldn’t be more different - typically British!
Carr Street revival?
It seems there are a lot more people in Carr Street at main shopping times. If so, it must be
because of the presence of three competing large ‘bargain shops’ where the queues are long
but mostly quick moving. But it is still sad to have lost the Co-op’s department store in its
four adjoining buildings.
Building ‘At Risk’
Wolsey’s Gate in College Street has been added to English Heritage’s ‘At Risk’ list. This
bad news may not be quite as bad if more funding can be obtained to replace and repair the
incorrect cementing done in the 1960s. Efforts are being made to secure a small area of
land immediately behind the Gate so that walking through it is occasionally or
theoretically possible.
Letters to the Editor
Advertising hoardings from Ken Wilson
The picture of advertising hoardings in the October 2013 Newsletter, page 11 [from the Society’s
Flickr collection – Editor] is an interesting reminder of what our streets once looked like. At that time
the visitor who arrived at Ipswich station had his first impression of us from a line of hoardings which
effectively blocked the view of the town and as he ventured further, more followed.
The owners of the hoardings campaigned vigorously to try to persuade us how attractive their posters
were but the council of the time took firm action and gradually all hoardings were replaced by
something much better.
Incredibly, looking back, not everyone approved of this. The removal of the particularly dreadful
example that you illustrate – the ‘two-storey’ hoarding as viewed from Queen Street – provoked an
angry letter to the Star lamenting its loss.
Now, alas, the hoardings have been replaced by a forest of smaller but equally undesirable advertising
boards – and our present Council is the worst offender, hiding the elegant doorway of St Stephen’s
church with a clutch of them plus an ugly concrete advertising column.
Indians and Chiefs – a correction from Ruth Serjeant
I would like to correct the ‘job description’ given to my position at the Suffolk Record Office in the
article about the Society’s slide collection which appeared in the October 2013 issue of the Newsletter.
I was promoted in it to ‘County Record Archivist’ (a mix-up caused no doubt as my husband Bill
Serjeant was County Archivist of Suffolk from 1974). My job (part-time at that!) was as an assistant
working on the Local Studies Collection (the books etc.) at the Ipswich branch of the SRO, and
definitely a ‘little Indian’ and not a ‘big Chief’!
The future of the Cornhill…
from Ken Nichols
I should like to add my name to the growing chorus of voices who do not wish to see the Cornhill
reduced in size by fountains, posts or lots of trees etc.
Yes, I would agree that the Cornhill does need a spring clean and a change from the seam of red bricks could make it more attractive. However, can I implore the Council not to spend £3 million (if that is the figure) on filling this ancient meeting place with objects, barriers and create another
Giles Square?
Perhaps a large mosaic telling the story of Ipswich would break up the area of red bricks making it
more interesting when empty. Why not involve the young artists of Ipswich in such a scheme, rather
than architects from outside the town who know little of the history of this place creating a clone of
many other town or city squares?
I do feel strongly that the town does need to retain this area as the traditional meeting place for
crowds to mingle, as Christmas, New Year, elections, ceremonials and sports achievements are
traditionally celebrated on the Cornhill and long may they continue.
Also, in my opinion, the Cornhill should not be divided from Westgate Street, Tavern Street, Lloyds
Avenue or the route down to Giles Square. Any interruption in the flow of people making their way
across this area to offices, shops or just as visitors enjoying our town should also be rejected.
The balance of the above money could be well spent on tidying up the ‘Mint Quarter’ and the dozen
or so other major street projects longing to be put to the top of the list of improving our townscape.
Think again, councillors; it’s not too late for you to listen to the slogan ‘Save Our Cornhill Space’.
from John Alborough
May I add another ingredient to the debate over the future look of The Cornhill?
Why can the statue of the soldier that used to stand on the Cornhill not be brought back? It would add
status to the area and be in keeping with the architecture. It is currently languishing under the trees at
the bottom of Christchurch Park. I would be interested to learn what others think. Shall we start
a campaign?!
from Margaret Woollard
In the report from Norma Laming in paragraph 10 she talks about the council at one time considering
tearing down Christchurch Mansion; we must not forget what happened to Holywells and its
Orangery. The mansion had an amazing ballroom and held dances on a regular basis. The reason to
pull down this asset to the town was that they could not maintain it. What a shame as, if not kept as a
social asset, it would have been a very nice home similar to Chantry.
Ipswich Football ground from Colin Kreidewolf
It was disappointing to read the Snippets 2 section of the newsletter and to see that in the reference to
Portman Road no mention was made of who petitioned the Council to achieve the Asset of
Community Value registration.
The Ipswich Town Independent Supporters Trust completed all the necessary registration documents
and made the case for the assignment including responding to questions from the Council. It was the
Council as a body that listed it under the Localism Act although we note they are also the owners so
they could have objected. They did not.
While there is a Labour administration I do not believe there is any danger of the ground being sold
but the local Conservative MP argued earlier this year for a sale but for a derisory £1m; with rent at
£114k currently that hardly seems sensible. (A similar ground at Peterborough was bought by the
Council to save the football club some years ago for £8m and they charge the club £350k a year.) The
ground has been in sporting use since 1853 and this is the 125th anniversary of the Town's official
move to Portman Road (October 1st was the anniversary).
Meanwhile inaccurate op-ed pieces such as those referring to the town centre redevelopment process
are printed as if they are the views of the Society. Coupled with the correction relating to John Field,
it is a worrying trend.
Otherwise the Newsletter continues to be very interesting and welcomed.
Slide Collection to Flickr website
The Ipswich Society’s Slide Collection, not to mention three other donated slide collections,
have now been uploaded to our Flickr website:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/ipsoc/with/8634602310/
and the long story of this most valuable Ipswich heritage resource (as told in our October issue)
is reaching its final chapter. Clearly the addition of title, caption and search tags (not to
mention online comments from browsers, which are already appearing) to each image is an
important part of making them accessible and we have already recruited some volunteers to
help us. We would welcome further assistance as there are over 6,000 images on the site so
volunteers who can spend an hour or two are encouraged to contact our Hon.Secretary (email:
secretary@ipswichsociety.org.uk, other contact details on page 23). Once the work is done on
each photograph, that image could respond to an appropriate web search from anywhere in the
world and our collections will become more widely known and consulted. This resource really
does provide a fascinating insight into the changing town over the decades and perhaps some
buildings, local geography and features you’ve completely forgotten about.
St Peter’s volunteers
I would like to thank all volunteers who ‘manned’ St Peter’s By The Waterfront on Thursdays
from May to September 2013. The whole operation ran smoothly with enough people able to
step in at the last minute in order to cover unavoidable gaps in the two-person rota. I’m looking
forward to 2014 and as usual will be contacting the relevant people from March onwards. If
there’s anyone else who’s interested in joining this happy group, please contact me either by
phone or post.
Jean Hill
(Telephone 01473-413252; 26 Christchurch Street, Ipswich IP4 2DT.)
Tesco – the end of the affair?
The latest application for what was the proposed Tesco site in Grafton Way was before the
planners, giving the opportunity for another retailer to develop the site. The proposals were for
a smaller mixed retail store, two hotels and 14 residential units. However, the application was
withdrawn just before the December Planning meeting, possibly in the light of the Officers’
recommendation for refusal.
The grounds were that this speculative development would have undermined the viability of the
Central Shopping Area and that the applicant (Spenhill, Tesco’s agent) had not demonstrated
that a new store would not serve the town better on the Civic Centre site.
Tesco’s current permission, though granted, has never had its section 106 agreements signed
and it expires at the end of February 2015 (an additional year was granted because the process
was subject to a judicial review). I'm keeping my fingers crossed but I am optimistic we shall
get a better solution for this riverside site.
Planning matters
The outline proposals for the redevelopment of the St Clements Hospital site in planning terms
are reasonable; overall, the site will be largely cleared apart from the locally listed Victorian
central block and some remaining health care use at the north east corner. The vast majority of
the trees, the golf course and the social club will remain. This will allow a total of 227
residential units to be built (at one time the proposal was for 500 units). However, the Officers
recommended refusal as the affordable housing suggested is 4.5% as against IBC's gold
standard of 35%; further the section 106 offer was £180,000 against an Officer calculated
£1,500,000. The officers clearly feel that there is considerable room for profit for the developer
which was, of course, strenuously denied. The financial considerations will be adjudicated on
by an independent adviser which the public will not know about, as under the Local
Government Act it is “commercially confidential”. I find this perfectly legally correct approach
incompatible with our current aspirations in transparency in all aspects of our governance. The
Bill dates back to 1974 but it’s not likely that
the coalition will change it.
Newhall Be, Harlow
I should add that there is a strong tide of
objection to the proposals coming from the
Chilton Road area.
Signs of the revival have hit planning with a 10% year-on-year increase in applications some of which are for intermediate size housing schemes.
The Planning Committee met on 4.12.2013 to consider St Clements, as well as Tesco (which was withdrawn).
Mike Cook
November’s Society-organised outing to view new housing developments in Newhall Be, Harlow (2,750 homes plus primary school), the Civic Trust winning Accordia, Cambridge(378 dwellings) and Cambridge Southern
Fringe (3,600 homes plus schools). Guided tours were provided on the first two. This ‘educational visit’ was primarily intended for interested councillors, planners, members of the Conservation & Design Panel and Suffolk Architects and was a great success.
Ten ways to improve Ipswich town centre without spending three million pounds
1 Ban vehicles from the main shopping street when it is busy with pedestrians, i.e. between
10.00 am and 4.00 pm seven days per week. Vehicles prohibited should include security
vans, cash delivery and shop fitters; any excuse they could have used back in the 1980s no
longer holds and they can access the premises late afternoon, overnight and early morning.
Or put simply: enforce the current vehicle ban!
2 Make Arras Square a ‘no parking’ zone and include St Stephen's Lane; we have seen at
least one private car parked in this square throughout the working day on a regular basis.
3 Resurface pedestrianised streets in their 'original' material (that is, as surfaced following
pedestrianisation in 1986). The use of temporary tarmac or bricks of the wrong colour is
unacceptable in the street scene.
4 Introduce on-the-spot fines for private cars using Dogs Head Street and Upper Brook
Street and run a campaign of implementation. Again, simply enforce the current vehicle ban.
5 Introduce a policy of residential development in the town centre; encourage people to live
close to where they work, where they shop and where they spend their leisure time.
Examples could be the conversion of the Great White Horse Hotel into flats, County Hall
into apartments and new homes on Cox Lane car park and the Civic Centre site.
6 Reconsider the bus routes through the town; recent temporary changes have demonstrated
that alternative routes work (even if moving bus stops is more problematic). Remove
buses from Museum Street, the Queen Street loop and from Upper Brook Street.
7 Sort out a common policy for cycling on town centre streets (currently the Butter Market
and Tavern Street have different rules) and enforce it. There should be no need to cycle
along busy pedestrian streets in the middle of the day (see 1 above).
8 Retailers, restaurants and pubs: enforce removal of their large rubbish bins from the lanes
and passageways immediately following collection and leave the public highway clear of
obstruction until the next collection day. If they have no space on their own premises for
their own rubbish then they are operating from the wrong location.
9 Introduce legislation that prevents retailers obstructing the highway with ‘A’ boards.
Fascia signs and protruding signs above the shop are subject to planning legislation. An
‘A’ board in the highway is an obstruction to the free flow of pedestrians, particularly
those members of the community who are visually impaired or have mobility difficulties.
All such signs should be subject to similar planning constraints.
10 Spend a little money on the necessary repairs and maintenance
of the Cornhill, install an underground low voltage electricity
supply for market stall holders and consider a different market
layout to encourage pedestrians off the ‘golden mile’.
John Norman
Chairman
Optician’s sign recently uncovered in Dial Lane
In October a remarkable discovery was made under the masonry paint of the blank wall to the
left frontage of Pickwick's café, 1 Dial Lane. The sign has already attracted the attention of
Mike Taylor, Conservation Officer for Ipswich Borough Council. The execution by the
signwriter, probably around 1900, is an excellent trompe l'oeil of chiselled characters with at
least three colours blending from shadow to highlight. The faux ceramic/terra cotta-style
border is also striking. The whole sign probably reads:-
'JOHN C. SCARBOROW OPTOMETRIST[?]
AND
SPECTACLE SPECIALIST
------
OPTICIAN BY APPOINTMENT
TO THE
EAST SUFFOLK & IPSWICH
HOSPITAL'
although the upper part of the sign is fugitive due to over-painting and possible damp
degradation. An advertisement in the 1904 Post Office Directory for Mr John C. Scarborow,
Dial Lane, Ipswich, refers to him as “Optician by Appointment to the East Suffolk and Ipswich
Hospital”, later known as Anglesea Road Hospital.
The original building may date from the 16th century. The present owner of the whole
building, Mrs Fay Cooper, (although not directly related to the shop's proprietors, the Coopers)
is a descendant of the optometrist. F.C. Cooper FBOA was running Scarborow's Opticians in
Dial Lane in the 1920s and who may even have been an early partner of John C. Scarborow.
The ‘Victorian’ style of the lettered sign seems to be at odds with what must have been a rather
modern, avant garde frontage to the shop.
Partially uncovered 11.10.2013
The Art Nouveau alterations to the facade were designed in 1902 by John Shewell Corder, an architect of some repute having worked on Hintlesham Hall and many churches in the area. A copy of the plans hangs upstairs in the café. The building has remained in the same family since 1923.
“I am so excited because I’m very passionate about art and history anyway… and I have been spending money and time looking into the history of the building. So uncovering this is just so timely and I just feel it’s given us all a real boost, there’s a buzz in the shop now. I just want to preserve it, I feel this is quite exciting for Ipswich because the history of Ipswich is incredible and people don’t know about it. We’re right in the middle so if this brings a little bit of attention to Ipswich that’ll be superb.” (Proprietress Jane Cooper quoted in the EADT)
The Suffolk Local History Council
The SLHC acts as an umbrella organisation for local history groups and organisations
throughout the county. It hosts a variety of events, including an annual lecture, a
conference and the ever popular Societies Day. Its Journal, Suffolk Review, is published
twice a year along with the SHLC Newsletter. The Ipswich Society is a member of the
SHLC with a representative on their Executive Committee. Ruth Serjeant, who has ably
filled this role for the past thirteen years, retired at their AGM in November and so we are
looking for someone to fill this role. If you are interested in local history and could attend
the SHLC Committee meetings, which are held in Ipswich every two months, this could
be the job for you. The Ipswich Society Committee would require a regular report and/or
you could put an occasional article into our Newsletter. Have a look at the SHLC web
site for more information (http://www.slhc.org.uk/about_us.html) and then contact me if
you are interested. Meanwhile, a big thank you to Ruth for all her hard work on behalf of
The Ipswich Society.
Caroline Markham (secretary@ipswichsociety.org.uk)
Russell Nunn
The Ipswich Society has lost one of its oldest and most loyal members. An Ipswich man
through and through, he retained a hint of a Suffolk dialect all his life although Russell only
spoke when he had something to say and what he said was always worth noting. He was born
in 1928 and educated at Northgate Grammar School and Queen Mary College, University of
London reading chemistry. He was employed in the research laboratory at Fisons, then located
at the south end of the Paper Mill Lane site at Bramford. The lovely nineteenth century Belfast
roof structures of the old warehouse buildings there would have appealed to the young Russell.
The research laboratory was transferred to the new Birkin Haward designed building at
Levington which opened in 1957. He rose to become Chief Chemist there. He was also very
much concerned with the development of the young laboratory personnel there and at the then
Ipswich Civic College. He maintained a relationship with the latter and his alma mater, Queen
Mary College, all his working life. He joined the then Royal Institute of Chemistry (later the
Royal Society of Chemistry) in 1951 and was an active local committee member for fifty
years. Fellow RSC Committee Member, John Beckett: “His long experience on the Committee
means that he is regarded as an authority on people, activities and events, and his opinion on
current issues was much valued.”
This statement can be echoed by committee members of both The Ipswich Society, where he
contributed to the well-being and progress of his town and the Ipswich and District Historical
Transport Society of which he was a founder and valued committee member for decades.
Russell would work quietly and unstintingly behind the scenes.
His work for the Society was mostly in two fields of interest – transport and the Annual
Awards. He knew more about the role of buses and trains in our area than any other layman
we’ve come across. He appreciated the ability of a truly local bus company to respond to the
needs of a community so, while never uncritical of Ipswich Buses, he understood their
achievements and difficulties. He was well aware of the risk to strategic planning for buses as
a result of the attempted muscling in of FirstBus, a situation still developing. It is sad that as a
regular user of Ipswich Buses he will not be able to evaluate for the Society the redevelopment
changes at our two bus stations. Nor will he see whether Greater Anglia, run by a Dutch
company he respected, and Network Rail can significantly improve our Inter City and other
train services. He would have been a good judge of performance and quality.
The Society’s Awards system has long been one of our major contributions to the town in
drawing public attention to the need for sympathetic and imaginative building. Russell
organised this for the Society by seeking nominations of possible schemes, by appointing a
well qualified panel of judges and dealing with invitations and certificates for winners. This
was always achieved with typically quiet efficiency.
Russell and Mary, another Northgate pupil, had two children: Nigel and Brenda, later three grandchildren of whom Russell was immensely proud: Georgia, Jonathon and Matthew.
Russell would always agree to contribute articles about his special interests to The Ipswich Society Newsletter – and always delivered on time! His knowledge, dedication, good sense, advice and kindness will be greatly missed.
Neil Salmon & Mervyn Russen
Peter Bruff and the Mammoth
When researching for my talk “The First Railway to Ipswich and Beyond “ about Bruff building
the Stoke Hill Tunnel, I read that woolly mammoth remains had been discovered during the
excavation work in 1845/6. I spoke to Bob Markham, a fellow member and distinguished
geologist, about this and he kindly sent me some notes on the subject which I have reproduced in
slightly revised form and “illustrated” below.
The Stoke Bone Bed
This fossil bearing site has been known since Victorian times. The original Ipswich Railway
Station, opened by the Eastern Union Railway in 1846, was in St Mary Stoke parish, south of
Ipswich town centre. When the approach cutting to the southern (London) end of the railway
tunnel through Stoke Hill was excavated; the workmen could hardly have expected to find the
remains of fossil elephants.
Peter Bruff finds an obstruction on the line
The Ipswich Journal of the 4th December 1847 recorded tusks, teeth and bones of elephant from
Stoke Hill donated to the newly opened Ipswich Museum (then in Museum Street) by Mr
Girling. The Suffolk Chronicle of 18th May 1849 recorded; ‘in a glass case in the Museum was a
group of mammoth teeth, found at the site, of various sizes, showing that animals of all ages had
died.’
The Ipswich Journal later that month reported a lecture given by Mr John Brown of Stanway in
which he said that they were ‘so plentiful that the teeth were carried about and offered for sale –
two were purchased in Colchester’. John Brown presented specimens to the British Museum in
1852 and a Norwich man called Robert Fitch had specimens in his collection.
In 1908 Nina Francis Layard, an English poet, prehistorian, archaeologist and antiquary, opened
up a small section at the side of the cutting, leading into the tunnel, for examination. Remains
found included an enormous tusk of an adult mammoth, an uncut tooth of a baby mammoth and
part of the claw bone of a lion. The tusk was in a fragmentary condition and fell into hundreds of
conical pieces.
In 1919 a large portion of cliff to the east of the cutting at the south end of the tunnel was
removed to enable construction of new railway sidings. Mr Woolford, Mechanical Engineer of
the Great Eastern Railway, acquired bones and teeth from the workmen. He then granted
permission for Nina Layard to excavate. On the 2nd March 1920 she picked up the bone-bearing
bed; an extremely tenacious deep purple clay. The bones were in a good but fragile condition and
comparatively few in number. They could be removed successfully. Twenty-two mammoth teeth
were recovered, in some cases still retained in the jaws and also the foot bones and teeth of a
large lion. Members of the Ipswich and District Field Club visited the Stoke Bone Bed excavation
in April 1920. They found Nina Layard working in wet clay, with an umbrella in one hand and a
knife she used for excavation in the other hand – quite a character. She eventually donated her
finds to the Ipswich Museum.
Dr Smith-Woodward, a world expert on fossil fish, visited the site in June 1920 and discovered
portions of the shell of a freshwater turtle. More fragmentary bones were found in 1975 by
archaeologist John Wymer in a small excavation at the north end of the wagon repair works close
to the main railway line.
What a most interesting vista would have greeted a visitor to the Stoke Hill area in those far-off
days of pre-history.
Bob Markham and Merv Russen
[Mervyn Russen is our Winter Lecturer: ‘The first railway to Ipswich and beyond’, Wednesday 15
January 2014.]
What’s in a picture?
Several years ago I went to an exhibition at the Wolsey Art Gallery of pictures from the Ipswich
Borough collection which had a nautical theme. One old painting caught my eye. It was entitled
Late seventeenth century Dutch harbour scene and was painted by Lorenzo Castro. It had some
very interesting features. I thought about the painting for a couple of days and then went back to
have another look. Unfortunately, the exhibition had finished. I had spotted a sumptuously-
dressed figure on the deck of one of the ships and I needed another look to identify the ships.
I asked if it was possible to see the painting again, but was told ‘no’.
The years passed and I asked several times to see the painting, but the answer was always ‘no’.
Then the catalogue of Suffolk museum paintings was produced. The picture was now entitled
Warships at sea but the thumbnail image was too small to see any detail.
Then recently I discovered the BBC website Your paintings [http://www.bbc.co.uk/arts/
yourpaintings/]. It has images of all the major paintings in the museums of Britain. Not as good
as looking at the painting itself, but not bad. I did some research and I am now 99% certain that
the painting is a depiction of Charles II leaving Holland on the Naseby (HMS Royal Charles),
flagship of the Commonwealth fleet, to return to England in the year 1660.
I think that this makes it a far more interesting picture.
Louis Musgrove
[Link: http://www.bbc.co.uk/arts/yourpaintings/paintings/men-owar-and-shipping-off-a-jetty-11504]
Snippets 2
North-South versus East-West?
‘Turning Our Town Around’, Ipswich Central’s vision of integrating the Waterfront with the
town centre by creating a more north-south axis for future development, has won the top
award at the national conference of Business Improvement Districts and won support from
the Government’s X-Fund. Meanwhile the Borough Council’s consultants on future town
centre development recommend the former Civic Centre site as being best for new retailing,
which would re-emphasise the present east-west orientation. An unfortunate clash?
Perhaps timing will make sense of it. The Civic Centre site may be the realistic immediate
possibility. ‘Turning the Town Around’ will certainly take time – there are a lot of sites to
acquire, demolish and re-develop between the Waterfront and the town centre before such
an admirable vision is to be realised.
Growing fast!
The Ipswich Star reported in September that the population of Ipswich increased from
117,200 to 133,400 during the last decade. Only Milton Keynes, Peterborough and
Swindon have grown at a faster rate. All we need now are more jobs and more houses!
Growth and refurbishment
Insurance brokers Willis are recruiting post-A Level students from local schools and also
re-locating some jobs to Ipswich from London. (Incidentally, isn’t the Willis Building in
London, just across the street from Richard Rogers’ Lloyds Building and his new
‘Cheesegrater’ tower, the most handsome of all London’s tall new office buildings?)
Willis’s present workforce of 1,350 in Ipswich is likely to increase. The company is also
refurbishing its accommodation here.
An influential tiny minority
Removing the seats from the corner of Berners Street and St Matthew’s Street may have
been necessary to discourage the gathering of street drinkers. That follows on from the
similar decision about the seats at the junction of Westgate Street and St Matthew’s Street a
year or two ago. A pity that the vast majority of townspeople are disadvantaged by a
handful of others.
Three lots
The administrators of Waterfront developments formerly funded by failed Irish banks have
decided to sell the unfinished parts in three lots – the 23 story Mill Tower (Cranfield’s site),
the rest of the unfinished parts of Cranfield’s, and the ‘wine rack’ unfinished tower on
Regatta Quay (Paul’s site). It was a surprise to learn that IBC had hoped to acquire all three
as one lot. Whether it’s one or three or whoever buys any of it, please get on with it!
Youth employment
The Greater Ipswich City Deal was a successful bid put together by Anglia Local Enterprise
Partnership and local councils. It means that £4m will be devolved by the Government for
local decision-making to promote youth employment and skills for the workplace. Sounds
good. Let’s hear more about how it works out.
Landfill mining
(Costing the earth, BBC Radio 4, 9.9.2013; podcast available)
There could be around two billion tonnes of waste sitting in landfills. In the Flemish half of
Belgium quite close to the Dutch border, at a conventional-looking landfill site for rubbish,
contractors are starting to mine the landfill. "We believe that it contains materials and energy
that we can give back to society." There are a lot of usable materials which can be recovered.
In Victorian times food was fed to pigs and other stock, human waste was used on the land to
grow better crops, things were repaired, reused and very little was thrown away; many small
industries and individuals were involved in these trades, so dumps uncovered today contain
bits of pottery, porcelain, bone and ashes and little else. Looking forward to the 1960s and
onwards waste starts to include card and paper waste, plastics and not so much food (in this
post-war period). By the eighties we were very profligate as a society and household and
industrial, particularly construction, waste went through the roof. Or into holes in the ground.
By the eighties it was said that the best legacy your distant, rich relative could leave you was a
hole in the ground, such were the profits to be had from charging people to fill it up with
rubbish. With landfill taxes and greater recycling (and a global recession), our society has
today started to come to its senses and we waste less than we did thirty years ago. Scarcity of
materials and resources today is leading us to value what we once threw away without
thinking. It is estimated that over five thousand million tonnes of waste exist in Europe.
Rubber, plastics, wood, metal, precious metal, all can be reclaimed. Some layers contain paper,
card, textiles and old food residues and light plastic films and have potential as fuel extracted
using gas plasma technology which doesn't produce further landfill waste.
However, within a couple of weeks of the BBC Radio 4 Costing the earth programme covering
landfill mining, Tesco (heard of them?) announced that more than two-thirds of produce grown
for bagged salads, just under half of bakery goods and four out of ten apples are thrown away.
Tesco, working in conjunction with the Waste and Resources Action Programme (WRAP),
calculated the food waste “footprint” for 25 of the supermarket’s best-selling products –
looking at what was wasted both inside its supermarkets and in the homes of its customers. The
retail giant admitted that 28,500 tonnes of food waste were generated in its stores and
distribution centres in the first six months of 2013. 'Sell by' and 'Use by' dates on so many
foods must have an impact on consumer behaviour; 'Buy one, get one free' offers only
compound over-buying and discarding of ‘out-of-date’ food.
It also estimated that uneaten food costs families about £700 a year each. The United Nations’
Food and Agriculture Organization director-general José Graziano da Silva: “In addition to the environmental imperative, there is a moral one: we simply cannot allow one-third of all the food we produce to go to waste, when 870 million people go hungry every day.”
R.G.
Awards Evening 2013
With Tony Marsden and Mayor Hamil Clarke MBE (as in the other
photographs): Tan Shahid, Customer Service Assistant, Lloyds Bank
Wednesday 20 November saw a full house at St Peter’s By The Waterfront for the Society’s
Awards Evening 2013. Tony Marsden introduced the event with a tribute to Russell Nunn who
was a central figure in the Society’s Awards for many years (see the article on page 16). The
Mayor, Hamil Clarke MBE, and Mayoress of Ipswich attended to present the awards.
Vice-President of the Society, Bob Allen, gave his customary ‘light touch’ survey of the twenty
projects which the judges deliberated over with an entertaining and thoughtful commentary on
the accompanying slide show. It is inevitable in times of recession that the number of building, landscaping and sculptural schemes in the town is not as it was in the 1990s, for example. However, there were some interesting entries, many suggested by Society members and they include some which members of the audience may not have known about.
A High Commendation was Catherine Richardson & Paul Richardson of Steel
Sculptures; Eliot Sayer, Landscape engineer: 52
awarded to the refurbishment of the Degrees North (Pegasus sculpture, Latitude development, Ravenswood)
interior of Lloyds Bank on the Cornhill. The late nineteenthcentury plasterwork has been
respected and a restrained colour scheme gives a feeling of space and light in the grand banking hall. You can always pop in and have a look at the interior.
A Commendation was awarded to the Pegasus sculpture 52 Degrees
North on the Latitude Clive Wilkinson, (Suffolk County Council), Graham Rankin
development at Ravenswood. (Design Engineer, Kier May Gurney), Ron Harding (Charge hand), Steve Barrett (Charge hand): St Margaret’s Plain
A Commendation was also reshaping and repaving scheme
awarded to Ipswich Borough Council for the re-paving of St Margaret’s Plain at the top of
Northgate Street. Bob Allen drew attention to the good record in attention to paving in Ipswich
by the local authority. Removal of kerbside barriers and opening-up of the junctions for
pedestrians and cyclists has been very successful.
Some might argue about the inclusion of some of the projects in the long list: the standard
Burger King drive-in at the end of West End Road, the Academy School chain’s standard
development at Brazier’s Wood, the ‘almost standard’ Premier Inn between Star Lane and Key
Street among others. It points to the times in which we live and the current drivers of new
buildings in the town. Apparently the longest and liveliest discussion by the judging panel was
provoked by the deliberations on the extensive works at the Greyfriars/Willis building
intersection at the bottom of Civic Drive: big open spaces, planting, seating and again the
empowerment of the pedestrian over the vehicle. The debate will no doubt continue. Thanks to
Tony Marsden, Bob Allen, our judges and the winners and volunteers.
We will feature photographs of the three winning entries in the next issue of the Newsletter.
“Apparently, you can’t become Chairman or Vice-Chairman without resembling Father Christmas”
Mervyn Russen
The Ipswich Society
email: secretary@ipswichsociety.org.uk
Registered Charity no. 263322
This Newsletter is the magazine of Ipswich’s civic amenity society established in 1960
Dates for your diary
Ipswich Society Outings 2014 The small sculpture on
Thursday 20 March 2014 Capital Curios, London page 2 is on the Lower Brook
Saturday 26 April 2014 Audley End, Essex Street corner of the former
Wednesday 21 May 2014 Ipswich Waterfront walk ‘Price’ shop in Tacket Street,
which has just been restored.
June 2014 Ipswich walk (to be announced) To avoid giving the game
August 2014 Houses of Parliament, London away, the street sign was
Tuesday 16 September 2014 Barrow Boys and Bankers, London removed from the image.
Winter Illustrated Talks at the Museum Street Methodist Church – entrance in Black Horse
Lane – 7.30pm (followed by tea and biscuits):
Wednesday 15 January 2014: Mervyn Russen, ‘The first railway to Ipswich and beyond’
Wednesday 19 February 2014: Phil Smart, ‘Getting back on track’ (railways in the future)
Wednesday 19 March 2014: Darren Barker, Principal Conservation Officer at Great
Yarmouth Borough Council
Ipswich Society Annual General Meeting, St Peter’s By The Waterfront. April
In the bleak midwinter…
…it must surely be time to recall the Society-sponsored Brass on the Grass event in the Upper
Arboretum of Christchurch Park featuring the excellent Stacks of Sax putting the Arts & Crafts
bandstand to its intended use – not to mention sensibly sitting in the shade. A very hot, sunny
afternoon on Sunday 21 July saw the second outing for our new gazebo and a gratifying queue
for bubbly or fruit juice, thanks to our volunteers (and committee members) on the day.