January 2018 Issue 210
Contents
Editorial
Ipswich Windows
New members
Icons
Chairman’s remarks
Stern rudders
Planning: Building for the future
Calling St Peter’s volunteers
More planning matters
Society Awards 2017
Rotherham House
The changing Waterfront
Heritage Open Days 2017
Ipswich Maritime Trail launched
Knots, ropes & ‘Shed of the Year'
Mutual House
Snippets
Letters to the Editor
Ipswich Society people
Gift Aid: update, reminder & request
Dates for your diary
Review: Malster's Maritime Suffolk
Wolsey and his angels
The Ipswich Window as featured on The Ancient House, see page 14
The Stamp Room in Morpeth House
Editorial
Sometimes people get in touch with your Editor and it links in to other subjects in a very satisfying manner. In
2014 Neil Mahler sent an interesting email to GeoSuffolk Times – which happens to be the province of our
Honorary Secretary – and it was forwarded to me. The stimulus was the unveiling in Lacey Street of the
Society’s blue plaque celebrating Charles Whitfield King, whose international postage stamp business rivalled that of Stanley Gibbons. Such is the plethora of Ipswich topics and issues that this event was not covered in the
Newsletter at the time. It proved to be a memorable afternoon with a street event (helped by the
recent shutting-off of the road due to a sink-hole): food, drink, music and an exhibition about ‘The Stamp King’ with members of the family present. There was also a chance to look inside Morpeth House, particularly at The Stamp Room, a lounge which still has some of the wall decorations created out of thousands of postage stamps, with the date (in stamps) ‘1892’. Neil takes us to another interesting Lacey Street building, Rotherham House which links, in turn, to our article about Italianate architecture and signoral towers in Issue 207; see page 6.
Many thanks to all the contributors to this issue.
Robin Gaylard
Four angels observe Cardinal Wolsey – see the back cover
New members
Chairman’s remarks
Happy New Year.
It would be remiss of me to write this, the first Chairman’s Remarks of the year without paying
tribute to Beryl Harding who has died aged almost 106. She must have been the oldest member
of the Society and was a great friend of my predecessor, Jack Chapman. Beryl had been Head of
General Studies and then Social Studies at Civic College; she was a magistrate and later chair of
the bench, as was Jack.
Beryl was a stalwart for education, and for the law. She was teaching at Northgate Grammar
School for Girls as early as the mid 1930s, and continued her career when she got married (most
brides left employment on the occasion of their weddings). Beryl pioneered the development of
Ipswich Civic College after World War II using her redoubtable spirit and fierce intellect. It was
an institution that developed into Suffolk College of Higher and Further Education, the
forerunner of the University.
Further Education (FE) may have been regarded as a Cinderella service, but Beryl saw the
opportunity it gave young people – the late developers who had perhaps failed their 11-plus
examinations. Tertiary education is today offering opportunities, steps on to the career ladder,
pioneered in her books and lectures on the expansion of FE Colleges.
Beryl was a pleasure to be with, informed, liberal and enthusiastic to the end. Our thoughts are
with her family and friends, particularly those at Norwood Care Home who enjoyed her
company to the end.
Further sad news: Frank Grace, longstanding friend of the Ipswich Society and also a former
colleague at Suffolk College, died at the end of November 2017. Frank was a founding member
and trustee of the Suffolk Archaeological Trust (1982).
Frank will be best remembered for his extensive research and writings on the social history of
Ipswich, most notably the book Rags and bones (2005) which was inspired, or so Frank claimed,
by the ghost outlines of the street pattern under the college car park that Frank observed every
day whilst sitting in his elevated office.
The college car park alongside Long Street had never, until recently, been properly surfaced and
thus there was clear difference between what had been street and the foundations of the terraced
houses buried just below the surface.
People ask me where I get my inspiration for the articles in the EADT. Well, Rags and bones has
provided background information on at least a couple and I am grateful to Frank for that.
Frank’s other works on Ipswich include The late Victorian town (1992) and an extensive
historical note on the Ordnance Survey reprints of the 1902 maps. Frank was a contributor to the
Ipswich Society Symposium, The first to the third millennium in 2001, and his paper is included
in the book of the conference. His latest book, In the name of God, Amen: Ipswich wills from the
seventeenth century, was completed just before his death. Copies are available at £16 each from
5 Oban Street, Ipswich IP1 3PG. A review of the new book will be included in the April Ipswich
Society Newsletter.
Against that background I wish you all the best for 2018.
John Norman
Planning matters special:
Building for the future
How do we save the former County Hall? What are we to do with the Tolly Cobbold Brewery? Will The Mill ever get a new overcoat? (replacement cladding for the original,partially blown off in the December 2013 gales) and will it ever be finished and occupied?
Will Tacket Street car park ever get built on? Will the former Civic Centre site ever become a useful asset to the town? I suggest neither of the last two will ever be a retail centre, but is anyone brave enough to revalue the sites and build houses?
It is perfectly obvious that none of this is likely to happen any time soon and equally probable that it won't happen using local money. Who, in this impoverished corner of south east Suffolk, has the money, the wherewithal, or is prepared to take the risk? This is evidenced by the fact that for ten and more years there has been no serious move towards renovation, restoration or re-use of the larger buildings listed above.
I predict that as nobody locally will make the move, then we must attract investors and speculators from outside the area. Easy to say, but how do we achieve it? A solution: ‘inward investment’. The Ipswich Vision team believe that spending money (our money, local money) on the Cornhill will attract new shops, and therefore new shoppers into the town centre. If this is true then it should work elsewhere using the same principle.
Let us, therefore, take a leaf out of their book and create an impression of inward investment in whatever schemes are currently being proposed, and chief amongst them is the new Record Office for Suffolk County Council. You will probably know that such a facility is on the cards, The Hold, proposed for a site on the University campus. But what is proposed is a mundane series of boxes, an anywhere building without presence, panache or style. With acres of flat roof, miles of featureless walls, on a site that has no relationship with its surroundings, not even a master plan to explain how it will eventually contribute to the wider campus.
I am obviously disappointed with the scheme presented to the planners, which is a pity because the chosen architectural practice (Pringle Richards Sharratt ) are usually very good. They have turned out some award-winning schemes elsewhere across the country. Why not in this case?
I suspect because what we have is a camel conceived by a committee. The new building needs
to serve not only as the County Records Office, but also as the main lecture theatre and associated seminar rooms for the university; it needs a café and a shop, an exhibition space and a research The Hold: room. Each body contributing financially (which architect’s visualincludes the Heritage Lottery Fund) has been pulling at the concepts of the scheme to ensure that their needs are met.
It is likely that the architect has been working without a clear specification as to exactly what is the prime purpose of the building. The result is less than ideal: a compromise between requirements, single storey but with stairs and ramps, divisions within and between educational use and Records Office. And a name that is but ephemeral jargon which needs an explanation each time it is used.
Hold on*, could a new building of outstanding architectural quality kick start a wave of similar investment in Ipswich?
Willis Faber and Dumas achieved it in the 1970s; there is nothing so sure that the present proposal won’t! The new Records Office is a public building, to be constructed using public money; it should therefore set the standard we expect of all new development in the town. It should be an architectural icon, sending a clear message that we believe in Ipswich, the local
What used to be there: The Social Settlement on Fore Street, c.1950s. councils believe in Ipswich and it is time to move forward.
[*pun intended]
John Norman
More planning matters
Velsheda (The Wine Rack). In 2005 consent for a 14 storey structure with 290 apartments and
a theatre was granted. Several additional storeys, and changes to roof profile have been granted
since, possibly adding up to 20 floors. Originally it was to be the home of the Red Rose Chain
Theatre Company – now in Gippeswyk Hall – so why not another convenience store? The
developer has now signed contracts for work to start in January 2018.
Grimwades. Pret-à-Manger intend a restaurant here with seating for 56 on the ground floor
and 84 for on the first floor. No extra extraction ducts will be necessary because their operation
is akin to a tea shop. The ground floor on Westgate Street will become a Cards Direct shop.
The Ipswich Local Plan. As soon as the Ipswich Local Plan 2011-2031 was adopted in
February, so it is reviewed for a new plan which is formulated every five years. Consultation
closed on October 30 to which the Society contributed. Our main points concerned housing,
transport, pollution and preservation of the Historic Environment with concern for archaeology.
The Town Hall. For health and safety reasons it is proposed to place six hand rails on the
steps; we feel that four would be sufficient.
St Clement Church. The Ipswich Historic Churches Trust wishes to install electrically
operated bell hammers to the existing six bells in the tower.
Sugar Beet Factory, Sproughton. This is an outline application by Ipswich Borough Council,
who bought the site using their ability to borrow money at low rates, to Babergh District
Council within whose boundaries it sits. It was one of Babergh’s major employment zones and
they have previously refused permission of a largely residential application. This is for an
‘enterprise park’ which will attract central government funding. Amongst the proposals for the
130 acre site are a car showroom, a local retail centre, restaurant-pubs, takeaways, and an
eighty bed hotel. I will report in this vital application to the economic health of Ipswich when
more details are available.
Mike Cook
Rotherham House
Reading the article about Charles Whitfield King and Morpeth House in Lacey Street (in the
GeoSuffolk Times, 2014) reminds me that I used to live at the opposite end of Lacey St in
1984-6 at the bottom corner in a peculiar shaped building called The Warren at TM 1701 4477
and access to our garden was situated at the end of a lane called Arthurs Terrace which is easy
to miss but situated about 30 metres to the south west of the junction of Lacey St &
Woodbridge Road. I used to live in the flat at the top section of the building and if I went
through the hatch above my bedroom leading to the top of the tower I had a fantastic view over
central Ipswich.
The garden used to be quite extensive and at the bottom of the steep slope it had its
own orchard, but a care home has now been built on it, and there is the St John's Ambulance compound built on the rest. Doing research at the Suffolk Record Office led me to discover that it used to be called Rotherham House and was much bigger, judging by old OS maps kept at the SRO.
Unsafe spiral steps led down from the balustrade garden to the bottom of the slope The Warren (Rotherham House) taken from below in Samuel Court.
The top of the fire escape was my sitting room and the top windows which gave access on the of the tower were my bedroom, with access to the roof through a right to a narrow curved hatch. The view is fantastic and could command ‘penthouse suite’ status if properly refurbished.
tunnel about 30 metres long into the face of the hill which came out in a different part of the garden. It was all blocked with builders’ rubble when I moved in, but I cleared it out to try to work out what its purpose was. Half way along was a sort of blocked off window which being in the hillside was pretty pointless – it may have been
to place a candle and was either a servants’ passageway or, more probably, a folly or grotto built to impress friends.
On the other side of the 'cliff face' to the left of the steps were three bricked-off 'cave' entrances which, if indeed they were caves, would have gone under the house itself. My landlord told me off for clearing out the tunnel as he said it could collapse on trespassing children so I never got round to removing any bricks to see if the arches were bricked off caves, but an old local person told me that years ago a chap used to keep chickens in there.
When I was in Morrison’s superstore, Sproughton Road a few years ago I saw a copy of a well-known painting of the old Stoke Bridge but I spotted in the background, above where the railway station now is, a house which looks like a mirror image of what The Warren looks like and I wonder if either is a copy or based on the design of the other?
All the digging must have exposed the face of the hillside/cliff face but it is overgrown with vegetation now. When I revisited the hillside in 2013 from above and below I noticed that the tunnel was now filled in again, the balustrade wall had collapsed and fallen down the steep slope, the spiral steps were blocked off to prevent tenants in the flats making a short cut The house on Stoke Hillto the shops in Blanche Street via the St John's Ambulance compound and, by enlarging the photograph of the building taken from near Blanche Street, I saw that the window frames of my old flat looked in a sorry state. There is a story waiting to be told about Rotherham House!
Neil Mahler
Rotherham House: some notes passed on by our Chairman, John Norman
‘The most interesting house in the group is The Warren, built around 1853 for his own occupation
by the Ipswich architect J. Rotherham Cattermole (designer of the town's finest villa ‘Woodside’,
Constitution Hill) and for many years known as Rotherham House.
The house once had very extensive terraced pleasure grounds which ran down the steep slope to
the rear of the houses in Samuel Road. These are clearly shown on the 1886 Ordnance Survey
maps and there were also fountains and a long curving pedestrian tunnel. A long pathway
traversed the slope from the top adjacent to Bunn's Cottages.
Any surviving buried structures from this mid-Victorian garden (although partly outside the
Conservation Area) would be of considerable interest in garden history terms.
The house itself has been greatly abused by unsympathetic alterations. Although it retains an
interesting belvedere with open laced white brick parapet walls and vertical zig-zag white brick
decoration to the side elevation, the decorative front brickwork has been painted and the
elevations mutilated by unsympathetic window alterations and a prominent black painted metal
fire escape.
Currently a chain link fence at the top of the escarpment marks the boundary to the conservation
area. It is partly obscured by Yew trees and other vegetation which overhang it and which provide
a pleasant sense of enclosure which it is important to manage and maintain. The appearance of
this small identity area would be much enhanced by improved, sympathetic surfacing more
appropriate boundary treatment and the reinstatement of architectural detailing when the
opportunities arise.’
Mike Taylor (Senior Conservation Officer, IBC), Character Appraisal – St Helen’s
Joseph Rotherham CATTERMOLE 1824-1900. builder, architect and surveyor, 58 Carr St.
William Cattermole was a bricklayer. His son, Joseph Rotherham Cattermole, followed his father
into the building trade as a joiner. Joseph later developed to become an architect and surveyor
(1871 census).
William Eade was his architectural assistant, becoming a partner in the practice in 1886.
The Warren was designed by J.R. Cattermole, probably 1850-53 (he lived there from 1853); it
was called Rotherham House for obvious reasons. Joseph Rotherham Cattermole owned and
developed considerable property interests locally (Lacey Street).
Heritage Open Days 2017
Why is it that Heritage Open Days is so successful in Ipswich, attracting visitors from across
the country and across the pond? I met a couple of ladies who had come up from East London
on the train to see what Ipswich had to offer. They try and ‘do’ an East Anglian town every
year and having been to Cambridge, Kings Lynn and Bury decided to come to Ipswich. Their
verdict ‘Ipswich is the best yet’.
The real positive news is that most of these thousands of visitors spent their money in Ipswich
businesses – not on French Fudge or Belgian Chocolate (as they did at the Maritime Festival)
but on sandwiches, cups of tea and ice cream from businesses located right here in town.
I have no idea how many people were enjoying the opportunity to look inside someone else's
bus, building or boat, nor any idea how much each of them spent but it was perfectly clear
walking around that there was more economic activity on the peripherals of the town centre
than there is on a usual Saturday.
The Ipswich Society is pleased – and proud – to contribute to the growing success of the town, and to put a smile on a thousand faces. And why is it so successful? Because of the time and effort put in by the
team of volunteers who started back in April writing to the venues and were still clearing away deflated balloons on Monday evening. My thanks to every one of them.
John Norman
Some comments:
I visited Ipswich for the first time on Sunday to attend the Heritage Festival and I just want to
say how much I enjoyed my day, spending time in buildings spanning several centuries, 3-5
Silent Street, the Unitarian Meeting House, the Masonic Hall and the Willis building. Thank
you so much for organising the weekend. I can’t wait for next year to travel on the
vintage bus!
Christine Armstrong
And at Mutual House…
“Just wanted to say a massive ‘congratulations’ on such a successful weekend. I unfortunately
wasn’t able to make it myself, however friends I have spoken to said it was very well organised
and very interesting. Best wishes,” Louise Quinton, Business Development, Carter Builders
“Just a quick email to express my thanks to you for all your help in getting us open for the
Heritage Open Days weekend and for all the promotion you did.
The weekend was a tremendous success and we estimate we saw somewhere between 400-500
people through the doors over the two days and received a great number of positive comments.
Brenda Sutton was also an absolute superstar and I think we have a genuine celebrity on our
hands, I caught up with her this morning to thank her for her time and she mentioned you had
been talking about doing a follow up article on her! Many thanks once again,” Tom Jell,
Ipswich Building Society [See next article…]
Mutual House
The new town centre branch of the Ipswich Building Society
My article on Parrs Bank (in Ipswich icons, EADT, Thursday, September 7, 2017) stirred some
memories including a note from Brenda Sutton (née Gynn) who was born on the top floor and
had a privileged upbringing using the belvedere as her ‘playroom’. It would be unbecoming of
me to reveal Brenda’s age but she was born during the first couple of years of World War II.
Her father was offered the job of caretaker when the Westminster Bank started operating from
the ground floor (1936). The reward was the top floor flat for Cecil Ernest Gynn, wife Amelia
and family. There was no ‘back yard’ to the bank and therefore nowhere to play outside so
Brenda had to go into Princes Street and explore. And explore she did: the provisions market in
the Corn Exchange, the newsagents (and sweet shop) in the Thoroughfare and the comings and
goings of townsfolk across the Cornhill.
Growing up in the Bank meant Brenda was witness to a number of important town centre events:
the big snow in the winter of 1947/48, the disastrous fire in the Public Hall in Westgate Street
(February 1948) and the Circus elephants parading along Princes Street on their way from the
station to Christchurch Park (early 1950s).
If she was out and about and needed the toilet she would use the one on the corner of King Street
and Lion Street (part of the Corn Exchange). They were controlled by a fearsome lady in a white
overall. Popping in here was easier than climbing the three flights of stairs back up to the flat.
Parr’s Bank was designed in 1902 by Thomas W. Cotman, nephew of the famous watercolourist,
John Sell Cotman. Thomas also designed the new front of the Crown and Anchor in Westgate
Street in a similar 16th century French gothic style. Four storeys with two storey oriels (bay
windows on the first and second floors). The corner terminates with a copper dome, an oak
cupola and a spire which is surrounded by highly decorative finials. The detail is fascinating but
somewhat lost being some sixty feet above the street.
In addition to the ground and three further above ground floors there is a basement, originally
designated coal cellar, strong room (with dumb waiter lift) and larder (with a second separate
dumb waiter). There were two flights of stairs down to the basement, the domestic staircase
providing access to the larder and the second for exclusive use by the bank from the manager’s office on the ground floor into the Strong Room in the basement. No chance of the servants accidentally pocketing the days banking.
The building is faced in Portland stone with a parapet, pierced with quatrefoils and topped with pinnacles, not all of which are still in place, or they weren’t when, at the invitation of the contractor, R.G. Carter, I climbed the scaffold for a closer inspection. Today the outside has been refreshed, the rain water disposal is working and the bank sits proudly in the street.
The first floor was occupied by Pearl Asssurance as their Ipswich office and the second floor by English Electric as their retail outlet for domestic appliances. Between the wars electric appliances were in their infancy, marvelled at but not fully understood by the housewives of the day.
On a raised plinth, a revolution in domestic life was on display: an electric cooker and oven: an
oven in which the temperature could be controlled, at least more accurately than in the ovens
around a range (a range was a cast iron array of open fire and ovens that ran at different
temperatures dependent to their proximity to the flames).
Once the contractor has finished the ground floor of the building it will be occupied by the
Ipswich Building Society as their town centre branch. The upper floors are once again set to
become apartments although I suspect that they will not be occupied by parents with small children.
John Norman
Letters to the Editor
Portland stone article (issue 209), from Ken Wilson
It was indeed highly thought of, so when a cement made from limestone and clay that had been
fired was first offered as an improvement on lime for building work it was called 'Portland
Cement’, comparing its product with that stone. First made by Joseph Aspdin of Leeds in the
early 19th century, it needed some improvement, mainly hotter firing, before it was
eventually accepted.
Basque child refugees, from Douglas Seaton I was interested to read the pieces about Ipswich and the Basque child refugees in the last two Newsletters. Here is a photograph of how a group of them actually looked on arrival in Wakefield, Yorkshire in 1937, and a pitiful sight they make. The clergyman helping to receive them was my father's uncle.
Kenyon & Trott and Mutual House, from Jo Edwards
You've done it again! The memories flood back! Kenyon and Trott I remember very well. My father, who had a woodworking business in Colchester specialising in church furniture, very often asked me to call there to take or collect bits and pieces that needed to be incorporated into either new or restored furniture. And the photo of the building society office .... oh my word! My fiancé's father was a great friend of the manager and Paul and I went to that office for our first mortgage. I was 22 and he was 21! It was a very hot, sunny afternoon. I can remember coming out of the building thrilled to bits because we could buy our house! The sugar beet factory was behind Paul's parents' house. They lived in Elton Park. Their house is now a care home. I am so sorry that the factory is being demolished. Silly, but it brings back so many happy memories. I love your Newsletter! I wallow in nostalgia as I read every edition! [Jo is Chair & Programme Organiser of the Colchester Civic Society.]
More on Kenyon & Trott, Electro Platers from Philip Hancock
I was very interested to read Ron Wragg’s account of working at Kenyon & Trott in the October Newsletter, particularly as I too had a workshop in St Stephens Lane (above J.G. Andrews watch & jewellery shop) from 1970 until the whole area was demolished to make way for Buttermarket Shopping Centre in the 1980s.
As a keen photographer, I decided to record many of the small workshops that operated in that area but, like Kenyon & Trott, were about to close or move to alternative premises. These included Rogers engravers and a spectacle repair workshop which provided a service to many of the town’s opticians.
[We will publish more of Philip’s fascinating photographs in our next issue. -Ed.]
Shoreditch and Bethnal Green from Linda Erith
I found the article by Janice Croucher in the October issue very interesting as my maternal great great grandparents, Andrew and Sarah Potts, were silk-weavers in Bethnal Green and ended their days in Bethnal Green Workhouse, Waterloo Road. They are recorded on the 1851 census as living at 78 Hare Street, now called Cheshire Street, with their daughter Mary Sophia. Their occupation is given as Silk Hand Loom Weavers and their daughter’s as a Machine Silk Winder.
I don’t think they were skilled weavers and probably entered the workhouse sometime between
1861 and 1871. The 1860 commercial treaty with France allowed the import of cheap French
silk which finished off the ‘casual’ silk weaving trade and by 1866 there was widespread
unemployment, a cholera outbreak and the price of bread soared owing to a poor harvest. All
these indicators point to the workhouse for Andrew and Sarah. Their daughter, already married
with children and living in shared accommodation, would have been unable to support them.
Because of their age when they entered the workhouse, they probably did not have to work but
passed their time in a day room (forerunner of today’s care homes). Amazingly, they lived to a
great age. Andrew is recorded as being 77 when he died in 1883 of ‘old age’ and Sarah is
recorded as being 86 when she died in 1889 of ‘senile decay’. As a modern day comparison,
the male life expectancy in Tower Ramparts in 2004/5 was 73.9 years and the female life
expectancy was 79.2 years.
There have been many surveys done of the poor in that area and in 1848 Dr Hector Gavin
published his report, Sanitary ramblings; being sketches and illustrations of Bethnal Green.
These are just some of his findings:
• 94% of streets without sewers
• 40-50 people sharing a privy
• A single standpipe with intermittent water supply
• The average age of death: 26.6 years
I would think not unlike the conditions that existed at that time in The Potteries in Ipswich. NB: The Salvation Army was founded by William Booth, whose statue can be seen in Whitechapel Road, not Charles Booth.
Gift Aid – An update, reminder and request
I am pleased to report that this year’s Gift Aid submission was successful and we received the
sum of £1,669.75 repayment direct into our community bank account. This was based upon
£6,679.00 membership fees or donations by members who have completed a Gift Aid form in
the past.
This brief update offers me the opportunity to appeal to any member, particularly those who
have joined in recent years, who is not currently Gift Aiding (and paying income tax) to contact
the Membership Secretary (see page 23) to request a Gift Aid form. If you are not sure if you
have previously completed a form, contact the Membership Secretary to check your status on
the membership database.
This is an important source of additional income for us and I am keen to ensure we are
claiming the full amount available to us as a Society. Most contact can be made through email
keeping postage costs down to a minimum.
Graham Smith Treasurer
Review: Maritime Suffolk,
a history of 1,500 years of seafaring by Robert Malster
‘Suffolk is, as John Kirby points out in the first sentence of The Suffolk Traveller (1784), a maritime county.’ And thus begins Bob Malster’s latest volume – and indeed this review. Inside the handsome covers of Maritime Suffolk we find expansive chapters from Saxon seamen via Colliers, billyboys and barges all the way to the twenty-first century metal goliaths of The port of Felixstowe.
Having pulled off his remarkable history of maritime Norfolk in 2012/13 which – owing to the volume of material – ran to two volumes, this is the third in Bob’s exploration of maritime East Anglia. Despite its 314 pages, the author apologises for having to omit several topics from his book. Such are the frustrations of authorship and publishing. However, what is here is a wealth of illustration, some in colour, including period photographs, engravings and drawings, maps and some fine aerial views. This is a book which should appeal to readers who aren’t particularly interested in sea and river-going vessels.
Of course, this reviewer wouldn’t be doing his duty if he didn’t turn immediately to sections on Ipswich. By page (ix) we are there with a 1970s photograph of Cranfield Brothers’ flour mill in the background, with R&W Paul’s brick-built maltings on Albion Wharf in the foreground – today the bearer of an Ipswich Society blue plaque to the artist Edward Ardizzone. The caption draws our attention to the newer brickwork on the top floor, indicating where repairs were made after bombing during World War II. I shall look out for it.
We learn that the Romans forded the Orwell at the lowest point possible around today’s Great Whip Street to Foundry Lane area. From the early seventhth century the Anglo-Saxon rulers of East Anglia, the Wuffingas, formed the small settlements around the river to become ‘a trading entrepôt’, Gipeswic. The variety of treasures uncovered at Sutton Hoo are testament to the remarkable extent of international trade during their reign.
Elsewhere we find stories of Bartholomew Gosnold (1571-1607), born in Grundisburgh and whose family seat was Otley Hall, and his voyages to the New World; photographs show the replica vessels the Susan Constant and the Godspeed which can be seen in Jamestown today.
The chapter entitled Life and death at sea reminds us of the extraordinary risks run by mariners from the earliest times. A William Vick photograph from around 1890 of St Clement (‘The Sailor’s Church’) in Ipswich reminds of a time when the church was the venue for the Ipswich Shipwrecked Seamen’s Society anniversaries.
Tales from Felixstowe, Aldeburgh, Southwold and Lowestoft are included to show the economic and social importance of the herring industry to the county, as well as providing havens for barges, barquentines, brigs, drifters, lifeboats, luggers, smacks, schooners, sloops, trawlers and yawls. An East Anglian born and bred, Bob Malster is probably our best-known local historian, living close to Ipswich and a frequent attendee at Ipswich Society events. This book is priced at £19.95 and is published by Peter Stibbons at Poppyland, a Cromer publisher.
It is available from the Tourist Information Centre and the Record Office.
R.G.
Ipswich Windows
The term ‘Ipswich Window’ is sometimes used to describe an oriel window which projects out from the main wall, at an upper floor of a building, but which does not reach to the ground. Such a window is often supported by corbels or brackets, or is part of the jettied first floor. However, we learn from a website associated with James Bettley’s excellent Pevsner, East and West Suffolk volumes that the crucial feature which distinguishes the ‘Ipswich window’ is
a specific design of glazing bars within the window:
‘They are similar to a Venetian window with an addition across the whole width and two small panes over the semi-circle.’ This type first appeared in London about the middle of the 17th century but soon spread to provincial towns. The spectacular examples on Sparrowe’s House (The Ancient House in Ipswich) led architectural historians to coin the term ‘Ipswich windows’. The window type was picked up and used extensively by the Victorian architect Richard Norman Shaw and others.
Looking at examples of ‘Ipswich window’ it would appear that they are not necessarily oriel in character, although they can be found in this form on The Ancient House in Butter Market and The Wheatsheaf at 24 Fore Street*. The Ipswich window takes the central semi-circular section of the ‘Venetian window’ which projects above the rest, adds a glazing bar horizontally through the centre of the semi-circle and adds smaller panes either side to form a rectangular window. (*The Wheatsheaf has a flat Ipswich window in each of the three gables, plus one in an oriel
form to the left at first floor level; the remaining two oriels don't have the semi-circular feature, but presumably once did.)
The Wheatsheaf in Fore Street.
These examples from top left are:
Dial Lane, St Margarets Plain, Tavern Street/Dial Lane, Croydonsin Tavern Street, The Plough public
house in Dogs Head Street and The Ancient House in Butter Market.
This implies that many of the oriel-type windows to be found around our town, while being attractive, quirky and of interest, aren’t actually ‘Ipswich Windows’ at all.
R.G.
Icons
As a keen follower of John Norman’s Ipswich Icons which appear so regularly in the East
Anglian Daily Times, I continue to be amazed by what he manages to unearth about Ipswich
and its past. In the middle of August 2017 he described a few of the shops and buildings which
once existed in St Peters Street. It reminded me of when, as a youngster living in Belstead
Road, I was obliged to use the street before, during and after World War II as the main route
into town.
During the 1940s our family weekly shop often started in Vernon Street, where you found
Carter’s for many of your groceries. Then on the west side, Halliday’s the Newsagent, Cable’s
for fruit, Thurman’s corn chandler for chicken feed – then over the river (very smelly at low
water – it was tidal then) through Bridge Street and into St Peters Street. On the left beyond the
bank and the Hand-in-Hand pub were a few small shops still remaining, like the post office
with Pond’s pet shop next door and Yapp’s at number 10 for bread and cakes. Many had been
swept away years earlier by road widening for the trolley bus route. Opposite were Burton’s
the butchers and Rendle’s for sweets; then Walton’s cycle shop where I bought two bicycles.
I think it was run by two brothers and as a youngster I experienced one of them with whom you
didn’t argue and can well remember being put in my place by his gruff approach. A weekly
visit was necessary there to pick up a recharged accumulator for my grandfather’s radio as,
living opposite us on the south side of Belstead Road, he still had no mains electric supply.
Though a few years before my time, at number 27 there was a radio shop for around ten years from 1920,
owned and run as Barbrook Brothers & Co (BBC). It was established I believe before 1922 when the British
Broadcasting Company was formed and certainly before it received its royal charter in 1927 becoming the British Broadcasting Corporation. The proprietor was Douglas Barbrook – my grandfather’s brother and an electronics wizard – years ahead of his time. With another brother he designed, built and sold
radio sets which would receive the new public service.
Though without any hard evidence, the family story was that they were put out of business
when served with some legal constraint requiring them to change the name of their business. It
is now an antiques shop, with its noticeably low entrance doorway. Again on the north side was
the Sailor’s Rest which we knew as the Port Missionaries (as they were titled), a hostel run by
the Robinsons; I was at school with their son Trevor. But the British Sailors’ Society moved their staff about and I
finally lost touch with them around 1950 when I believe they were ‘posted’ to Portsmouth.
Going a bit further up the road into St Nicholas Street, on the corner of Silent Street was the Wolsey Pharmacy – so often pictured and now part of Curson Lodge following its extensive renovation by the Ipswich Building Preservation
Trust. Although frequently shown as the Cardinal Café at numbers 45 and 45A St Nicholas Street, this once separate shop unit has now been reunited with the original ancient structure.
However, during the period between the mid-thirties and 1947 it was owned by my grandfather, trading as R.C. Barbrook, hairdresser (at 45) and confectioner &
tobacconist (at 45a). [More on John’s grandfather in our next issue. -Ed.]
What John Norman continues to do in Ipswich Icons is demonstrate so well the long history and ever-changing face of Ipswich streets.
John Barbrook
An advert for my grandfather’s shop which he placed in the Methodist news booklet, The Myrtle. He was fiercely Methodist and was a leading figure at Museum Street Chapel. I believe he thought it disgraceful that in 1946 my parents allowed me, aged 10, to join the choir of St Mary at Stoke Church.
Stern Rudders
The study of the development of stern rudders for ships is a subject studied internationally.
I shall give a brief summary. Clay models of boats with stern rudders are found in Egyptian
Tombs of four thousand years ago. In the first century A.D. the Chinese were building big ships
with stern rudders. At the same time in the Roman Empire some river boats and barges had
stern rudders. However, the big ships on the grain run from Egypt to Rome had side-mounted
steering oars.
The practice of putting stern rudders on big ships spread across the Indian Ocean. In the Islamic Middle East their big dhows had stern rudders by the start of the tenth century. The technology spread to the Vikings through Constantinople and up the Danube. Crusaders from north west Europe were so impressed with the dhows’ performance – they knocked spots off the lumbering Christian transports – that they also took the technology back. Font detail from Winchester Cathedral
Representations of ships with stern rudders were carved into Tournai fonts – the one in Winchester Cathedral is dated 1180.
The Ipswich Ship Seal dating from the Hundred Years War?
If we look at the ship seal of Ipswich, round the outside the inscription in Latin translates as
‘The Master Seal of the Town of Ipswich’. There is an image of a ship with stern rudder and
forecastles and a flag on the mast. This is a warship. Most ships of this time did not look like
this, even those used for military purposes. There was no English Navy; if the King needed
ships he summoned ordinary cargo vessels from the major ports.
At the beginning of the Hundred Years War (1337-1453), Edward III assembled a large fleet in
the River Orwell comprising 370 vessels of assorted sizes. This was to transport the king’s
army and entourage, including horses, to Antwerp. They set sail on 16th July 1338 and had no
trouble in getting there.
Again, in the summer of 1340 Edward assembled a fleet in the Orwell. However, the French
fleet sailed up the Dutch coast and blocked the access to Antwerp. News got back to
England and Edward had the fleet converted for a sea battle. At this time a sea battle was
almost unheard of, certainly not on this scale.
About 180 ships had stern and forecastles and large crow’s nests added. Only fighting
personnel were embarked. This delayed departure somewhat but on June 22nd 1340, Edward
boarded the Cog Thomas in the Orwell and led the fleet over to Sluys where the English
captured or obliterated the entire French fleet: a stunning victory, the Trafalgar of its day.
To commemorate the battle Edward minted the Gold Noble coin which was first issued in
1344. The reverse has an image of the King aboard a warship, possibly a representation of the
Cog Thomas. This design has a striking similarity to the Ipswich ship seal. So when you
consider that the earliest accurately dated example of this seal is June 1349, I would suggest
that this seal design was also produced in commemoration of Ipswich's part in the
Sluys Expedition.
Louis Musgrove
Calling St Peter’s volunteers
I’d like to thank all the Ipswich Society members who volunteered to ‘man’ St Peter’s by the
Waterfront on Thursdays from May to September 2017 inclusive. The system ran smoothly
with any ‘swaps’ of duties being made painlessly with each other.
At the end of the season they were all treated to a Sunday tea party hosted by Andrew and
Amanda Mayhew of St Peter’s as a ‘thank you’ for their hard work during the past months. The
visitor numbers during that time were 2,550 of which 700 were visitors at Heritage Open
Day weekend.
This is also a reminder that I will be contacting all existing volunteers in March 2018 to utilise
their services once more.
Jean Hill 26 Christchurch Street, Ipswich IP4 2DJ. Tel.: 01473 413252
Ipswich Society Awards 2017
The Awards ceremony took place on Wednesday 15 November and a splendid evening resulted
in the award of four Commendations for recent Ipswich developments. They can be viewed
online on the Ipswich Society Image Archive. A full review will appear in our April 2018 issue.
The Changing Waterfront
An Exhibition to celebrate the 35th Anniversary of the Ipswich Maritime Trust
Following its Mayoral Opening on Tuesday 3 October, the Ipswich Maritime Trust held this
exhibition, facilitated by The Ipswich Society, until Wednesday 11 October. The venue was the
foyer of the Waterfront building of the University of Suffolk.
In 1982 the people who would form the Maritime Trust mounted an exhibition in R.&W. Paul’s
Home Warehouse (now restored as the offices of Ashtons Legal) to show what might be
achieved to bring the then largely disused Wet Dock back to life.
Since those early days, the Trust’s ‘Vision’ plan, first revealed at that exhibition, has in large
measure been achieved through the efforts of many organisations. That visualisation was on
display at the 2017 exhibition and drew the attention of many visitors. Throughout that time
the role of the Trust has been to use every means at its disposal to celebrate the town’s
wonderful maritime heritage, and to keep alive the unrestricted use of the dock for visiting
historic vessels.
The exhibition drew on material from those early days together with historic photographs from
the Trust’s extensive Image Archive. More importantly still, however, the exhibition looked to
the future and at the opportunities which exist to bring back to life the remaining under-used
and under-appreciated parts of the town’s waterfront. Of particular importance is the area
around Stoke Bridge and St Peter’s Dock: the Anglo-Saxon nucleus of Ipswich.
The Trust believes that redevelopment of the currently derelict buildings here through
collaborative working between Ipswich Borough Council, Suffolk County Council and
landowners such as Associated British Ports is now possible, giving a great opportunity, once
more, to bring back historic craft to this special area of unused tidal water and so complete the
link between the waterfront and the town centre by way of St Peters Street. A further initiative
could be to recreate something of the Victorian promenade which the townspeople once
enjoyed, but which was necessarily terminated by closure of the Island site to the public for the
past 100 years.
To this end, the Trust has commissioned from Ipswich artist Reg Snook a new ‘Vision’ plan, to illustrate its ideas for the future use of this part of the historic dock, and so complete the restoration of the unique waterfront of England’s oldest town.
Ipswich Maritime Trail 2017 launched
One of the exhibits at the Changing Waterfront exhibition was an unpainted set of the oval, Maritime Ipswich 1982 plaques which sparked the Society’s thorough revision and republication of its Ipswich Maritime Trail, which was launched at the opening of the exhibition on the evening of Tuesday 3 October 2017. Long-standing IMT and Society member, Tony Hill, stored the duplicate set of plaques for thirty-five years and in 2017 the Society gifted them to the Ipswich Maritime Trust for their collection.
It took quite a while to establish that all of the original plaques were in situ on historic buildings – the one on Tooley’s Almshouses is partially obscured by shrubbery – but we were then able to integrate the ten plaques into our reworked Maritime Trail booklet. In participating in part or all of the trail, visitors can spot the plaques as they go around the historic Wet Dock and environs. We are pleased to announce that the booklet has been very well-received and sales are healthy. The Ipswich Society gratefully acknowledges generous financial support for the publication from The Ipswich Institute and from Suffolk County Councillor Mandy Gaylard. Copies are available for £2 each from the Ipswich Tourist Information Centre in the Church of St Stephen, Ipswich.
And while we’re on matters maritime and knotty…
Having welcomed the Mayor and distinguished guests, IMT Chairman Geoffrey Dyball introduced the speakers at the exhibition opening. For the Trust, Des Pawson spoke with admiration of the extraordinary achievements of those energetic forerunners of the Trust who made the original 1982 Maritime Festival such a success for the town. Des and Liz Pawson are well-known both in Ipswich and far beyond for their tireless work in
IMT Director Des Pawson, the Mayor of Ipswich, Cllr Sarah collecting and promoting rope-Barber and SCC Cllr Mandy Gaylard at the exhibition opening. making and the craft of knot-tying. Their remarkable
collection is housed in a rather upmarket Ipswich garden shed and this edifice was featured on
a recent Channel 4 series celebrating all things shed with a competition to find the Amazing
Spaces: Shed Of The Year. Entered into the ‘Historic’ category, the programme featured a visit
to Des’s domain by one of the presenters showing some of the extraordinary exhibits including
a section of rope which had lain on the seabed for over three hundred years on the wreck of a
named vessel – the odour of tar on the rope which ensured its preservation could still be smelt.
Snippets
Tidal barrier
The delivery of the tidal gate from its manufacturing site in Rotterdam is a significant step towards the completion of the Environment Agency’s £70 million project. It took two years to design and build the gate and twenty-four hours for it to be transported across the North Sea, finally passing under the Orwell Bridge and entering Ipswich
Wet Dock early on the morning of Friday 27 October 2017. The gate is twenty-two metres wide and will stand nine metres tall when in its ‘closed position’. It is finished with five tonnes of special paint that will help protect it, as it spends most of its life underwater. A 1,000 tonne crane, assembled on-site, lifted the gate into place. The barrier is expected to be operational in the spring of 2018.
Meadow Hall
This shopping mall in Sheffield is to get a £300 million curving glass roof extension; work on
site starts this month, January, and is due for completion in time for Christmas Shopping 2020.
The new extension makes a clear change from being a shopping centre to becoming an
‘experience led’ destination. The new wing will include a multi-screen cinema (replacing the
existing film theatre), a gym and a flexi-use leisure space. This could be indoor golf, 10-pin
bowling or exhibition hall.
This sort of upgrade is happening to shopping centres across the county as town centre retail
withers (hence the rationale behind the changes to the Buttermarket in Ipswich).
STOP PRESS: Broomhill Pool success
Mike Cook announces that he and The Ipswich Society can be quietly triumphant. After many
years of struggle, the Broomhill Swimming Pool and Lido has secured three-and-a-half
million pounds of Heritage Lottery funding. A full article will appear in our next issue.
Internet Access
Ten million adults don’t have access to the internet, they don’t have computers, tablets or smart
phones, they don’t access libraries, don’t know the whereabouts of internet cafés and when/if
they visit friends or relatives, the opportunity of going online doesn’t occur. They are being
increasingly isolated from Government and essential services like banking without knowing it.
St Clement Church carillon
The carillon in the tower of The Sailor’s Church has been refurbished by the Ipswich Historic
Churches Trust. Philanthropist, Felix Thornley Cobbold, donated the cost of the clock and
carillon in St Clement in 1884. A carillon is a mechanical device that plays a tune on the church
bells but restored, it has an electrical control system which will facilitate the ringing of a wide
range of music. The nearby location of the lost public house The Musical Clock is not known.
The Ipswich Society Registered Charity no. 263322
www.ipswichsociety.org.uk | https://www.facebook.com/ipswichsociety | email: secretary@ipswichsociety.org.uk
This Newsletter is the quarterly journal of Ipswich’s civic amenity society established in 1960
(views expressed in the Newsletter are not necessarily those of the Society).
Other members
Dates for your diary
Society Outings
Saturday April 21: American Cemetery, Cambridge and King’s College Chapel.
Sunday May 20: Borin Van Loon’s The Secret Signs of Ipswich – an evening walk.
Tuesday June 12: Bradenham Hall gardens, Norfolk
Saturday July 21: Penshurst Place, Kent
Winter Illustrated Talks at Museum St Methodist Church (entrance in Black Horse Lane); all
talks start at 7.30pm and free tea, coffee and biscuits are provided afterwards. All are welcome.
Wednesday January 17: Dr Edward Packard, University of Suffolk, The Basque Refugee
Children in Suffolk, 1937-1939.
Wednesday February 21: Brendan Keaney, Artistic Director and Chief Executive of Dance East
at the Jerwood Centre, Ipswich.
Wednesday March 14: Russell Williams, Chief Executive of Ipswich Borough Council.
Ipswich Society Annual General Meeting: Wednesday April 18,7.30pm: followed by a talk by
Suffolk County Council Highways Engineer, Suzanne Buck, on the Upper Orwell Crossings.
Waterfront Building, University of Suffolk.
Ipswich Tourist Guides start their 2018 programme of 'Afternoon Tea Walks' on 18th January.
Why not wrap up warm and join them for one of the themed walks each ending at a local café
for a hot drink and a slice of cake? The total cost is £8 per person and the walks continue on
selected days through to 25 April. The walk scheduled for Friday 26 January will focus on
some of the fascinating Ipswich men and women commemorated by Ipswich Society blue
plaques. Full details available from Tourist Information Centre. Advance booking essential.
The four reunited ‘Wolsey’s Angels’ bronzes, on loan from The Victoria & Albert Museum, are
currently on display in the Wolsey Art Gallery, Christchurch Mansion, Ipswich. The exhibition
continues until Sunday 11 March 2018. Thomas Wolsey: Ipswich’s greatest son features the
conserved sculptures by Benedetto da Rovezzano (1474-1554) which were executed in 1524-9
for Cardinal Wolsey for his own sepulchre. At his fall from the King’s favour, everything was
seized by Henry VIII, including the angels. The Renaissance tomb was stored and eventually
used for Admiral Lord Nelson in St Paul’s Cathedral. The Charter for Wolsey’s College is on
show with portraits of Wolsey and various Tudor artefacts, many from the Ipswich
Museums collections.
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