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There are, as far as our research has shown, thirteen places around the world called Ipswich (see Family Tree, at foot of this page).  They are: Ipswich, Suffolk, England Ipswich, Queensland, Australia Ipswich, New South Wales, Australia Ipswich, Massachusetts, USA New Ipswich, New Hampshire, USA Ipswich, South Dakota, USA Ipswich, Wisconsin, USA Ipswich, Virginia, USA    (also known as Ipswich Townvillas) Lake Ipswich, Virginia, USA   Ipswich, Manitoba, Canada Ipswich, St Elizabeth, Jamaica Ipswich, Portland, Jamaica Islas Ipswich, Chile As well as these, we also have an Ipswich River & an Ipswich Bay  (Massachusetts), New Ipswich Mountain  (New Hampshire), Ipswich Grasslands  (South Dakota), Ipswich Prairie  (Wisconsin), Ipswich Basin  (Australia) & Ipswich Caves  (Jamaica).

Situated at 52° 3’ 34” N  1° 9’ 20” E, Ipswich is the county town of Suffolk in the region of East Anglia. It is located on the River Orwell estuary & also on the River Gipping,  approximately twelve miles from the coast & 70 miles north east of London. Population:-  The population of the Borough of Ipswich at the 2021 census was 151,562. How to get there:- By road: From London & the south take A12 (junction 28 from M25) northbound.  From Cambridge & the Midlands take A14 eastbound.  From Norwich take A140 southbound, then head east on the A14.  By rail:  Ipswich is on the Great Eastern Main Line. From London, use London Liverpool Street Station. Connections also to Norwich, Harwich, Felixstowe & Lowestoft.  From the west, Ipswich is reached on the Ipswich to Ely Line, via Cambridge & Bury St Edmunds.  Nearest major airport is Stansted in Essex. From there take A120, then A12 northbound.  Time zone: Greenwich Mean Time. Daylight saving time in summer +1 hr.   Contents History:  Early Settlement & Derivation of Name Ipswich Hoards Ipswich Ware Pottery Early History Charter/Le Domesday The Town Seal Ipswich Coat of Arms   Priories & Friaries Our Lady of Grace The Maid of Ipswich  The Ipswich Martyrs   Historic Churches St. Lawrence - The World's Oldest Church Bells Cornhill The Treadmill – An Ipswich Invention  Buildings:   The Ancient House Pykenham's Gatehouse  Tooley's & Smart's Almshouses  Ipswich School The Master's House (Samuel Ward/William King)  The Ipswich Institute    The Old Custom House  “Tolly Follies” Willis Building   Museums:   Ipswich Museum Ipswich Transport Museum Clifford Road Air Raid Shelter Museum   Parks/Nature Reserves:   Christchurch Mansion & Park Holywells Mansion & Park Chantry Mansion & Park Belstead Brook Park  Bixley Heath Local Nature Reserve The Dales Open Space Local Nature Reserve Orwell Country Park Alderman Canal Local Nature Reserve  The River:   River Orwell & River Gipping The Shipyards of Ipswich  The Waterfront  Orwell Bridge The Lost Port of Orwell   Myth of the Roman Road over the Orwell Why not also visit www.planetsuffolk.com   - Bringing together the Suffolks of the world Early Settlement & Derivation of Name Evidence of settlements going back to the stone age have been found in and around what is now known as Ipswich, making it one of the earliest known inhabited sites in Britain. Paleolithic, Mesolithic & Neolithic artifacts, including stone axes & pottery, have been found in various areas of the town & surrounding countryside. During the Bronze & Iron Ages the area was inhabited by a Celtic tribe called the Trinovantes, whose capital was on the site of modern day Colchester. Although there was no town in the area in Roman times, there are known to have been a few farmsteads. A large villa is known to have stood to the north west of the present town centre, in what is now Castle Hill. This was discovered in 1854, but not excavated until 1948 & is one of the largest & wealthiest villas to have been discovered in Suffolk. Roman burial sites have also been found in the Dales Road & Tuddenham Road areas. There also seems to have been a river crossing point with a few buildings close to modern day Handford Road, where pottery & coins have been unearthed. There are two main theories as to the origins of the town's name. One is that the town took its name from a seventh century Saxon named Gippa (or Gipe), who was known as ‘Gippa the Yawner’. Whether this man actually existed is now impossible to ascertain, although it should be noted that the Old English verb to yawn was ‘Gipian’. The other possibility is that the name derives from ‘Gipa’, meaning an opening or estuary, & ‘Wic’ meaning a town, dwelling or settlement. Whichever version is correct, the town that came to be known as ‘Gippeswick’  was established on the Orwell estuary where it could most easily be forded, near to the present day Stoke Bridge. The Domesday book lists the town as Gipeswic. Other spellings include Gippeswiche and Gypewici. As the G was silent, the name eventually, evolved into Yppyswyche, before eventually becoming Ipswiche & finally the spelling we know toda The name Gippeswyk still survives today in Gippeswyk Road & Gippeswyk Avenue, plus the nearby Gippeswyk Park. Adjacent to the park is the red bricked Gippeswyk Hall, which is a Grade II listed building that dates from c.1600. Ipswich Hoards  There are two notable hoards that have been discovered in Ipswich; the first in 1863, the other in 1968 & 69.  Discovered in an earthenware pot, buried 10 feet beneath the ground, the first hoard was found in 1863 during demolition & road widening on the corner of The Buttermarket & White Hart Lane. The find is alleged to have originally consisted of some 150 silver pennies, although the whereabouts of only half that number are now known.  The coins date from the time of Æthelred II, often called  Æthelred the Unready, (c. 968 – 1016) who was king of England between 978–1013 and 1014–1016. The coins were minted in Ipswich & London, & are thought to have been buried sometime during the period 979 -985. The second hoard was discovered during building work in Holcombe Crescent in the Belstead Hills area of south west Ipswich in 1968, with the initial find consisting of five Celtic gold torcs or neck rings (see photo, left). The items show design features associated with the Celtic La Tène  culture, & are thought to date from around 75 BC.  A sixth torc was  found in the following year, some distance from the others but thought to be from the same collection.  The find’s proximity to the Belstead Brook has led to speculation that this hoard was associated with a spring or holy well in the area.  The torcs are now housed in the British Museum in London, with copies on show in Ipswich Museum . Ipswich Ware Pottery  Ipswich Ware Pottery dates from the period 650-850 AD, or what is known as the Middle Saxon period. Ipswich Ware remains have been found in the area of the present day town centre, most notably the site of today's Carr Street, where remains of kilns have been excavated. As well as in the town itself, Ipswich Ware has been found over much of East Anglia from Norfolk to Essex & from the coast to the Fens, & as far away as Kent & Yorkshire. It is the earliest discovered remains in Britain of pottery turned on a slow wheel & kiln fired, & was probably introduced from the Rhineland or Frisia during the fifth to seventh centuries. Usually grey & smooth, although sometimes with a large amount of sand in the clay, remains of cooking pots, bowls of varying sizes, pitchers & bottles are among the more usual finds. From the middle of the ninth century onwards, Ipswich Ware was superceded by pottery known as Thetford Ware, or Ipswich-Thetford Ware. Despite the name, this also originated in Ipswich. This was finer, thinner pottery than Ipswich Ware as it was turned on a fast wheel. This pottery dates from approximately 850 to 1150 ad.    (photo - Colchester & Ipswich Museum Service)  Early History  The first written reference to the town appears c.955 in the will of Theodred, Bishop of London, in which he bequeaths “a messuage at Gypeswich for his sister’s son, Osgod”.  (A messuage is a house and its lands.)  The first definite dateable record is in the year 970, in the form of a grant of land to the Prior of Ely by King Edgar. During this period the town was granted a royal licence to operate a mint. The earliest discovered coins, from around 973, bear the head of King Edgar & also the names of the minters; Leofric & Lifringe. Minting continued in Ipswich up until the reign of King John, who shut the mints down in about the year 1215. During the late 11th or early 12th century a wooden castle was erected in Ipswich by Roger Bigod, Sheriff of Norfolk & Suffolk. The castle was attacked & besieged by King Stephen in 1153, after he had been betrayed by Roger Bigod’s son Hugh, who had sided with Henry of Anjou (later King Henry II) after being granted the Earldom of Norfolk & Suffolk in 1140 by the king. The Bigod family later changed allegiances again when Hugh’s son, also named Hugh, sided with Beaumont, Earl of Leicester, who attacked & took the castle with a mercenary army in 1173. As revenge for this, in 1176 King Henry ordered that the castle be demolished.  There is no evidence of the castle today & the exact site is not known, although the Upper Arboretum in Christchurch Park is one possibility. The most likely location, however, is in the present day Elm Street in an area once known as The Mount, where the police station now stands. It was definitely not in the area of today's Castle Hill, which was too far outside the town at that time.  Although Ipswich was never enclosed within stone walls, around the year 900 earth ramparts & a defensive ditch were constructed around the growing settlement; probably the work of the Vikings, who had invaded in 869. Viking rule lasted until 917 when the town became part of the Kingdom of England. Viking raids continued through the tenth & eleventh centuries, including two after the Norman conquest of 1066. The defences were reconstructed & reinforced several times over the next few centuries.  From the east, the ramparts seem to have run in an arc northwards from the marshland in the area of modern day Greyfriars, up to the Westgate, then proceeded around Tower Ramparts, close to modern day Crown Street (where vestiges of the earthen banks could still be seen until at least the 1930's), on to the Northgate. From here they began a southerly arc down today’s Upper & Lower Orwell Streets, passed the Eastgate & on down to the river. (The southern approaches to the town, being bordered by the River Orwell & marshland, had no such defences). Although there may have been other entry points into the town at various points in the ramparts, the three main ones were Westgate, Northgate & Eastgate.  Shown on John Speed’s map of 1610 as Barre Gate, the Westgate was the main point of entry to the town from the west & was also known as St. Matthew’s Bargate. It stood where modern day Westgate Street meets St Matthew’s Street. From at least the fourteenth century, a solid archway of brick & stone stood here; the building also being used as a gaol up until the eighteenth century. It was pulled down in 1781.  Another entrance, built around 1603 & known as the Bull Gate (after Anthony Bull, who had a house close by) was situated to the north east of the Westgate, in the area where modern day High Street joins Crown Street. On Speed’s map of 1610, however, this gateway leads only into open fields & this was probably never a major route into town. The Northgate, also known as the Barr Gate, Bargate or St. Margaret’s Gate, stood at the top of modern day Northgate Street. It was demolished in 1794, although some of the remains can still be seen in the cellars of what used to be the Halberd Inn. There are differing opinions as to exactly where the Eastgate stood. Although the logical point seems to be at the eastern end of modern day Carr Street (known as Major’s Corner), another possibility is the junction of Tacket Street & Orwell Place.  It seems probable that there were entry points to the town in both these locations, although what form they took & when they were taken down is unknown.    The area today known as St Margaret’s Green was, from Anglo-Saxon times onwards, a meeting place known as Thingstead . Whilst this could have been the main meeting place, or folkmoot, for the people of Ipswich, the fact that it was located outside of the town’s northern ramparts has led some to believe that it was actually the meeting place for the much larger area known as Wicklaw; the five & a half hundreds to the east of Ipswich that belonged to the Monastery of Ely, also known as the Liberty of St Etheldreda.  The name Thingstead , is thought to be of Scandinavian origin; the  ‘thing’  element meaning an assembly or meeting place. The name also appears in Suffolk as Thinghog , or later Thinghoe , which refers to the Liberty of Bury St Edmunds in the west of the county.                                                           Charter/Le Domesday  On 25th May 1200, King John granted the town its charter, making Ipswich a ‘Free Borough’ & giving the town the right to self government.  On 29th June of that year, a meeting of the whole community took place in the churchyard of St. Mary Le Tower to elect its own bailiffs & coroners.  It was also decided that the town should elect a council, made up of twelve ‘portmen’. Contrary to popular belief, the king didn't visit Ipswich to present the charter, as he was in France at the time.One of the first tasks of the new government was to set the town’s by-laws, which were detailed in a document called “Le Domesday”, named after William the Conqueror’s famous Doomsday Book of 1086. In 1271, however, a town clerk named John Le Blake disappeared with the original Domeday, as well as other records, & neither he nor the documents were ever seen again.  It wasn’t until 1291 that a new document was written out based on the stolen records, after Ipswich had endured a period of eight years during which the constitution was suspended & direct rule by the Crown imposed. When the new council was established, the bailiffs, coroners & portmen were supplemented by  a council of 24 men elected by the whole town (This arrangement lasted until 1835, when a new corporation with a mayor, aldermen & councillors came into being). The new volume was called “Domesday des Leyes e des usages de Gippeswiz” but is more commonly known as the “Little Domesday Book”.  The original “Little Domesday” also disappeared some time during the late thirteenth or early fourteenth centuries. Several copies have survived, however, two of which are now in the British Museum.  In 1521 the “Great Domesday Book” was compiled; being a larger, expanded edition of the earlier work.  Written on 271 sheets of vellum, the “Great Domesday Book of Richard Percyvale” as it was also known, is divided into seven books, which include, amongst other things, the original charter of 1200, the 1512 charter confirmed to the town by Henry VIII, as well as one of the most complete records of taxes, fees, grants & memoranda to have survived anywhere in England from this period. The Town Seal  Several months after the granting of Ipswich’s charter in May 1200, the town’s newly formed government designed a town seal (see picture, left). Depicted on it is a Man o’ War vessel with castles fore & aft; much different from the small coastal vessels that would have been in use by the Ipswich merchants of that time, & possibly an early representation of the collier ships that would, in future centuries, become known as ‘ Ipswich Catts ’ (see Ships Named Ipswich page). But what is most interesting about the design, is that it is the first known example anywhere in the world of a ship with a movable rudder, as opposed to a steering oar commonly in use during that era. The reverse of the seal depicts the church of St Mildred on the Cornhill, which would eventually become the town’s court & Town Hall. Ipswich Coat of Arms  The design of Ipswich’s Coat of Arms is based on the arms of the Cinque Ports of Kent & Sussex, which provided support for the Royal Navy in centuries past.  The shield shows a lion rampant on the left, with the sterns of three ships on the right. This is supported by two seahorses. Above the shield, an armoured helmet is topped by a lion holding a sailing ship. Priories & Friaries  The Augustinian Order (also known as the Austin Canons or Black Canons), established two priories in Ipswich during the reign of Henry II (1154-1189); Holy Trinity & St. Peter & Paul.  Although there had been an earlier church called Holy Trinity mentioned in the Domesday Book of 1086, Holy Trinity Priory, located on the site of what is now Christchurch Mansion, was built in 1177.  In 1536 it was seized by the Crown and the priory was suppressed the following year.  The site was purchased in 1545 by Paul Withipoll, a London merchant, whose son Sir Edmund commenced building the Mansion in 1548. The Priory of St. Peter & Paul was located on modern day College Street, near St. Peter’s church. In late 1296 & early 1297 King Edward I stayed at the priory for the wedding of his daughter Elizabeth. In 1528 Cardinal Wolsey obtained papal permission to suppress the priory, and it became his shortlived Cardinal College of St. Mary.  After his fall, in 1531 the property was sold to Thomas Alvard, a member of the King’s Household.  (See also Cardinal Thomas Wolsey  & Christchurch Mansion & Park  sections below) During the latter half of the thirteenth century, the Dominicans, Franciscans & Carmelites all set up friaries in Ipswich. The first to arrive were the Dominicans, or Blackfriars. Founded by Henry III, the order established themselves in Ipswich in 1263, their church & buildings being located in between modern day Foundation Street & Lower Orwell Street. The excavated remains of their buildings can still be seen today (See photo, left). In 1278/9 the Carmelite or Whitefriars established their community in the area between the modern day Buttermarket & Falcon Street. King Henry VI was entertained here in 1452. Remains of their buildings were still in existence in the late nineteenth century.  In 1987, during excavation works in the Buttermarket, the remains of the Carmelite church, chapter house & cloisters were discovered, although nothing is visible above ground today. The Franciscan or Greyfriars, also known as the Friars Minor, established  themselves in what is now Franciscan Way & Friars Street, close to St. Nicholas’ church, probably around 1280. Although nothing remains of their buildings, the area is still known as Greyfriars. (See also Ips Misc. page Ipswich Man  - BBC Documentary )    As the three friaries were not particularly wealthy, they were not suppressed until 1538.            Our Lady of Grace  In 1297, the daughter of King Edward I, Princess Elizabeth, married John, Count of Holland in the Chapel of Our Lady near the Westgate in Ipswich. Also known as the Shrine of Our Lady of Grace, the chapel, built around 1152, housed a statue known as the Madonna of Ipswich. The statue was believed to perform miracles, & was a destination for pilgrims from at least the thirteenth, up until the sixteenth centuries.  Sir Thomas More, in 1515, witnessed a miracle in which a girl was supposedly cured of blasphemy at ‘Our Ladye of Ippeswitche’ (see The Maid of Ipswich , below). Other notable visitors were Catherine of Aragon in 1517 & Henry VIII in 1522.  When the Church of England broke with Rome, Henry VIII ordered the destruction of shrines like Our Lady of Ipswich. In July 1538 the statue was removed & taken to London, the intention being that it, & many others like it, were to be destroyed by burning. However it is possible that the statue survived & found its way to Nettuno on Italy’s west coast. One theory is that it was taken by English sailors who were shipwrecked there in 1550. Another is that, rather than being destroyed, it was sold. Whether the statue that stands in the Piazza Massino is the Ipswich Madonna, or how She came to be there, will probably never be known with certainty.  However, the Nettuno statue is known as ‘The English Lady’ & the front part of her shoes are made of silver. It was recorded, when the statue was moved from Ipswich to London in 1538, that She possessed ‘half shoes of silver’. It is not clear exactly when the Chapel of Our Lady was destroyed, but it would probably not have survived long after the Madonna’s removal. Today, a bronze statue & a plaque adorn the wall of Lady Lane, just off Westgate Street (see picture, above left). A replica of the Nettuno statue can also be found at the rededicated shrine in St. Mary Elms church in Elm Street. The Maid of Ipswich  Anne Wentworth (c.1503-c.1572) was the daughter of Sir Roger Wentworth of Gosfield, Essex, who was twice MP for Ipswich, and also a friend of Sir Thomas More.  Around 1515, when Anne was twelve, she fell ill and suffered from seizures in which she blasphemed and began to have visions, all of which were believed to be the work of Satan.  Then one of her visions convinced her that she must go on a pilgrimage to the Virgin at Our Lady of Ipswich  (see above). She did so and went through various torments there.  However, these torments supposedly drove out the devils that had possessed her and, in the presence of the whole company, she was suddenly restored.  Anne was left with the gift of prophesy, and thereafter was sought after as “The Maid of Ipswich”.  In grateful recognition of the miracle, she took the veil and became a nun.  She entered the convent of Bruisyard in Suffolk and, after the dissolution of the monasteries, she lived in Framlingham. The Ipswich Martyrs  Situated in Christchurch Park in central Ipswich is a memorial to the Nine Ipswich Martyrs.  Erected in 1903, the stone monument commemorates nine Protestants burnt at the stake for their beliefs during the period 1538-1558. Seven of the nine people whose names are commemorated; N Peke (1538), ? Kerby (1546), Robert Samuel (1555), Agnes Potten (1556), Joan Trunchfield (1556), Alexander Gooch (1558) & Alice Driver (1558), were burnt on the Cornhill in Ipswich. The other two; John Tudson (1556) & William Pikes (1558), were Ipswich residents burnt in London & Brentford respectively. With a base of Ketton stone & a shaft of polished red granite, the 27 ft high memorial was designed & created by the Art Memorial Company of West Norwood & was funded by private subscriptions, after a series of articles by Nina Frances Layard had appeared in the East Anglian Daily Times  between 1898 & 1902, which brought the executions to public attention . These articles were republished in book form in 1902 as Seventeen Suffolk Martyrs . Most of the executions occurred during the reign of Queen Mary I (1553-58), during which time she re-established Roman Catholicism, & is known to have had more than 280 Protestants put to death; earning her the sobriquet of “Bloody Mary” in the process. Historic Churches  It has been said that no other town of comparable size in England has preserved as many of its medieval churches as Ipswich. The Norman Domesday Book of 1086 lists twelve churches in Ipswich (although the omission of others such as St Mildred’s, known to have been in existence on the Cornhill at that time; All Saints, which may have been situated in the modern day London Road/Handford Road area ; & Osterbolt, whose location was in the area of present day Shire Hall Yard/Foundation Street & which is possibly another name for one of the churches mentioned in Domesday that remain unidentified, all points to the fact that the list is incomplete). Five, or possibly six of the Domesday churches still exist to this day. These were all of Saxon origin & were probably all wooden structures at that time; the Normans rebuilding them in stone during the late eleventh or twelfth centuries.  Those listed in Domesday that no longer exist are: Holy Trinity, which was situated on the site of the present Christchurch Mansion in Christchurch Park, which ceased to be a parish church when it became part of the Priory of the Holy Trinity in 1177 (see Priories & Friaries  section, above). St Augustine’s, on the Stoke side of the river, which is known to have been in existence until the second half of the fifteenth century, but was probably demolished soon afterwards. St George’s Chapel, which was just outside the Westgate in St George’s Street (also known as Globe Street), & is known to have been in existence, although derelict, until the early nineteenth century. St Michael’s, the location of which is uncertain, although it is thought by some to have been on the site of St Nicholas Church.  St Julian’s, site unknown. St Peter’s. There are two St Peter’s listed in Domesday, the one near Stoke Bridge (see below) & a second, location unknown.  Those listed in Domesday that are still in existence today are, St Lawrence, St Peter’s, St Stephen’s, a church on the Stoke side of the river in the holding of St Etheldreda, & two by the name of St Mary’s.  If we assume that the church belonging to St Etheldreda, (& therefore the monastery at Ely) is St Mary at Stoke, then the two other St Marys are probably St Mary Le Tower & St Mary at the Elms. St Mary Le Tower:  As the name suggests, this was probably the first church in Ipswich to have a tower; an indication of the wealth of the parish. Situated in modern day Tower Street, it was in the churchyard of St Mary’s in June 1200 that the townspeople of Ipswich met to receive the borough’s first charter, which had been granted by King John on 25th May of that year, & to codify the by-laws. Most of the church in evidence today was rebuilt in during the period 1860 – 80, including the present tower which stands at a height of nearly 200 feet; the previous tower having fallen into ruin around 200 years before. St Mary at the Elms:  Often known simply as St Mary Elms, this church on Elm Street may have been built on the site of an older church called St Saviour’s. The church doorway is thought to date from as far back as the eleventh century, whilst some of the bricks intended for Wolsey’s Cardinal College of St Mary were used in the rebuilding of this church after the Cardinal’s fall from favour in 1529.  The church today contains the rededicated Shrine of Our Lady of Grace (see Our Lady of Grace  section, above). The row of cottages behind this church are thought to be the oldest buildings in Ipswich, whilst situated at the front of the church is a modern bronze statue of a girl sitting cross-legged handling a ball of clay. Named ‘Tam’, the sculpture was created by Honoria Surie.   St Lawrence:  Accessed by the pedestrian Dial Lane & St Lawrence Street, which both connect Tavern Street with the Buttermarket, St Lawrence’s main claim to fame is its bells, which are the oldest surviving set of church bells in the world (see St Lawrence - The World’s Oldest Church Bells  section, below).  The church was rebuilt around 1440, although the extant tower dates from 1882. Prior to this, the clock on the old tower had protruded at an odd angle into what had been known since medieval times as Cook’s Row. From the middle of the nineteenth century, however, it became known as Dial Lane. The building is no longer used as a place of worship, but is in the care of the Ipswich Historic Churches Trust &, as the St Lawrence Centre, is run as a café & bistro, as well as being available for private hire. St Peter’s:  Located by Stoke Bridge, St Peter’s is probably the site of the first church in Ipswich, as this area was the hub of the original settlement by the river.  Now known as St Peter’s by the Waterfront, the church stands between College Street & Star Lane, although originally the river ran much closer to the church than it does today. In 1130 the Augustinian Priory of St Peter & St Paul was established just to the north of the church, with the present church dating from the fifteenth century. The Priory was dissolved in 1526 to make way for Wolsey’s Cardinal College of St. Mary, & the church became the college chapel; although after the Cardinal’s fall from favour, St Peter’s reverted to a parish church in 1537. St Peter’s by the Waterfront is today a heritage centre & concert venue, & is the permanent home of the Ipswich Charter Hangings  (see separate section, below). St Stephen’s:  Originally standing in St Stephen’s Lane, the development of the Buttermarket Shopping Centre & the widening of the lane means that the Domesday listed St Stephen’s Church now stands in Arras Square. The building seen today dates from the fifteenth century, but ceased to be used as a church in 1975. The church is now the town’s Tourist Information Centre. Inside, the church features a memorial to Robert Leman, one time Mayor of London, who died in 1637.  St Mary at Stoke:  Situated in a prominent position on the south side of the river, the Grade I listed St Mary at Stoke stands at the junction of Stoke Street & Belstead Road. The medieval church belonged at the time of Domesday to the Monastery of Ely. St Mary at Stoke was extended & refurbished in the nineteenth century; the main benefactors to this work being the Burrell family who lived at Stoke Park Mansion (since demolished).  St Mary at the Quay:  Situated to the east of St Peter’s, in an area now enclosed by Star Lane, Key Street & Foundation Street, St Mary at the Quay (also known as St Mary at Quay or simply St Mary Quay) is thought to have been in existence since the late eleventh century, although it is not thought to be one of the St Marys mentioned in the Domesday book & may have at one time been known as Stella Maris.  Once part of the Priory of St Peter & St Paul, the present church was built in the mid fifteenth century. One of the church’s major benefactors was Ipswich merchant Henry Tooley, after whom Tooley’s Almshouses in Foundation Street are named, & whose tomb can still be seen in the church.  No longer in regular use, St Mary at the Quay is now in the care of the Churches Conservation Trust. St Clement’s:  Situated to the east of St Mary at the Quay, & also on Star Lane, is St Clement’s Church.  The parish was originally outside the town ramparts & is thought to have been established in the twelfth century; possibly on the site of an older church. It is known as the Sailor’s Church due to its proximity to the river, & is the burial place of Thomas Eldred  & Sir Thomas Slade  (see relevant sections below). It is no longer in use as a church. St Margaret’s:  St Margaret’s is a Grade I listed building situated in a commanding position at the junction of Soane Street, Bolton Lane & St Margaret’s Green, adjacent to Christchurch Park. It was built to replace the parish church of Holy Trinity, sometime after the latter became part of the Augustinian Priory in 1177. After the church was damaged by bombing during the Second World War, two leaded stained glass medallions, dating from the 17th century & featuring St Luke & St Mark, were presented to St Paul’s Church in Ipswich, Queensland (see St Paul’s Church - Link with Ipswich, England  section on the Ipswich, Queensland page, & the Ipswich, Queensland album in the Photo Gallery). St Matthew’s:  Thought to have been built in the late eleventh century, most of the building seen today was designed in the nineteenth century in the English Gothic Revival Style by Sir George Gilbert Scott.  St Matthew’s became known as the Garrison Church during the nineteenth century, as it was the closest church to the army barracks which stood from 1795 until 1929 in the Norwich Road/Anglesea Road/Berners Street area. The church is situated between Civic Drive & Portman Road. St Helen’s:  Situated on St Helen’s Street, this church has been in existence since Norman times & was originally outside the town walls. St Helen’s was largely rebuilt & restored from the 1830s onwards, with the tower being erected around 1875, although the porch is much older & thought to date from the fifteenth century. Being somewhat away from the main settlement, in medieval times two leper hospitals were situated in the general vicinity;  St James & St Mary Magdalene. One of these is thought to have stood very close to St Helen’s church, although opinion is divided as to which one. The Leper Hospital of St Mary Magdalene is known to have been in existence since at least the year 1199. St Nicholas:  St Nicholas stands on Franciscan Way & was built in the fourteenth century on the site of a previous church.  This may have been the Domesday mentioned St Michael’s, as in 1818, during restoration, workmen discovered a wall painting of St Michael fighting a dragon, with a carved Anglo-Saxon inscription. Another inscription, this one in Latin & thought to date from the early twelfth century, is a dedication to a church called All Saints. This panel of Caen stone may have originally come from the lost church of that name that is thought to have stood near Handford Road Bridge. Thomas Wolsey, whose house was in nearby St Nicholas Street, was probably baptized here & would have attended St Nicholas as a boy. His parents are buried here. Today the church is owned by the Anglican Diocese of St Edmundsbury and Ipswich, & run as the St Nicholas Centre; a conference & events venue, which also includes The Sanctuary restaurant. Unitarian Meeting House:  Built in 1699 & opened the following year, this timber framed Grade I listed building is located in Friars Street, & is today overshadowed by the modern glass structure of the adjacent Willis Building. The Meeting House was built by English Presbyterians, but during the 18th century the congregation gradually moved to a Unitarian position. When legal restrictions were removed on calling themselves Unitarians (1813), & having possession of their own places of worship (1844 Dissenters’ Chapels Act), the Meeting House became known as Unitarian. The word Church, Chapel and Meeting House have over time been used to describe the building, although for many years it has been known as a Meeting House as in the original Trust Deed of 1711. It is one of the finest surviving examples of a purpose-built seventeenth century Nonconformist church in England. The interior includes many impressive original features, including an elaborately carved pulpit.  Just outside, between the Meeting House & the Willis Building, stands the Millennium Obelisk; the four faces of which celebrate: the Millennium, the 300th anniversary of the Unitarian Meeting House, the 25th anniversary of the Willis Building, & the 800th anniversary of the town’s first charter. (Please note: All the churches listed above are Grade II listed buildings, unless otherwise stated) See the Churches: Ipswich, England album in the Photo Gallery  for pictures of all the churches featured above. St. Lawrence - The World's Oldest Church Bells  The set of five bells in St. Lawrence Church in Dial Lane, central Ipswich are the oldest surviving set of church bells in the world. Often called “Wolsey’s Bells”, four of them were cast around the year 1450, with the fifth being added around 1480. They have remained undamaged for over five hundred years & still retain their original clappers. The tower in which they were housed was deemed unsafe in 1985 & the bells were removed while the tower was reconstructed & fortified. A new bell frame was also installed & the bells were returned to their rightful place in September 2009.  (See also Historic Churches  section, above)                                                Cornhill  The Cornhill in the town centre has been the hub of Ipswich life since at least the Saxon era. In ancient times the Cornhill was a marketplace where the people of the region would come to buy & sell produce such as livestock, meat, fish, timber &, of course, corn. (Painting on left  - View of the Cornhill by George Frost).  On the south west corner, on the site of the modern day Town Hall, once stood St. Mildred’s church. Probably built around the year 700 AD, it was named after the daughter of Merewalh, King of Mercia. As a girl, her mother sent her to live in a convent in France. Upon her return to Britain, she became abbess of Minster-in-Thanet in Kent. Said to have been very generous to the poor, her popularity spread & her tomb became a place of pilgrimage. The church survived until the fourteenth century, when it was converted to become Ipswich’s first Town or Moot Hall, which was also used as a court house. Outside stood the stocks & pillory, & in this area public hangings took place. It was also the place that heretics were burned during the sixteenth century, including nine protestant martyrs who were burnt at the stake during the period spanning the years 1538 to 1558; a memorial to whom now stands in Christchurch Park. Although there may have been some sort of cross on the Cornhill since the time of Ipswich’s charter in 1200 AD, the first recorded Market Cross was erected in 1510; a gift to the town from Edmund Daundy, a relative of Cardinal Wolsey. This was replaced in 1629 by an octagonal shaped, open sided structure with a statue of Justice on top, complete with sword & scales (see picture, above). This structure was finally removed from the Cornhill in 1812. On the south east side of the Cornhill, on the site of what is now the Old Post Office, stood a timber structure with an open ground floor area known as the Shambles. Built around the thirteenth century, this building housed the meat & fish markets & was also used for the slaughter of livestock. Nearby was situated a stake used for bull baiting; a practice that continued until 1676. Sometime around 1792-1794,  the Shambles was demolished & its place taken by the Rotunda; a circular market building with a domed roof & living accommodation for the market traders on the first floor, designed by George Gooding.  This building, however, was poorly built & badly ventilated & stood only until around 1810, when it was condemned & pulled down. In its place rose the first Corn Exchange, also designed by George Gooding.  Above the entrance, the statue of Justice, taken from the now removed Market Cross, was re-erected; transformed into Ceres, the Roman goddess of agriculture, with her sword & scales being replaced by a sickle & a bundle of wheat ears. When first built this structure was roofless & open to the elements. It took until 1849 for a roof to be added, during a period of complete rebuilding. Thirty years later, however, the Corn Exchange moved to new premises in King Street, behind the present Town Hall, & once more this area of the Cornhill saw a period of demolition & rebuilding.  Designed by Brightwen Binyon & opened in 1882, the imposing Post Office building still stands today, although it is now a bank. The statues above the entrance represent Industry, Electricity, Steam & Commerce (see photo, above). The last remnants of what had formerly been St. Mildred’s church were finally pulled down in 1867, & the following year saw the opening of the Venetian style Town Hall. As with the Post Office, the Town Hall also has four statues above the entrance; in this case representing Commerce, Agriculture, Learning & Justice. The building housed the courts & police station, as well as the administrative offices of the corporation; an arrangement  that continued until the 1960s, when the police, courts & council offices were moved to new premises in Civic Drive. The Mayor’s office, however, is still located here. Today the Town Hall also features an art gallery, whilst at the rear, the Corn Exchange is now a concert & entertainments venue. Today, the oldest surviving buildings on the Cornhill are the timber framed Mannings pub & the Golden Lion, on the western side of the square; the latter having been in existence since at least the sixteenth century. On the north side of the Cornhill is the Lloyds building; built in 1890, it gives its name to Lloyds Avenue, which is reached by way of an archway that was cut through the building in 1929. Once open to motor traffic, the arch is now a pedestrian only thoroughfare. In 2018, the Cornhill was given a £3.6m overhaul, with a totally new layout including fountains, new seating, and the “Four Gateways” sculpture (see photo, above.left). The four concrete arches that made up the Four Gateways had metal plaques attached telling of four different aspects of the town; namely the town’s history, the waterfront, pioneering Ipswich residents and Ipswich Town FC. The Four Gateways, however, proved unpopular and was removed in September 2019. With Lloyds Avenue leading away northwards, Princes Street running to the south, Westgate Street & Tavern Street dissecting it from east to west, & the pedestrian Thoroughfare & Lion Street at the south east & south west corners respectively, the Cornhill is still, as it has been for more than 1300 years, the hub around which Ipswich life revolves.  The market, too, still survives; being held on Tuesdays, Thursdays, Fridays & Saturdays, but has now been moved a short distance away into the top end of Princes Street and Giles Circus.  The Treadmill – An Ipswich Invention  The treadmill, as an instrument of prison discipline, was invented by William Cubitt, an inhabitant of Ipswich.  William Cubitt (1785-1861) was born at Dilham in Norfolk, where his father was a miller.  He was an eminent English civil engineer.  In 1812 he entered into a contract with Ransome & Son, the principal ironfounding firm in Ipswich, to develop their general engineering business, and became their chief engineer.  He designed and installed various iron bridges and supervised the first Ipswich gasworks.  He worked on canals, docks, and railways, including the South Eastern Railway and the Great Northern Railway.  He later moved to London and was the chief engineer of Crystal Palace erected at Hyde Park in 1851.  He was president of the Institution of Civil Engineers between 1850 and 1851.  Noting stubborn and idle convicts at Bury St Edmunds gaol, he proposed using their muscle power both to cure their idleness and produce useful work.  He invented the prison treadmill or treadwheel, installing the first one in Bury St Edmunds gaol in 1819, followed by Brixton in 1821, then at Worcester, Liverpool and elsewhere.  The Brixton treadmill was particularly notorious (see illustration, left), and was commemorated in a 19th century ballad.  Enthusiasm for this new device soon spread, and a treatise was soon forthcoming: “ Description of the Treadmill Invented by Mr. William Cubitt of Ipswich for the Employment of Prisoners ” published by the committee of The Society for the Improvement of Prison Discipline, &c (1822). Treadmills as muscle powered engines originated roughly 4,000 years ago.  Their primary use was to lift buckets of water.  The main difference with Cubitt’s invention was that, whereas previously users would be inside the wheel where they could relax the rotation of the wheel, the users on his device were on the outside of the wheel which remained in constant motion, like walking up an endless staircase.  He also designed it so that multiple users could be on the device.  They were like twenty-foot long paddle wheels with twenty-four steps around a six-foot cylinder. Several prisoners stood side-by-side on a wheel, and had to work six or more hours a day.  While the purpose was mainly punitive, it was also used to grind grain or lift water.  Prisons all over Britain and the United States bought the machines. In 1824, prison guard James Hardie credited the device with taming New York’s more defiant inmates.  He wrote that it was the treadmill’s “monotonous steadiness, and not its severity, which constitutes its terror”.  However, it gained notoriety as an instrument of torture.  Over the years, American wardens gradually stopped using the treadmill in favour of other backbreaking tasks, such as breaking rocks.  In Britain, the treadmill persisted until the late 19th century, when it was abandoned for being too cruel.  Today individual treadmills can be purchased as exercise equipment, presumably appealing to those with more masochistic tendencies The Ancient House  Standing on the corner of the Buttermarket & St. Stephen’s Lane, the Ancient house is a grade I listed building dating from the fifteenth century.  Built by Thomas Fastolf of Nacton, it was extended by George Copping, who built the ‘long gallery’; having acquired the house in 1567.  In 1591 it was taken over by William Sparrowe, who turned it into a grocery & spice shop. The Sparrowe family owned the property for the next three hundred years, hence the building’s alternative name of ‘Sparrowe’s House’. It was the Sparrowe family that added the elaborate wood carving & extensive decorative pargeting (plasterwork) that can be seen today. Legend has it that King Charles II hid in the house after the Battle of Worcester in 1651; the Sparrowes being secret Royalists. However, this seems unlikely, as the King was Catholic & Ipswich at that time was staunchly Puritan. In 1801, however, a secret chapel was discovered in a concealed loft, in which were found wooden angels & other Catholic artifacts. The King did visit Ipswich in 1668, after the Restoration, & his Royal Arms can be seen in the pargeting. Also to be seen are the four known continents (Australasia having not been discovered at the time), the elements earth, air & water, & St.George slaying the dragon.  The interior boasts decoration dating from every century from the fifteenth to the twentieth, including elaborate wood carvings, plasterwork & fireplaces. During restoration work, two painted linen wall hangings were discovered depicting the Labours of Hercules; one shows Hercules slaying the Hydra (see left), the other his battle with the giant Antaeus. These 4 feet by 8 feet cloths can be dated to the sixteenth century, as they are mentioned in George Copping’s will of 1578. Replicas of these hangings now adorn the walls above the main staircase in the house, whilst the originals are housed in Christchurch Mansion. Throughout most of the twentieth century, the Ancient house was a bookshop. It was acquired by Ipswich Borough Council in 1980 &, after much needed renovation work, is now a Lakeland shop, with a small art gallery also on site.   Pykenham's Gatehouse  Pykenham’s Gatehouse is a Grade I listed building located in Northgate Street, just opposite Ipswich Central Library. It was built around 1471 by William Pykenham, who had just been appointed Archdeacon of Suffolk at that time. Having decided that the house he had rented from the Priory of the Holy Trinity was not fitting for his status, he proceeded to have the gatehouse built on adjoining land. The front of the gatehouse consists of a large brick four-centred arch, whilst the back is timber-framed with wattle & daub filling between the studs. The room above the gateway was used as accommodation by the gatekeeper.  Archdeacon Pykenham later had the Deanery Gateway built in nearby Hadleigh. He died in 1497. Today Pykenham’s Gatehouse is owned by the Ipswich & Suffolk club, whose premises are situated behind the gateway. It is leased by them to the Ipswich Building Preservation Trust, who use it as their headquarters. In 1983 the Trust carried out extensive restoration work on the building.  Tooley's & Smart's Almshouses  Located in Foundation Street, close to the ruins of Blackfriar’s church, are Tooley’s & Smart’s Almshouses.  Originally established in 1550, they were originally known as Tooley’s Almshouses & took the name from Henry Tooley (or Toolie), who left money in his will of November 1550 for the building & upkeep of almshouses for 10 townsmen who “shall be tried unfaynedlye lame, by occasion of the kynges warres” . In other words, soldiers injured in action. Henry Tooley (or “Great Tooley” as he became known), was an elected portman & well known merchant in the town, who established trading links with France & Spain; importing wine & salt, & exporting Suffolk cloth. He is known to have rented a house & cellars in Bordeaux, & often made twice yearly excursions there.  He also sent his ship, the Mary Walsingham , to Iceland on at least one trading mission.  Tooley’s date of birth is unknown, although it is thought he was born in Norfolk. He is first recorded as a householder in Key (or Quay) Street in Ipswich in 1499, when he was probably in his 20s.  Around this time he married Alice Purpet, & they had three children, although none survived to adulthood.  Henry Tooley’s tomb can still be seen today inside St Mary at the Quay church.   When local draper & portman William Smart died in 1598, he bequeathed several estates in his will to the poor. It was decided that a portion of the existing almshouses in Foundation Street were to be used for the recipients of this charity, & thereafter the Tooley & Smart foundations joined together.  A painted memorial to Smart can be seen in St Mary Le Tower church, which depicts a panoramic view of Ipswich as it would have been in the late sixteenth century. His name is also commemorated in Smart Street, which leads off Foundation Street by the side of the almshouses. In 1846 the old almshouses were demolished, & the Grade II listed buildings standing today date from this time (see photo, above).   Another benefactor was Nathaniel Catchpole, alderman of the Borough of Ipswich & justice of the peace for Suffolk, who left a gift of money to the almshouses in 1902. Like Tooley & Smart before him, he is commemorated in stone on the walls of the buildings Ipswich School  The forerunner of what would become Ipswich School, at that time known as The Grammar School, is known to have been in existence before the year 1400; probably founded by the existing priories of Holy Trinity & St Peter & Paul, together with the local Merchant’s Guild. The site of the original school is unknown, although one possibility is St Mary Le Tower church. In 1483, however, former town bailiff Richard Felaw bequeathed his house near to the Blackfriars in Foundation Street (then known as St Edmund Pountney Lane) to the school, as well as providing funds for the education of boys of poor parents. (Felaw’s name lives on in Felaw Street, & Felaw Maltings off Wherstead Road; now an office complex).  Thomas Wolsey  (see below) who had been a pupil, incorporated the school (to be called The King’s School) into the plans for his Cardinal College of St Mary, which opened in 1528. When Wolsey fell from favour, however, the buildings were seized by Henry VIII, & it was one of his chief ministers, Thomas Cromwell, 1st Earl of Essex (1485 1540), who persuaded the king to re-endow the school. The school’s charter was confirmed in 1566 by Queen Elizabeth I, whose arms & motto Semper Eadem  (Always the Same) have also been adopted by the school.  The school remained in Foundation Street, having taken over parts of the former Blackfriars, until 1842, when it moved temporarily to Lower Brook Street whilst new premises were sought. In 1852, Ipswich School relocated to its present site on Henley Road, close to Christchurch Park; the foundation stone for the new building being laid by Queen Victoria’s husband Prince Albert in July 1851. The school became independent after the Second World War, having previously been closely connected with the Borough. In 1977 girls were admitted for the first time & the school is now fully co-educational.  The school has now moved away from the previous boarding school tradition, & today the majority of the students are day pupils.  As well as Thomas Wolsey, other notable Old Ipswichians include author Sir Henry Rider Haggard (1856 -1925), pioneering neuro-physiologist and Nobel Prizewinner Sir Charles Scott Sherrington (1857 -1952),  & artist, designer & President of the Royal Academy Sir Edward John Poynter (1836 -1919).Established in April 1873, Ipswich High School for Girls  is an independent school that originally operated from The Assembly Rooms in Northgate Street. Having moved to a large house in Westerfield Road in 1905, the school relocated in 1992 to its present location; the Grade I listed Woolverstone Hall, set in 80 acres of parkland on the banks of the River Orwell just outside Ipswich. Notable former pupils include children’s author Enid Blyton  (see below) & Eastenders  actress June Brown (Dot Branning). The Master's House (Samuel Ward/William King)  The Master’s House, situated at 19 Lower Brook Street, is so called because it was once the dwelling place of the Master of Ipswich Grammar School.  Built in the 1590s, it was originally known as the Preacher’s House, as it was built for Dr John Burges, who was town preacher or lecturer at the time; a post that had been established by the Town Corporation during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I (1556-1603).  It was also later the home of another more famous town preacher named Samuel Ward (1577–1640). Puritan preacher Samuel Ward was born in Haverhill, Suffolk & moved to Ipswich in 1605, having previously attended St. John’s  & Sidney Sussex Colleges in Cambridge.  Aside from a brief spell in Holland in the late 1630s, he would remain the town lecturer of Ipswich until his death; preaching from the pulpit of St Mary-le-Tower Church. During this period, Ipswich was a staunchly Puritan town, & although popular with the local people, the outspoken Ward was often in trouble with both the Church & the Crown.  In 1621, he spent a short spell in prison for producing an anti-Catholic/anti-Spanish engraving entitled Double Deliverance , with caricatures of both the Pope & the King of Spain. These were seen as an insult by the Spanish ambassador in London, at a time when King James I was attempting to negotiate the marriage of his son Charles to the Spanish Infanta Maria. In the following year, Samuel Harsnet, the Bishop of Norwich, began proceedings against Ward for non-conformity, although he was subsequently released from prosecution.  He was sent to prison again in 1635, however, having fallen foul of the Archbishop of Canterbury William Laud’s  attempts to impose conformity on the Church.  Samuel Ward died in March 1640 & was buried in St Mary-le-Tower Church in Ipswich. One of Ward’s brothers, John, was rector at St Clement’s Church in Ipswich. Another brother,  Nathaniel Ward  (See Ipswich, Massachusetts Page), emigrated to America, where he is regarded as the ‘Father of the First American Constitution’.  After the house was acquired by Ipswich School, it was the birthplace of William King (1786-1865), whose father, the Rev. John King, was master of the school at that time. King became a physician before moving to Brighton, where, in the late 1820s, he founded a Co-operative Benefit Fund, whilst also writing & publishing a periodical called The Co-operator . Although the latter was only produced for two years (1828-30), it is now seen as the inspiration for the Co-operative movement in Britain; with the Rochdale Society of Equitable Pioneers, established in 1844, being seen as the first successful co-operative enterprise.  A blue plaque commemorating King now adorns the walls of the house. The Ipswich Institute  What would become the Ipswich Institute was founded in 1824 as the Ipswich Mechanics’ Institute.  The seeds of its establishment were planted in the winter of 1823/4 by John Raw, who ran a bookshop & library in The Buttermarket, whose suggestion it was to form an organization run along the lines of Dr. George Birkbeck’s Mechanics’ Institution in London & Glasgow.  In an age when there was little at no education for working people, the aim of the Ipswich Mechanic’s Institute was to provide lectures on instruction in the arts, sciences & other ‘useful knowledge’. Initially based in St Matthew’s Church Lane, the Ipswich Mechanic’s Institute soon moved to The Buttermarket. Its first president was John FitzGerald, father of the poet Edward (see Edward FitzGerald section on the Suffolk, England page of www.planetsuffolk.com ).  Other early supporters were Robert Ransome & Richard Dykes Alexander. In 1834 the Institute acquired new premises on the site of a former chemist’s shop at 15 Tavern Street. Later, in 1849, adjoining premises were bought in Tower Street, where a lecture hall was built.  In 1893 the word ‘Mechanics’ was dropped, at which time it became known simply as the Ipswich Institute. During the period 1909-40, the lecture hall in Tower Street was leased to Poole’s Picture Palace, & after the Second World War became the Ipswich Arts Theatre. It is now the Old Rep public house. The Ipswich Institute is still going strong today, with the Tavern Street site still serving as the Institute’s library & reading room.  In 2001 the Institute acquired the nearby listed building known as The Admiral’s House in Tower Street. Once home to Admiral Benjamin Page, & visited by the Duke of Wellington, it is now used as an art centre & study rooms, whilst also housing the Institute’s restaurant & coffee lounge. With the exception of Birkbeck College in London, the Ipswich Institute is the only surviving Birkbeck foundation, & still operates as an independent subscription library and educational charity; providing an extensive programme of leisure learning courses, talks & other activities. Of all the UK’s independent libraries, Ipswich Institute has the largest membership outside London, with around 2,500 members. In 2009, the Institute founded the New Angle Prize for Literature. This biennial £2,000 prize is awarded to a book set in or influenced by the East Anglia region. The Old Custom House  The Grade II listed building on Ipswich waterfront now known as the Old Custom House was opened in 1845, & replaced an even older timber framed custom house on the Common Quay, which had numerous pillars running along the front that formed a colonnaded walkway known as ‘Mariner’s Walk’. Dating from the sixteenth century, this building was described by GR Clarke in 1830 as “a low, ill-shaped, isolated building”, & by the time of its demolition in 1843 it was in a dilapidated, run down condition.   The new building was designed by John Medland Clark. It was constructed from red & cream bricks & features two stairways leading up to a first floor entrance surrounded by a four-columned portico facing the waterfront, with the Ipswich Coat of Arms above. The rear of the building features a clock tower.  The building was originally known as the New Hall of Commerce, & as well as the customs & excise offices, featured warehouses, a coffee house, & rooms where the merchants could carry out their business transactions. It is now the headquarters of the Ipswich Port Authority; the successor to Ipswich Dock Commission. The building has been restored in recent years & now boasts a conference centre on the ground floor. “Tolly Follies” Helmingham Hall During the late 1920s & 1930s, Tollymache Brewery built a series of public houses in Ipswich that would become known as “Tolly Follies”. Mainly built on housing estates away from the town centre, the architecture of these ornate mock-baronial buildings is loosely based on the fifteenth century moated Helmingham Hall (see North & Central Suffolk section on the Suffolk, England page of www.planetsuffolk.com ); the Tollemache family’s home located around ten miles to the north of Ipswich. None of the Ipswich pubs are completely identical, & some bear more resemblance to Helmingham than others. They are all spacious buildings with Tudor style chimneys, & many have their own clock towers.                                                                                         Sadly, two “Tolly Follies” have since been demolished. The Safe Harbour, which stood on the corner of Highfield & Meredith Roads on the Whitton estate, closed for business in 1995 & was demolished two years later. A supermarket now stands on the site. The Waveney, at the junction of Bramford Road & Adair Road is also no more; having closed in 1995, it became a private members club named Churchill’s until 2004, when it too was demolished to make way for flats to be built on the site. Of the surviving buildings, the fate of at least one is unclear. This is the Haven Hotel, which was built in 1928 on the corner of Felixstowe Road & Ransome Road. It was renamed the Crown in 2009, but currently stands unused after closing in late 2011. The other surviving “Tolly Follies” are:- The Cricketers in Crown Street (the only one in the town centre)  The Golf Hotel on Foxhall Road The Golden Hind on the corner of Nacton Road & Maryon Road The Suffolk Punch at the junction of Norwich Road & Cromer Road  The Margaret Catchpole on Cliff Lane The Royal George at the junction of Colchester Road & Sidegate Lane There are only two “Tolly Follies” built outside Ipswich, both in Cambridge. The Golden Hind on Milton Road, an almost identical building to its namesake in Ipswich; & The Cow (formerly The Red Cow) on Corn Exchange Street. They were built after the Tollemache Brewery took over Cambridge’s Star Brewery in the 1930s.  The title Baron Tollemache was created in 1876 for John Tollemache, who had been a member of parliament in Cheshire. The Tollemache family began brewing in Ipswich in 1888, when three of Lord Tollemache’s sons took over the Upper Brook Street brewery, which had been set up by Charles Cullingham in 1856. Tollemache Ipswich Brewery Ltd began to acquire public houses, both in Ipswich & further afield, as well as expanding the business with such acquisitions as Collier Brothers of Walthamstow in 1920 & Star Brewery of Cambridge in 1934. In 1957 the brewery merged with another local family brewing firm, Cobbold & Co, to form Tolly Cobbold, at which time the Upper Brook Street brewery closed. Tolly Cobbold finally ceased trading in 2002 (see also The Cobbold Family , below). The Golden Hin d The Cricketers The Willis Building  Originally the headquarters for insurance company Willis Faber & Dumas, the Willis Building, as it is commonly known, was designed by architect Sir Norman Foster & built between 1970 & 1975. Officially opened by former Prime Minister Sir Harold Macmillan, the outside of the building is constructed from 890 sheets  of toughened, half inch thick, darkly tinted glass, with a further 180 panes around the roof top restaurant.  Also on the rooftop is a garden, complete with lawn & hedges, from which stunning 360 degree views of the town are possible. The building is in the shape of a grand piano, although to appreciate this fully you need to see it from above. In 1991, the Willis Building became the youngest building in Britain to be granted Grade I listed status.  It is currently owned by Willis Group Holdings.  In 1987, the Willis Building was featured on a Royal Mail postage stamp as part of the ‘British Architects in Europe’ series.                                 Ipswich Museum   Ipswich Museum was originally established in 1847 at newly built premises in the equally new Museum Street. Designed by architect Christopher Fleury, one of the early promoters was Charles Darwin’s tutor at Cambridge, Reverend Professor J S Henslow.   John Stevens Henslow was a clergyman, botanist and geologist, who became rector at Hitcham, Suffolk in 1839. In 1831, Henslow had been offered a place as naturalist on board HMS Beagle . Although he declined the offer himself, it was he who recommended Darwin to Captain Robert FitzRoy. A species native to North America, Henslow’s Sparrow Ammodramus henslowii , is named after him. He was elected President of Ipswich Museum in 1850. In 1851 Queen Victoria’s husband, Prince Albert, visited the museum & is said to have been very impressed; speaking of very little else for several days, as the Queen is reputed to have remarked. The aim of the museum had always been to benefit & help educate the working classes & once Ipswich Corporation had taken over its management in 1853, the museum was open free of charge four days a week.  In 1878, however, it was decided that bigger premises were needed & the present site was acquired in High Street. Opened in 1881, the new complex was designed by Horace Chesterton & included an art gallery & the School of Art. The original building in Museum Street is now occupied by ‘Arlingtons’ restaurant. Today the museum is open from Tuesday to Saturday & entrance is free.  Taking pride of place as you enter, is a life size replica of a Woolly mammoth. Thought to be 210,000 years old, the remains of at least two woolly mammoths were discovered when Stoke High School in Maidenhall Approach was being built in 1975. Some of the bones are also on display in the Museum. Other highlights include the Indian rhinoceros, giraffe & gorillas in the natural history gallery, as well as the Egyptian gallery, gallery of British birds & many other artifacts & exhibits from all around the world.  The Ipswich Story, on the first floor gallery, tracks the history of Ipswich & Suffolk from prehistoric times up until the present day. photo - Colchester & Ipswich Museum Service Ipswich Transport Museum   Ipswich Transport Museum is located on the eastern outskirts of Ipswich in the former Priory Heath Trolleybus Depot on Cobham Road (just off Felixstowe Road). The museum was established in 1988 & exhibits include horse drawn carriages, trams, trolleybuses, buses, coaches, lorries, fire engines, a police car & an ambulance; all of which were either made in Ipswich or operated in the area. The museum is also home to the Ipswich Engineering Collection, which includes such items as cranes, fork lift trucks & lawn mowers manufactured by local companies such as Reavells, Ransomes Sims & Jeffries and Ransomes & Rapier. The museum opens on Sundays, bank holidays & school holidays from April to November. There is a charge for admission. Clifford Road Air Raid Shelter Museum   Situated at Clifford Road Primary School just off Foxhall Road, Clifford Road Air Raid Shelter Museum is housed in a World War II shelter beneath the school playground. Built during the first three months of the war, it was sealed up after the cessation of hostilities & largely forgotten about until its rediscovery in 1989, when workmen excavating a pond came upon one of the original entrances. Originally there had been thirteen sections of tunnel, each with its own stairway from the playground.  One section of the tunnel has been retained as closely as possible to how it would have looked during the war. Other exhibits include features on school life during the war, air raid precautions, a shop display showing items from the 1930s & 1940s, & rationing.  Also on display is a section of a restored London Underground carriage dating from 1938. The museum is open on selected weekends from April to October. Christchurch Mansion & Park  Set within the 70 acre Christchurch Park, the mansion is a grade I listed building that stands on the site of the Priory of the Holy Trinity. The Augustinian priory, built in the twelfth century, was suppressed in 1537 and the lands were sold to the London merchant Paul Withipoll in 1545, whose son, Sir Edmund Withipoll, built the mansion in 1548-50.  In 1649 the estate was inherited by the Devereux family.  In 1735, the estate was sold to the Fonnereau family, who occupied the house until 1894, when their intention had been to sell the mansion & land for demolition & development (see Fonnereau  under Ipswich Garden Suburb  in Housing Estates, Neighbourhoods, Suburbs , below). Fortunately, local businessman Felix Cobbold stepped in, bought the mansion & presented it to the town corporation, on condition that they purchased the surrounding park.  In 1904, a bronze statue of Queen Victoria was unveiled in front of the mansion. This only survived until 1942 however, when it was decided that the metal was of more use for the war effort. Today Christchurch Park includes ponds, a wildlife area & the Upper & Lower Arboretums. Christchurch Mansion is a museum & art gallery, with a number of paintings by local artists Thomas Gainsborough & John Constable. Events & concerts are staged in the park each year, including the annual ‘Music in the Park’ festival in the summer & a firework display on the nearest Saturday to Guy Fawkes night. If you look closely at a picture of Christchurch Mansion, then look at a picture of Castle Hill  in Ipswich, Massachusetts, you will note some striking similarities. In 1919, when Richard Teller Crane Jr was looking for somewhere to expand the Crane Co of Chicago into the UK, he chose the town with the same name as that in which he had built his home; Ipswich, Massachusetts. How much the design of the second Castle Hill mansion (built in the 1920's) is based on the English house, & how much is mere coincidence, is not known. (See Ipswich, Massachusetts page & Ipswich, Massachusetts album in the Photo Gallery  for comparison). The Crane name is still represented in Ipswich today by Crane Fluid Systems Ltd. (See also The Ipswich Martyrs  section, above)  Holywells Mansion & Park  Built in 1814 by John Cobbold, & the home of the Cobbold family for much of the nineteenth century, Holywells Mansion was presented to the town by Arthur Churchman in the late 1920’s. The 67 acre Holywells Park was opened to the public in 1936, but the mansion fell into ruin & it was demolished in 1962. All that remains are the stables, clock tower & orangery, which are now Grade II listed buildings. As the name suggests, the park is on the site of a natural spring & is reputed to have been the site of a manor owned by Edward the Confessor’s wife, Queen Edith. Chantry Mansion & Park  Originally built in 1688 by Edmund Ventris, Chantry Mansion had several owners & underwent  much alteration before being bought by Arthur Churchman in 1927 &, like Holywells Mansion, was presented to the town. The 126 acre Chantry  Park, between London Road & Hadleigh Road, was opened to the public in 1928. It is Ipswich’s largest park. The mansion is a Grade II listed building & now operates as a Sue Ryder Care Home.  Situated at the Hadleigh Road entrance to the park is Chantry Park Gate Lodge. This Grade II listed building was probably built in the 1850’s by Sir Fitzroy Kelly, the mansion’s owner at the time. Also within the park is a signposted walk known as the Sri Chinmoy Peace Mile. This is named after the Indian spiritual master Sri Chinmoy (1931-2007), who was also a prolific author, artist, poet, athlete & musician. He visited Ipswich twice in the 1980s & 1990s. His statue, sculpted by Kaivalya Torpy, was unveiled in the park in July 2013. The statue was a gift from the Sri Chinmoy Oneness-Home Peace Run, an international event which seeks to promote peace & harmony throughout the world.  Belstead Brook Park  Established in 1991, Belstead Brook Park incorporates a connecting series of local nature reserves on the southwest outskirts of Ipswich, that stretch from Bourne Park in the east to the Copdock Interchange in the west, on the northern side of the A14. The park includes a number of diverse habitats such as reedbeds, water meadows, marshland, grassland & ancient woodland. The one constant feature of the various sections of the park is the shallow, meandering  Belstead Brook, that rises near Hadleigh & flows into the River Orwell at Bourne Bridge.  The park is managed by local volunteers, together with the Greenways Countryside Project. The park includes six Local Nature Reserves, as defined by the government’s environmental advisor Natural England. Lying adjacent to, & on the south side of Bourne Park, is the Bourne Park Reedbeds Local Nature Reserve , which are thought to be the largest reedbeds in the south of Suffolk. The Belstead Brook flows through the reedbeds, close to its confluence with the River Orwell. Otters can be found along this stretch of the brook, & the reedbeds are home to a number of species of warblers & wildfowl. Between the reedbeds & the A137 road can be found the stretch of grassland known as Ostrich Meadow, & the privately owned Braky Woods. The origin of the name Ostrich Meadow derives from Sir Edward Coke (1552-1634) a barrister & Chief Justice to King James I, who was lord of the manor of Bourne Hall. His coat of arms shows an ostrich in the process of swallowing a horseshoe; symbolizing the Chief Justice’s capacity to digest legal problems, no matter how unpalatable. (The public house at Bourne Bridge was once called the Ostrich, but the name was changed in the early 1990s, when someone, misguidedly, assumed that Ostrich was a corruption of Oyster Reach, which is what the pub is now called). Not actually part of Belstead Brook Park, but bordering it to the north is Bourne Park . This park, which stretches from Wherstead Road to Stoke Park Drive, was gifted to the people of Ipswich in 1927 by Alderman William F Paul, & was officially opened by HRH Prince Henry, son of King George V, in October of that year. At this time the trees for Corporation Avenue, which runs the length of the park, were planted. In recent years the Bourne Park Barn Owl Project has been established in the area adjacent to the reedbeds, to encourage this endangered species to breed here.   Opposite the Stoke Park Drive entrance to Bourne Park is the small Stoke Park Wood Local Nature Reserve . Now an area of woodland, scrub & wildflower grassland, it had originally been the location of Stoke Park Mansion. Although an earlier house had existed here, the last mansion was built in 1838 by Peter Burrell, a magistrate & High Steward of Ipswich, who became Lord Gwydyr in 1870. The mansion was demolished in the 1920s, & no trace of it now remains.  To the southwest of Bourne Park is Ashground Plantation ; a wooded area with boardwalks, that follows the course of the brook through to the flood meadows of Bobbits Lane Meadows .  The meadows & lake, home to a wide variety of birds including little egret & heron, are overlooked by a bird viewing screen & platform.  Both Ashground Plantation & Bobbits Lane Meadows are part of Bobbits Lane Local Nature Reserve . It was in this area, when the nearby sewage works were being built in the 1950s, that the deposits which gave rise to the naming of the Ipswichian Interglacial Period   were first discovered (see Ips Misc page). Declared a nature reserve in 2012, the 11 acre Kiln Meadow Local Nature Reserve  lies on the opposite side of the single track Bobbits Lane. It is predominantly shrub & wildflower grassland, as well as being home to one of the largest toad colonies in the UK, which migrate across the narrow lane to the Bobbits Lane Meadows in their thousands every spring. To the south of Kiln Meadow is Spring Woods Local Nature Reserve . This is an ancient woodland, where coppicing is still practiced, as it has been for hundreds of years. (Coppicing is a form of woodland management, in which trees are cut back close to the ground to encourage new growth.) Nightingales can be heard here in the summer, & wildflowers include bluebells & wood anemones. In contrast to the ancient Spring Woods, the neighbouring Millennium Woods Local Nature Reserve  was, as the name suggests, planted by local volunteers in the year 2000. Approximately 5,000 trees were planted, with around a third of the site being left to regenerate naturally. Across Stoke Park Drive from Bobbits Lane, the Belstead Brook winds through Ellenbrook Open Space , where areas of meadow & grassland are interspersed with sports & childrens’ playing facilities. The brook then flows under the road again, passing Ellenbrook Playing Fields  & Quilter Drive Open Space , before meandering through Belstead Meadow ; the westernmost section of Belstead Brook Park. Belstead Meadow is now a wildlife haven, with the grasslands being grazed by cattle during the summer months. In 1996, 8,000 trees were planted along the western boundary of the meadow, close to, & acting as a screen from, the main A14 road.  Five years earlier, in 1991, the 90 trees that make up the Oak Avenue were planted to commemorate the 90th birthday of the Queen Mother. The avenue leads up to Belstead House (see photo, left), parts of which date back to the seventeenth century, although there are known to have been buildings on the site since at least the twelfth century.  Once the the residence of visiting circuit judges, Belstead House is now run by Suffolk County Council as a residential conference & training centre. Bixley Heath Local Nature Reserve  Straddling the boundary between Ipswich Borough & Suffolk Coastal District Councils, Bixley Heath    is a 12 acre site that was declared a Local Nature Reserve in 1997.  The reserve is located to the north of Bucklesham Road, just east of Ipswich Golf Club. The site consists mainly of heath & grassland, along with areas of woodland, scrub & reed beds, & is an important breeding site for birds in springtime. The reserve is managed by Ipswich Borough Council & has been designated as a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI). The Dales Open Space Local Nature Reserve  Located on Dales Road in north west Ipswich, & surrounded by residential streets, the 14.5 acre Dales Open Space Local Nature Reserve is situated in a former sand & clay quarry which ceased operations in 1959. It was bought by Ipswich Borough Council in 1973.  The southern section of the reserve is steeply sloping, due to this area being one side of a now dry valley, whilst the terrain on the northern side of the site is much flatter.  Dales Open Space is characterised predominantly by woodland & scrub habitats. The reserve boasts varying plant communities, due to the two different soil types present here. There are also two spring-fed ponds which support a limited amount of aquatic flora.  Orwell Country Park  Straddling the boundary between the Borough of Ipswich & Suffolk Coastal District, Orwell Country Park is a 200 acre site along the north bank of the River Orwell to the southeast of Ipswich. Officially opened in 1995, it is part of the Suffolk Coast & Heaths Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.  The park includes a variety of habitats along the river estuary, such as ancient woodland, reedbed & heathland.  From the shoreline, the park is dominated by the Orwell Bridge, & the park straddles both sides of the major A14 road.  At low tide, the mudflats are an important feeding site for many species of waders & wildfowl. Included within the park is the ancient Bridge Wood Local Nature Reserve , where many oak trees over 400 years old can be found, as well as sycamore, scots pine, elm & hazel. On the ground, bluebells, wood anemone & foxgloves abound, whilst wildlife includes foxes & deer. In summer, nightingales can be heard here.  The name Bridge Wood is thought to derive from the idea that there was once an ancient river crossing point located here (see Myth of the Roman Road over the Orwell , below). To the north of the A14, is Braziers Wood , which also contains remnants of ancient woodland (to be defined as ancient woodland, there has to be evidence of continual woodland for at least 400 years). The northern section of the park (the part within Ipswich Borough) is Piper’s Vale Local Nature Reserve , an area that was bought by the Borough Council in 1926. Known locally as “The Lairs”, this piece of rough recreational land on the shoreline includes heath, scrub & reedbed habitats. The area is a haven for birdlife, with more than 100 species being recorded here, as well as several rare species of plant such as sulphur cinquefoil & meadow-rue.  The park also includes the Grade II listed Pond Hall Farm, which was once part of the thirteenth century Alnesbourne Priory.  Alderman Canal Local Nature Reserve  The area around Alderman Canal was declared a nature reserve in 1997. It comprises two Local Nature Reserves as defined by Natural England, the government’s advisor on the natural environment; Alderman Canal East  & Alderman Canal West . The short canal joins the River Gipping at Handford Sluice (formerly Handford Lock) & then wends eastwards towards the junction of Handford Road & Alderman Road. The canal may have once been a tributary of the Gipping, but was converted into a canal with the construction of the Ipswich & Stowmarket Navigation in the late eighteenth century (see River Orwell & River Gipping  section, below). As well as the canal, the 2.5 acre nature reserve also features reedbeds, hedgerows & grassland managed for wildflowers, which allows a wide variety of wildlife to flourish close to the heart of Ipswich. Wooden Walkways have recently been constructed through the reserve.   River Orwell & River Gipping  It is undoubtedly true to say that Ipswich is situated where it is because of the River Orwell.  And it is also the case that the river, together with the town’s proximity to the North Sea & therefore the continent, was responsible for making Ipswich a major port, & probably the most important commercial centre in England, from the seventh century AD.  As R A N Dixon remarked ‘‘Ipswich was a flourishing port when Liverpool was still a swamp and Hull an insignificant village’’. The name Orwell is thought to derive from the Anglo-Saxon meaning ‘river near the shore’ although it is sometimes claimed that the ‘Or’ part of the name is Celtic or even pre-Celtic. The Orwell empties into the sea at Harwich, where it is joined by the River Stour. Historically, the estuary close to Harwich was known as the ‘Port of Orwell’, or the ‘Salt Water’.  Daniel Defoe noted in 1722 that although the name Orwell was in use, the more common name for the river was th9999ningtre-Water’ (see also Ipswich Water  on The Ones That Got Away page).  During the late sixteenth century, with naval expansion caused  by the threat from the Spanish Armada, Ipswich became a leading centre for ship building, due partly to the excellence of the local Suffolk timber. At this point Ipswich was being referred to as the “Shipyard of London”.  During the eighteenth century the Orwell became badly silted up, to the extent that only small vessels were able to reach the quays. From 1805 onwards, the task of deepening, widening & improving the river was undertaken & the New Cut was created to allow the flow of the river to by-pass the new Wet Dock, which was opened in 1842. Separating the dock from the New Cut was a 14 acre man-made spur of land known as the ‘Island’, which was originally laid out for public use with a tree lined promenade, seats, a bandstand/shelter known as the ‘umbrella’ & a statue of the winged horse Pegasus.  Sadly the promenade, umbrella & statue were removed during the early twentieth century & the ‘Island’ is now an entirely industrial area.  Although they are in reality one river, in Ipswich the River Orwell becomes the River Gipping; this name being derived, as was Ipswich itself, from the name Gippeswick. However, at least until the fourteenth century, the whole length of the river, right to its source beyond Stowmarket, was known as the Orwell. When the change came about is not certain, but it is known that originally the name Gipping was given to a different stream; a short tributary that flowed through the marshes to join the Orwell just to the west of Stoke Bridge.  Apart from a short spur on the waterfront, this river no longer exists.  Today, the Gipping rises from a small spring near Mendlesham, around 20 miles from Ipswich, flows close to the tiny village of Gipping, then down through Stowmarket to become the Orwell. Where the Gipping ends & the Orwell begins is open to debate.  Some say it is at the Constantine Road weir,  although this was only opened in 1903 (close to the new Sir Bobby Robson Footbridge). Others maintain that the name change occurs at the Horseshoe Sluice near London Road Bridge. The most common opinion is that the metamorphosis occurs where the river becomes tidal, or where the ‘salt water’ meets the ‘sweet water’. Between 1790 & 1793 the Ipswich & Stowmarket Navigation was constructed on the Gipping. This consisted of 15 locks which allowed boats to traverse the 17 miles & 90 feet rise of the river between the two towns. With the coming of the railways, river trade dropped & the Navigation was finally closed in 1934. Much renovation has been done in recent years, however, & today a footpath called the ‘Gipping Way’ follows the towpath for most of the route. For about five years, from 1929 onwards, the writer Eric Blair (1903-50) lived in the town of Southwold, on the Suffolk coast north of Ipswich. He is, of course, better known as George Orwell, whose most famous works include“1984” & “Animal Farm”.  His pen name derives from the fact that he enjoyed many inspirational walks along the River Orwell. (See also The Lost Port of Orwell )   The Shipyards of Ipswich  Taking into account the navigability of the river, it is unsurprising that shipbuilding would become a major industry on the Orwell; & as the largest town on the river, that Ipswich would become the hub of this activity. Although shipbuilding all but ceased during the early years of the twentieth century, during the sixteenth century, with naval expansion precipitated by the threat of invasion from Spain, the town’s importance as a ship building centre resulted in Ipswich being referred to as the “Shipyard of London”.  Probably the earliest representation of an Ipswich built vessel is the ship shown on the Town Seal (see above), which dates from the year 1200. Many other collier ships, or Ipswich Catts  (see Ships Named Ipswich page) as they became known, would also have been built here, although very few records have survived relating to the exact location or date of their construction.  Although it is not known with any certainty, it is possible - indeed quite likely - that the Mayflower , the ship that took the English Puritans known as the Pilgrim Fathers to America, was built at one of the early shipyards at Ipswich before being taken to Harwich where she would have been fitted with sails & launched. The precise date of building is also unknown, although she appears in the Port Books of 1609-11, where she is designated as being ‘of Harwich’ (later records show her as being ‘of London’). Her captain, Christopher Jones, was born in Harwich around 1570, & many of the pilgrims who left England on the Mayflower  in 1620 were from Suffolk.  During the 1630s, many ships left Ipswich carrying settlers to the New World. St Clement’s:  It would seem that St Clement’s parish, on the eastern shore of the river, was probably the earliest location for shipbuilding in the town. Although records prior to the eighteenth century are scant, it is known that a ship which has become known as the Ipswich Galley  (see Ships Named Ipswich page) was built in 1294 for the war with France, &  one of the builders, Philip Harneys, is known to have had a shipyard in the area of today’s Neptune Quay in St Clement’s. Many of the vessels listed in the Ships with the suffix ‘of Ipswich’  section on the Ships Named Ipswich page would also more than likely have been built here. Pennington’s map of Ipswich, dating from 1778, shows three shipyards side by side in St Clement’s, situated at the bend where the river turns to the south (in the vicinity of today’s University Campus Suffolk building, near to the junction of Fore Street & Duke Street). Three other shipyards are known to have been built prior to the construction of the Wet Dock in 1840; the most southerly two, together with a ballast yard, being created on land reclaimed after 1808.  Surviving registers of ships, lease agreements, rate book & tax returns provide evidence that ownership of these yards changed hands on a fairly regular basis. The leasing out of the yards by their owners to various shipbuilders was also a frequent occurrence, & very little is now known about many of these people or the vessels they built.  The best known shipbuilder in the parish during the eighteenth century was John Barnard (born c1705), who took over the shipyard from his widowed mother in 1734 (his father, also named John, having owned the yard from around 1710). Establishing himself in the second most northerly of the yards, Barnard launched the 24 gun sixth rate Biddeford , built for the Royal Navy in 1740. Around this time, the man responsible for designing Nelson’s flagship HMS Victory, Thomas Slade  (see below) was employed by the Navy Board to oversee Barnard’s work.  Barnard also built the fourth rate Hampshire  for the navy in 1740/1, although due to her size, she was built downriver at John’s Ness (see below).  From around 1742, Barnard leased the navy yard at Harwich, where he concentrated most of his efforts thereafter. He did still build the occasional ship at his St Clement’s yard, however, where he also opened the town’s first public swimming bath in 1767. He was declared bankrupt in 1781, at which time, as well as shipyards in St Clement’s & Nova Scotia, he owned several farms in Essex & Suffolk & a large house in Duke Street, just behind the shipyards.  A painting by John Cleveley the Elder entitled ‘Launch of a Fourth Rate on the Orwell’,   depicts  John Barnard’s   Hampshire  being built at John’s Ness. Also in the picture are two other ships built by Barnard, namely the Biddeford , shown being towed down to Harwich to be rigged out, & the Granado . The fact that all three were built by Barnard suggests that he may have commissioned the painting himself.   In 1818 Jabez Bayley, a member of the famous Ipswich shipbuilding family whose businesses had until now been concentrated on the other side of the river (see below), leased two shipyards in St Clement’s; seemingly in an effort to monopolise the shipbuilding industry in Ipswich. These yards were in need of repair, however, & Bayley soon found himself in financial difficulties, which culminated with him being declared bankrupt in 1825. He later resumed business here, & although most of the Bayley family’s ships were built at the St Peter’s, Nova Scotia & Halifax yards, some were launched from St Clement’s, such as the Indiaman Childe Harold  of 400 tons. At the time of his bankruptcy, a relative of Jabez, William Bayley, took over the lease of two yards in St Clement’s & this business began to flourish during the 1830s.  With the gradual silting up of the river over the centuries, in the 1830s a proposal was made to create a new channel from a point just south of the St Clement’s yards around to the St Peter’s dock, in order to divert the river & create a new non tidal wet dock. A consequence of the New Cut, as this bypass channel came to be called, was that all six of the old yards in St Clement’s were now within the newly created Wet Dock. The last ship to be built in the old yards was the schooner Doctor , launched by Bayley in 1841. (One final vessel, a small iron steamer named Chevalier , was built on this part of the waterfront in what was by then the Wet Dock in 1851. She was built by Ransomes & May (see Ransomes  section, below), but due to difficulties encountered in launching a large craft in such a confined space, this event proved to be a one-off & no further records exist of shipbuilding here). The Wet Dock necessitated the owners of the old yards & their tenants relocating, in 1841, to reclaimed land to the south of the dock. This land belonged to John Chevallier Cobbold, who had purchased the foreshore down as far as his brewery at the Cliff in 1829. Three new shipyards were established here, the westernmost one being first worked by William Colchester, (this would later become known as Dock End Yard). The central yard of the three was occupied by William Bayley, whose old yard, like Colchester’s, had also been owned by John Cobbold. The first vessel known to have been built here was the cutter Eagle  in 1841. On the other (eastern) side of William Bayley’s yard, John Cobbold himself briefly established his own shipyard in the 1850s, although after his death in 1860 this became incorporated into Bayley’s premises. When the elder William Bayley died in 1857, his two sons, William & James took over the firm. The younger William continued the family business here until 1889; latterly building mainly barges, although some deep water craft were still built, such as the barquentine Lucy  in 1879 & the brigantine Clementine  in 1885. The last vessel built by William Bayley & Sons was the Inflexible  in 1889. The Dock End Yard passed through various hands after William Colchester retired, until it was acquired by R & W Paul Ltd in 1901. They built several barges for their own use, & carried on repairs here until the yard finally closed in the 1970s.   In 1865 a new yard had been opened in St Clement’s parish, further south than the other three & closer to the Cliff Brewery. Known as the Cliff Yard, the first builders here were John & Alfred Lambert. They remained here for around five years, after which the Bayley brothers briefly occupied the premises before it was taken over by William Curtis. When Curtis retired in 1885, the Cliff Yard was taken over by his nephew William Orvis, whose company continued to build here until Orvis’ death in 1909. In that year, the firm launched the last sailing barge ever built in Ipswich, the Ardwina . The last occupants of the Cliff Yard were a company called Dan Marine, who introduced steel shipbuilding to Ipswich; the first being the motor barge Eaglet  in 1910. The company went into liquidation in 1913, & the Cliff Shipyard disappeared with the construction of Cliff Quay after the First World War. Nova Scotia:  It is unclear exactly when the shipyard that became known as Nova Scotia in the parish of St Mary at Stoke, was first established, although the sale of a shipyard is recorded in the area in 1713. The site, three quarters of a mile downriver from Stoke Bridge, is in the vicinity of today’s West Bank Terminal. The name Nova Scotia was given to the site soon after John Barnard, who already owned a shipyard on the other side of the river in St Clement’s (see above), bought the land in 1749. For a theory as to why this & the neighbouring Halifax yard were so named, see The Villages & Hamlets of the Liberties of Ipswich  section, below. By this time Barnard was concentrating most of his activities in Harwich, & used the Nova Scotia yard to store timber & coal & was soon letting it out to others. Barnard’s son William, in partnership with William Dudson, did build several ships here in the early 1760s, the largest being the Speaker , a 702 ton East Indiaman  launched in 1763.  After Dudman & the younger Barnard relocated to Deptford on the Thames in 1764, William & John Bayley (exact relationship unknown) hired part of the yard from Barnard Snr.  This was the start of the Bayley family’s involvement in Ipswich shipbuilding, which would see them almost monopolise the industry during the nineteenth century. John Barnard was declared bankrupt in 1781 & in the following year the yard was purchased by Timothy Mangles.  William Bayley soon set up his own yard, & it seems he had left Ipswich by 1785. When John Bayley died in March of that year, the business was taken over by his widow Elizabeth.  Their four sons all worked in the yard at various times, although it was the second son George, & the youngest Jabez, whose names would become well known as Ipswich shipbuilders. It was during the period 1787-92 that the short-lived whaling industry thrived in Ipswich, & it was probably during this period that the Bayleys’ moved the main focus of their business to the St Peter’s shipyard. Although Mangles built several ships from Nova Scotia in the late 1780s & early 1790s, such as the Ferdinand  in 1791, the yard’s days as a shipbuilding centre were numbered. The Bayley family may have continued to use the yard until the end of the century, but after this time there seems to have been little ship building here. St Peter’s:   One of the earliest records of a shipyard on the western bank of the Orwell dates from 1702, when Joseph Clarke was assessed for tax on a shipyard & house not far below Stoke Bridge, close to today’s Great Whip Street. Very little is known about activities here until the 1770s, when a man by the name of Pearl Betts is recorded as building several vessels here, such as the 140 ton brig Mary and Ann  in 1777, & the Ark  in the following year. During the early 1780s, the yard was occupied by Captain Timothy Mangles, who was involved in the town’s brief whaling industry (see Ipswich (whaler) 1786  section on the Ships Named Ipswich page), although by 1783 he had moved to the Nova Scotia yard, further down river (see above). Conversely, it seems that the Bayley family, who had been at Nova Scotia since 1764, moved their business to St Peter’s in the late 1780s, at the time that Mangles was using Nova Scotia as his centre of operations for the whaling ventures. In 1812, George Bayley’s son, also named George, was apprenticed by his uncle Jabez, who encouraged his nephew to open his own business at the St Peter’s yard in 1821. At this time Jabez put the Halifax yard up for sale & continued his own business on the other side of the river in St Clement’s (see above). The younger George, with financial assistance from another uncle named John Ridley, continued to build ships in St Peter’s until 1831. These included the steamers Ipswich  & Suffolk  in 1825. In 1831, however, he leased the yard back to Jabez Bayley. When Jabez Bayley died in 1834, George leased the yard to Jabez’s former business partner William Read who, along with Enos Page, built here until 1838, at which time they moved to the Halifax yard. This move was necessitated by the commencement of the construction of the Wet Dock & the New Cut, which signalled the end of the old St Peter’s shipyards, as they were directly in the path of the New Cut.  This was not quite the conclusion to shipbuilding in St Peter’s parish, however, as in 1852, after giving up his business at the Halifax yard, William Read opened a new yard on the “Island”, within the tideless Wet Dock. When Read retired in 1866, this yard was taken over by his foreman Ebenezer Robertson who installed a patent slip, after which this yard became the most productive in Ipswich during the 1870s. Robertson gave up the yard in 1886, at which time shipbuilding finally came to an end in St Peter’s. Halifax:  The first record of a shipyard at Halifax, further down river than Nova Scotia & close to Bourne Bridge, dates from 1783. The yard may have been established by Stephen Teague, a shipbuilder formerly plying his trade at the nearby Nova Scotia yard. In 1797 Teague launched the 18 gun brig-sloop Cruizer  of 384 tons from Halifax. The Cruizer design was so successful that she soon gave her name to a whole class of warships; 111 being ordered by the navy over the next 30 or so years, nine of which were built by Jabez Bayley. Bayley, who was renowned for the attention he paid to ventilation & rot prevention, had begun to attract orders from the Royal Navy, & expanded his activities to the Halifax yard in 1805; having found the St Peter’s yard unable to cope with the increase in business, & the waters there too shallow for the launch of larger vessels. In the decade between 1804 & 1814 he built more the 30 ships for the navy, although it is not always known in which yard, St Peter’s or Halifax, many of these were built.  One vessel that can be placed with certainty as being launched from the Halifax yard, however, is the Transit ; a narrow, barquentine rigged craft built to a revolutionary new design by Capt. Richard Hall Gower (1767 – 1833). Gower had already designed a similar vessel in 1800 (also named Transit  & built at Chichester), that had proved extremely successful in tests, although he was always unable to persuade the Royal Navy to adopt his design. Part of Gower’s education had taken place at Ipswich School, & from 1816 onwards he lived in the town. Jabez Bayley also built a host of vessels for the merchant service, including brigs, cutters, packets, schooners, sloops & smacks, as well as several Indiamen such as the 579 ton Harleston  in 1811 & the Georgiana  of 256 tons in 1816.  Another Indiaman, the Orwell , launched from Halifax in August 1817, was at 1,337 tons, the largest vessel ever built in the town.  When Read & Page (see above) were forced to leave St Peter’s in 1838 due to the construction of the new Wet Dock, they moved into the Halifax yard. It was here that they built some of the first ever iron barges, such as the Ironsides  in 1841 & the Gipping  in the following year. In 1850 the yard was acquired by Thomas Harvey. He & his two sons worked the yard, building two mortar vessels for the Royal Navy in 1856. The dissolution of the partnership in 1864 signalled the final closure of the Halifax shipyard.  Above Stoke Bridge:  The only known instance of any vessels being launched above Stoke Bridge occurred around 1874, when George Mason & Co. built two barges from their shortlived yard situated off modern day Burrell Road. The narrowness of the river at this point made the launching of craft difficult here, & the company’s future vessels were built in the St Clement’s yard of William Colchester. John’s Ness:  Close to the eastern end of today’s Orwell Bridge lies John’s Ness (sometimes called King John’s Ness). This site was used only occasionally for the building of larger ships, due to the deeper water required for launching. William Hubbard, whose main business was in the St Clement’s yards, built the fifth rate Greyhound  here for the Royal Navy in 1703, & John Barnard also launched at least two warships from this location during the eighteenth century; the Hampshire  (1741) & the Champion  (1779). The Waterfront  The transformation of Ipswich Wet Dock from an area of warehouses, wharves & quays, to a vibrant, lively centre with marinas, restaurants, luxury dwellings & leisure facilities, began in 1999 with the completion of 69 apartments in the vicinity of Neptune Quay. What was once one of the largest wet docks in Europe has, during the first decade of the twenty first century, become the biggest single regeneration project in the east of England, with more than one billion pounds either having been spent, or earmarked for future development.  From this beginning on Neptune Quay, the development has spread along the northern side of the Wet Dock to include St Peter’s Quay, Albion Wharf, Common Quay, Wherry Quay & around to Orwell Quay.  As well as many new cafes, bars & restaurants, the Waterfront boasts Ipswich’s only four star hotel (Salthouse Harbour), a dance studio (DanceEast),  plus the University Campus Suffolk building, which was officially opened in 2009 (for further details see University Campus Suffolk  section  on the Suffolk, England page of www.planetsuffolk.com ). Although many old buildings have been demolished in the past few years, some still stand alongside, or have been incorporated into, the newer ones. These include The Old Custom House  (see separate section, above), parts of the Salthouse Harbour Hotel, & the Isaac Lord complex. Known as Isaacs on the Quay, the latter features a number of bars, & hosts live music events & barbeques.  Parts of this complex of buildings dates back to Tudor times, although for whom the property was built is not known. Isaac Lord acquired the house & adjoining warehouse (known as the saleroom), from the Cobbold family in 1900, & the Lord family occupied the premises until the 1980s. Both the house & saleroom are Grade I listed buildings. One of the more unusual eateries on the Waterfront is Mariners, a floating restaurant which is permanently moored on Neptune Quay. The boat on which Mariners is located was built in Bruges, Belgium, & was launched as SS Argus  in 1889. She was subsequently requisitioned by the Belgian navy in 1940, before being sunk by the Germans, who then raised & repaired her. In the 1950s she was fitted out as a Red Cross hospital ship, & was renamed Florence Nightingale , sailing under the Dutch flag. In the 1970s & 80s she operated as a party boat, before being brought to Ipswich & opened as the Italian restaurant Il Punto in 1990. She became a French brasserie in 1994, & subsequently underwent the name change to Mariners. Operating from Orwell Quay, the aptly named vessel Orwell Lady  (see photo, below) has, since 2001, run regular cruises along the River Orwell & down to Harwich Harbour between the months of April & September. Built at Twickenham, London in 1979, the Orwell Lady  previously operated on the Thames & at Poole, Dorset, before being brought to Ipswich.  She is also available for private charter.  Sailing cruises are also available on the Orwell during the summer months from several Thames sailing barges that operate from the quay. Common in the nineteenth century, Thames sailing barges are flat bottomed vessels, around 80 to 90 ft in length, & usually spritsail rigged on two masts. Most have large mainsail & foresail, with a topsail above. The Orwell Bridge  Spanning the River Orwell just to the south of Ipswich is the 4,222 ft long Orwell Bridge, which carries the A14 road from Wherstead on the west bank to Gainsborough  on the east.  Designed by Frederick Gibberd Partners & funded by the Dept. of Transport, construction began in October 1979 & the bridge was opened in December 1982. The 623 ft main span of the bridge was, at the time of construction, the longest pre-stressed concrete span in existence. The bridge is used, on average, by over 60,000 vehicles per day.  (See also the header photo of this website)  The Lost Port of Orwell  Orwell Haven or the “portus de Orwell”  is the estuary of the River Orwell, but there is a strong tradition that there was once a town of Orwell located here that belonged to Ipswich, but was swept away by erosion of the coast.  Some historians consider this to be a myth, but written evidence is available of such a place, as noted below:  - Between 1229 and 1466 writs were directed towards the men of Orwell town ( ville de Orwell ), and since these appear in the same context as Ipswich and Harwich, it must have been recognised as a separate place.  - In 1173 Queen Eleanor and Prince Henry, in rebellion against King Henry II, landed their forces at Orwell. - In 1326 Queen Isabella with Prince Edward and Roger Mortimer landed at Orwell in Suffolk in their successful attempt to overthrow King Edward II.   - In 1338 King Edward III sailed with his invasion force on France from the “port of Orwell” .  - In 1347 a ship from the “town of Orwell” is recorded.   - In 1408 an arrest was made at the “town of Orwell”.   - 1466 is the last record of a “ville de Orwell” . It is clear that writers of the time had a place on shore or a harbour in mind, not a stretch of water.  “Oruelle” is marked on maps of this period in this vicinity, but they are not accurate enough to locate precisely where it was. Historians who claim that such a port is a myth maintain that it actually refers to Harwich which is sometimes recorded as “Harwell”, and that “Orwell” is just an earlier form of its name.  Harwich is not mentioned in the Domesday Book so at that time if anyone lived there it must have been a very small settlement.  It is known to have existed by 1177, and is first recorded by the name of Harwich ( Herewyk  ) in 1238.  “ Arewan ” is the early Anglo-Saxon name for the River Orwell adopted from the Celtic Briton’s name meaning ‘the river’.  It is recorded as this in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle in 1016, and is spelt “ Orewell ” in 1216.  It is a far older name than Harwich, but nobody can explain why “ Orewell ” should become “ Herewyk ” which means ‘army camp’.  The fact that both names co-existed for another 200 years would indicate that they are different places.  However, there is a connection between the two.  Harwich is said to have grown in importance on the decay of a “town named Orwell” which is said to have been located about two or three miles east of the present shore, where there is now a shoal called West Rocks.  It was on the south side of the Orwell Haven on a ridge of land jutting out from Essex.  Harwich fishermen claimed that brickwork and mortar were still visible at low water, and in the late 19th century dredging brought up building stone.  At this early period there were no other port towns that could claim jurisdiction over the Orwell estuary other than Ipswich.  Then in 1253 the Earl of Norfolk turned the hamlet of Harwich into a town, and started a weekly market.  Medieval Harwich grew rapidly and in 1318 it was given a charter and had become a busy little port.  When Harwich developed as a port in the 1270s it started to make claims to the mouth of the estuary, and began diverting ships to its own port to collect tolls.  It then became necessary for Ipswich to protect its long-held rights over this same stretch of territory.  In 1340 a commission concluded that the “port of Orwell” was within the jurisdiction of Ipswich, and in 1378 it decided that this extended to “the arm of the sea thereto running from a place called Polles on Andrew Sand in the deep sea”, and that it was the Ipswich bailiffs and burgesses that had the sole right to take the custom duties for goods coming into the port of Harwich.   Nevertheless, it is acknowledged that Harwich is in the County of Essex, so it needs to be seen how Ipswich could claim jurisdiction over the opposite shore.  This would relate to the movement of the River Orwell at its estuary.  The River Stour flowed into the River Orwell before the latter river reached the sea, and there is no doubt that the River Orwell did once flow into the sea much further north under Bull’s Cliff in Felixstowe, roughly where Felixstowe Pier is located.  Since it was important for the people of Suffolk to secure the approach to Ipswich they had to hold both sides of the River Orwell.  This is clear from the Domesday Book (1086) where “ Langestuna ” or “ Langar ” (today Landguard Point) was a manor held by Roger Bigot as part of his lands at Walton in Suffolk.  At the time this manor would have been south of the River Orwell on a ridge ( Langar  is Anglo-Saxon for ‘long gore’ (a long strip of land) that was probably still attached to Essex, although separated by low-lying marshland.  The question is when was the shoreline breached further south? The argument against the existence of Orwell is that it is not recorded in Domesday and neither is there a record of a major inundation resulting from a breach that destroyed the town of Orwell, as there is with Dunwich on the coast further north.  This could be because the breach occurred before Orwell really existed.  It is known that there were gales and floods about the year 1100.  The river may have changed direction then and burst through marshy land to the sea along its present course, although the new estuary would be very much narrower and shallower than it is now.  No record survives because neither Orwell nor Harwich existed at that date.  However, it appears that after the breach there was still a neck of land extending out from Essex that had not yet been washed away.  There was also a headland that projected out east of today’s Landguard Point, known as Pollshead (see below).  These two headlands provided shelter for a harbour protected from the east and northeast winds.  The “port of Orwell” would then have developed.  It would not have been a town in the sense of having churches and major structures, but an anchorage place and harbour.  There would have undoubtedly been rudimentary wooden and stone warehouses, and the places usually associated with sailors at leisure, on the land immediately adjacent to the harbour. It was essential for the Ipswich burgesses to keep control of the estuary, wherever it was located.  If the rivers were now flowing through a southern entrance as well as the northern channel, it made sense to claim jurisdiction over the southern shore, regardless of the county in which it was located, and to ensure that the anchorage afforded by the place now developing as “Orwell” was under the authority of the corporation of Ipswich.  There are references to “bailiffs at Orwell” in the time of King Henry III (1216-1272), but these could be representatives coming from Ipswich, rather than being resident at the port. The port of Orwell must still have existed in 1340 because Ipswich was given jurisdiction over it.  It is also apparent that some of the land had been eroded by 1378 since Pollshead was already under the sea.  For some time the previous exit further north near Felixstowe must have continued to be used, but became more difficult because of longshore drift gradually closing the passage with shingle and sand.  The main river currents then deepened the channel to the south.  Sailing directions dating from the 15th century make it clear that the present estuary mouth was then in position and being used.  Since the records relating to the “ ville de Orwell ” peter out around 1400, it is likely that in the intervening years the sea had gradually eroded the headland jutting out from Essex, taking the anchorage and harbour with it. William Camden, writing in 1578 about East Anglia in his topographical and historical survey of Britain, states that “in his time at Langar Point or Langar stone there was a larger ridge of land than can be seen now which ran out to sea for above two miles, and this was put to great use by the Harwich fishermen for the drying of their fish.  Now this vast ridge is mostly washed away and the port of Orwell is gone”.  Charles Lyell in his “Principles of Geology” in 1830 states that “within the memory of persons now living, the Orwell river continued its course in a more direct line to the sea, and entered to the north instead of the south of the low bank on which Landguard Fort is built”.  By 1504 it is known that Landguard was definitely an island.  A map of “Orwell Haven in Essex”, dating from about 1543, shows that Landguard Fort is located on an island.  In 1587 it is recorded as being an island at every high tide.  Landguard is only shown for the first time as part of the mainland in a map of 1790.   The area between Landguard Point and Felixstowe was still tidal marshland in the 19th century, and the inhabitants referred to the area as “The Fleets”, retaining a tradition of the original course of the river being over this marshland.  Maps up to 1881 clearly show an inlet from the River Orwell along Horseshoe Creek where the present docks are situated, and a tidal creek reaches almost to the sea before being diverted north by the shingle beach along the route of the present Langer Road.  In 1874 permission was granted by parliament for a sea wall to be constructed to prevent the tidal waters from encroaching on to Landguard Common from the west, and with the building of the Felixstowe Beach railway in 1877, this area was finally recovered from the sea and stabilised.  The area itself was built on only in the early 1900s. It is definite that the “ portus de Orwell ” was a harbour belonging to Ipswich.  It appears that Orwell was never a town in the traditional sense but a port covering an area of land and water rather than a specific centre of permanent population.  It extended to “Polles Head or Paul’s Head”, noted in 1654 by Nathaniel Bacon as a tongue of land beyond Landguard Point on Andrew Sand, but “now eroded away”.  Andrew Sand is marked in the sea immediately southeast of the present Landguard Fort.  (“Polle” is Anglo-Saxon for headland so “Pollshead” is tautologous).  It seems that the jurisdiction of Ipswich extended for a few miles seaward along both shores of the estuary.  To some extent this would have covered the seas off Harwich which was not a separate port for the purpose of customs and tolls until 1698.   The movement of the estuary may also be reflected in uncertainty as to which county Landguard Fort was situated.  Silas Taylor, who was keeper of the King’s store at Harwich from 1665 to 1678, says in his history of that town, written in 1676, that “Landguard Fort is within the limits of Essex, though it seems to belong to Suffolk”.  The fort was considered part of Essex in the 18th and 19th centuries; births and deaths within the garrison were recorded as ‘Landguard Fort, Essex’.  However, it is known that at the time of Domesday the manor of Langerston was in Suffolk despite the fact that it may have been on the “Essex side”.  This was because Suffolk was deemed to hold both shores of the River Orwell and at that time the river flowed north of Langerston.  After it became isolated as an island amidst marshland, it was abandoned as a permanent settlement place.  When it became a military post it was quicker and shorter to supply it from Harwich, hence Landguard Fort was considered part of Essex only as an administrative convenience. Until 1805 Ipswich Borough owned the estuary and could charge dues on shipping.  That year the Ipswich Docks Commission was established and took over the rights of the borough to the river and estuary.  The town’s jurisdiction over the estuary was removed by the Municipal Corporations Act 1835, but the right to collect dues continued to 1863.  However, the Harwich Harbour Act of 1863 defined the limits of the Port of Harwich, and with regard to the River Orwell the limit was along an imaginary line from Shotley Point to Fagbury Cliff on the Trimley shore.  This effectively abolished the dues that Ipswich could collect from ships entering the estuary.  This limit to the jurisdiction of Ipswich was finally accepted by the Ipswich Docks Act 1877, and the town’s maritime boundaries along the Orwell have remained the same ever since.  It should be noted that the port authorities, whether under Ipswich or Harwich, straddled the county boundary which still runs down the middle channel of the River Stour, and at the estuary (Orwell Haven) runs midway between Landguard Point (Suffolk) and Blackman’s Head (Essex). Myth of the Roman Road over the Orwell  There is a persistent story that has even found its way in some recent brochures regarding Ipswich and its environs.  This is that the Romans built a road across the River Orwell and, in particular, from Nacton Shores.  Many of us from Ipswich can recall playing on and using the “Roman road” in our youth, and our parents and grandparents also remembered referring to this stretch of material jutting into the river as “the Roman road”.  It has become what is recognised today as a modern “urban myth”. The “old Roman crossing point” is to be found just below Bridge Wood on the northern side of the river.  At low tide a straight stretch of stones can clearly be seen appearing just above the mud, projecting out into the river.  It was said that this allowed people to reach the centre of the river which they could ford, and thus the river was crossed over by a sort of “bridge”, hence it was given the name of Downham Bridge and, by extension, the nearby wood was called Bridge Wood.   “Downham”, earlier “Dunham”, is an Anglo-Saxon place-name meaning “a settlement ( ham ) on a hill ( dun )”.  This is a strange name to give to part of a river, and there is absolutely no record of a nearby settlement with that name.  It seems more likely that the incoming settlers adopted an older British name for this part of the Orwell; “ dubno ” is Celtic for “deep”, hence it could mean “a low-lying meadow ( hamm ) by deep water”.  Dunwich is believed to have a similar origin “harbour ( wich ) by deep water”. Before considering whether this could be a Roman construction, we need to look at how long it has been known as a “bridge”.  The earliest reference we can find dates back to 1565 when a commission of enquiry into the conditions of English harbours found that “Ipswich is not so much frequented as heretofore” as nothing above 60 tons could come “above Downham (Dunham) Bridge”.  In the middle ages the nearby northern shore of the Orwell was held by Alnesbourne Priory, and in 1530 the manor is referred to as “Alnesborne et Ponds”.  The latter word is believed to be derived from the Latin “pons” meaning “bridge”, and has been preserved in today’s Pond Hall Farm.  So there was obviously a feature of some sorts here.  Whether it served as a crossing point or just a “bridge” across the water to ships moored out in the river is another matter. We do know that during the 16th century the Orwell began to silt up, forcing ships to unload further downstream.  We know for certain that Downham Bridge was later used as a quay.  In 1634 Trinity House gave permission for a quay and dry dock to be built at Downham Bridge, and in 1667 the Admiralty gave an order that “if anyone should dig or break the soil between high and low water mark at Downham Bridge they should be sued”.  By 1744 there was no depth to unload at Ipswich even at high tide, so that vessels that had a draught greater than eight feet had to unload their cargoes into lighters at Downham Bridge to be taken the last four miles to port.  The crews would frequently walk to shore along the “bridge” in order to get to Ipswich; in 1793 this is how Margaret Catchpole met her lover (see Margaret Catchpole  section, below).  With the building of new docks at Ipswich in 1805 the need for Downham Bridge passed, and the quay soon disappeared.  However, the material used as foundations remained.  Nineteenth century maps clearly show a “boat hard” extending out into the river at this point. So what is this feature?  Nacton cliffs are mainly composed of London Clay with bands of shale and mudstones.  Where faults occur, erosion causes rotational slips onto the river shore.  The river then further erodes the softer clay to leave the harder band of shale and stone above the level of the beach material.  This geological feature did provide a dry route out into the river.  Undoubtedly early ship owners enhanced this feature by depositing their own stones on top of it in order to preserve it as a “hard”.      We need to look at the “Roman” connection.  It is acknowledged that nearby Wherstead on the southern shore appears to have been a Romano-British farming settlement, but this hardly constitutes a reason for there to have been a crossing.  The main Roman road from Colchester (Camulodunum) to Caister (Venta Icenorum) crossed the River Gipping to the west of Ipswich at Baylham House (Combretovium).  The Roman road to Walton Castle at Felixstowe ran from the main road after it had crossed the river, along the centre of the peninsula.  In depth archaeological surveys when the Orwell Bridge was built did not show any evidence for there being Roman activity in this locality.  If the Romans did construct the “bridge”, it needs to be asked why they never continued it on the southern shore, and why build a “road” that comes to an end at the bottom of a cliff? It is noticeable that no written references can be found to a “Roman road” at Nacton Shores before the 20th century.  In our view, this expression arose in oral tradition during the mid-19th century.  In the London Clay cliffs at Nacton are layers of nodules called “septaria”.  In the 1780s James Parker developed a natural cement made by burning “septaria”, which he patented in 1796 under the name of “Roman Cement”.  In 1807 a Roman Cement works was established at Harwich.  In G R Clarke’s book “ The history & description of the town & borough of Ipswich ” (1830) he notes that “George Tovell has recently erected buildings for the manufacture of Roman Cement near to the Nova Scotia shipyard”.  The “septaria” was colloquially known as “Roman Cement stones”.  Boats from Pin Mill, on the opposite shore to Downham Bridge, from about 1840 specialised in dredging of such stones from the London Clay deposits washed into the River Orwell, and in 1855 had the largest fleet with over 50 vessels.  This industry had ceased by the end of the century, but it seems very likely that looking for “Roman Cement stones” around the structure known as Downham Bridge soon gave rise to the belief that the Romans must have built a road there.

The coastal town of Ipswich, Essex County, Massachusetts is situated at 42° 40’ 45” N  70° 50’ 30” W. approximately 30 miles northeast of Boston. Population:- The population, according to the 2020 census, was 13,785. How to get there :- By road: From Boston & the south take Interstate Highway 95 north. Then take US Highway 1 north to Topsfield, then turn on to Ipswich Road.   From the north use Interstate Highway 95 south, then State Highway 133 east to intersection with State Highway 1A.   By Rail: Ipswich Station is on MBTA Commuter Rail’s Newburyport/Rockport Line. From Boston North Station take Newburyport-bound train to Ipswich. Approximate journey time is 55 minutes.  From Newburyport, Boston-bound trains take around 20 minutes to Ipswich. Nearest major airport is Boston’s General Edward Lawrence Logan International. Time Zone: Eastern Standard Time (GMT -5 hrs).  Daylight saving time in summer +1 hr.  Order of contents on this page: (Click on the links below) History:  Pre-European Settlement Early Settlement & Derivation of Name Boundaries of Ipswich and Towns Arising from its Territory  Birthplace of American Independence The Salem Witch Trials - The Ipswich Connection   Ipswich Militia Regiment “The Great Ipswich Fright” The Ipswich Witchcraft Trial Buildings:  John Whipple House Heard House Hall-Haskell House First Period Houses   Other Historic Buildings   “The Ipswich House” - Smithsonian Institution in Washington DC Choate Bridge People:  John Winthrop Junior Nathaniel Ward Anne Bradstreet Arthur Wesley Dow John Updike   Chevy Chase (Cornelius Crane Chase)   Estates/Reservations etc: Castle Hill Turner Hill Appleton Farms Greenwood Farm Reservation Willowdale State Forest Sandy Point State Reservation Wolf Hollow  Song:  ‘Ipswich Town’ by James Appleton Morgan   Products:   Ipswich Lace   Geography: Crane Beach (Ipswich Beach) Ipswich Range Lights   Heartbreak Hill Ipswich River Ipswich Bay Ipswich Bar & Ipswich Bluff  Essex County  Pre-European Settlement  The earliest human inhabitants of the Massachusetts and New Hampshire area arrived about 12,000 years ago, after the glaciers had retreated.  New England as a whole was inhabited by Algonquian-speaking groups of Native Americans for centuries before Europeans arrived in the area.  These ancient Algonquian-speakers gave rise to the Abenaki which was the main group living in New England, Quebec, and the Maritime Provinces of Canada, a region called Wabanaki (“Dawn Land”).  Within the Abenaki, the Pennacook tribe formed a confederacy of smaller tribal units, and the Merrimack Valley in the southern part of New Hampshire and northeastern Massachusetts was their home.     The Agawam was one of these tribes within the Pennacook Confederacy which had their main village at the location of Ipswich; the tribe occupied the eastern part of what is now Essex County covering today’s communities of Ipswich, Hamilton, Wenham, Gloucester, Rockport, Essex and more.  The territory was called Wonnesquamsauke, meaning literally, the “pleasant water place”, the word being a compound from ‘wonne’, (pleasant), ‘asquam’, (waters), and ‘auke’, (a place).  This word was sometimes contracted to Wonnesquam or to Asquam.  The deep gutteral pronunciation of ‘asquam’ by the Native Americans sounded to the English like ‘agawam’, and hence that word became applied to the indigenous people of that locality. The tribe was mentioned by Capt. John Smith, and they were described at the time as numerous.  However, by the 1630s they had almost disappeared, only a few score by then survived.  The cause of their collapse was mainly the hepatitis plague of 1616-1618, which had a fatality rate of over 90%, brought by European fishermen before the Puritan settlers arrived in the area. It was against this backdrop that on 28 June 1638, the Sagamore, or leader, of the Agawam, Masconomet, sold the ‘Bay of Agawam’ to John Winthrop for £20 sterling.  Whether he actually sold the land or not is a matter of interpretation, since the Native Americans had no sense of land ownership.  In 1643 he and some other sagamores went before the Colonial Court and put themselves under the formal protection of the English.   When the general Indian uprising against the settlers known as King Philip’s War (1675-76) began, the Agawam at first remained peaceful, although the uprising was led by the neighbouring tribe, the Wampanoag.  However, after settlers took some of their children as hostages as a precautionary move against an attack, the Agawam joined the Wampanoag Confederacy, and helped in the raids on the towns of Hatfield, Northampton and Springfield.  Nevertheless, the British won decisively.  Many of the Native American survivors were taken into slavery, and the rest went into hiding.  The few Agawam families now moved away to make new homes among the Abenaki to the north, and became assimilated into that tribe.  By 1700 there were very few Native Americans to be seen at Ipswich.   Top of Page                                                   Early Settlement & Derivation of Name  Originally called Agawam*, the area that was to become Ipswich was first described in 1614 as “an excellent habitation, being a good & safe harbour” by Capt. John Smith.  In 1623 William Jeffrey from England established a claim in the area. This became known as “Little Neck”. Five years later he established a permanent settlement known as “Jeffrey's Neck”. There were already 38 Europeans settled here when John Winthrop arrived in the area in 1633 to establish a Puritan colony. Winthrop, whose father was a prominent landowner from Suffolk, England & governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, together with the Rev.  Nathaniel Ward, also from England & who is regarded as the “Father of the First American Constitution”, named the town Ipswich. The town was incorporated in the following year.  The 4th August 1634 entry in Gov. Winthrop's journal reads  “ At the court, the new town of Agawam was named Ipswich, for Ipswich in England, in acknowledgment of the great honor and kindness done to our people who took shipping there. ”   * Not to be confused with the present day town of Agawam in Hampden County, Massachusetts; more than 100 miles from Ipswich. Top of Page  Boundaries of Ipswich and Towns Arising from its Territory  Ipswich was the second location in Essex County after Salem to be settled by the English.  As such, its jurisdiction extended from the boundaries of Salem and included all the territory north to the Merrimac River, and westward from “ocean to ocean”.  The area under the control of Salem was accepted to run along the coast to include Jeffryes Creek (now Manchester-by-the-Sea) and Cape Ann (now Gloucester and Rockport), both places having already been occupied by settlers from Salem.  At this period the actual boundaries were not determined, but it was generally agreed that authority and control should be exercised to the extent of six miles from each town’s meeting house. Although the territory north and west of Ipswich was unsettled, it was not unknown.  That the town exercised its authority over this area can be seen in a grant made by Ipswich in December 1634 allowing John Pirkins to build a fish trap on the River Quasycung (now the Parker River), near where Newbury would later be located.   However, the General Court at Boston was ready to allow new plantations to be carved out of this territory.  In March 1635 it ordered that Cochichawicke (now Andover, North Andover and part of Lawrence) should be reserved for an inland plantation, so this effectively limited the westward extent of Ipswich.  In May 1635 the General Court allowed Wessacucan to be settled by the Rev. Thomas Parker and renamed Newbury.  This was south of the Merrimac River so a line was drawn half-way between that river and Ipswich, the land to the north of this line becoming part of Newbury.  This area gave rise to the present towns of Newbury, West Newbury, Newburyport, Haverhill, Methuen, and part of Lawrence. In March 1639 a group of families from Yorkshire, England, under the Rev. Ezekiel Rogers, bought land from both Newbury and Ipswich to form a new plantation named Rowley, after their home town in Yorkshire.  This was incorporated by the General Court in September 1639 and its area extended for eight miles from its meeting house in each direction where the land was not already settled.  This covered the present towns of Rowley, Georgetown, and Boxford.   The laying out of the eight miles around Rowley penned in the town of Ipswich and prevented any extension inland in future.  In May 1642 the boundary between Ipswich and Salem was finally demarcated.  This left the present towns of Topsfield (including what is today part of Middleton), Hamilton and Essex within the bounds of Ipswich.  Ipswich became increasingly smaller as each of these became incorporated and broke away as independent towns: Topsfield in 1650; Hamilton in 1793; and Essex in 1819.  (As these were settled places within Ipswich, they are dealt with separately on The Ones That Got Away  page).There were minor adjustments to the boundary resulting in the loss of land from Ipswich to Topsfield in 1774, to Rowley in 1785, to Boxford in 1846 and to Hamilton in 1896.  In 1892 the boundary in the tidewater between Ipswich, Essex and Gloucester was fixed.   Top of Page  Birthplace of American Independence  Ipswich is known as the “Birthplace of American Independence”.  This stems from a protest in 1687  by Ipswich residents, led by the Reverend John Wise, regarding the actions being proposed by the Royal Governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, Sir Edmond Andros, who, having landed at Boston in December 1686, had brought in a tax of one penny in every pound in order to afford himself a revenue. The colonists argued that, as Englishmen, they could not accept taxation without representation. Some of the citizens were jailed & fined for their actions, but when Andros was recalled to England in 1689 after King James II was overthrown, the colonists were issued a new charter by King William III & Queen Mary. This was, however, the first protest against “Taxation Without Representation”, which would eventually lead to the American Revolutionary War (1775 - 83) & ultimately Independence.  Top of Page  The Salem Witch Trials - The Ipswich Connection  The famous Salem Witch Trials took place over a period of sixteen months, from February 1692 to May 1693. Centred around Salem, other settlements in Essex County were also caught up in the paranoia & hysteria surrounding the court hearings & prosecutions that followed, which also spread to other Massachusetts counties such as Suffolk & Middlesex. In all, more than 200 people were accused of witchcraft during this period, with 20 being put to death.   As it did in Europe, religion played a big part in the witch hunts that took place in New England at this time, with the Puritans leading the way with their contention that Catholicism (as well as just about any other form of religious practice other than their own) was the work of the devil.  Central to this was the biblical verse Exodus 22:18 which states “Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live”. The publication in 1689 of the book Memorable Providences Relating to Witchcrafts and Possessions  by Cotton Mather, a minister of Boston’s North Church, also added fuel to the fire.  Another factor was superstition; with natural events & disasters, such as disease, sudden deaths & crop failures being seen as the result of diabolical intervention. A third factor underlying the accusations & subsequent trials, were local family feuds & rivalries concerning such things as grazing rights, property boundaries & church privileges. Indeed,  a case can be made for this being the primary motive behind many of the events, with the religious & superstitious aspects being used as a smokescreen, especially in the early days before the hysteria began to spread further afield than Salem.  Much of the evidence used against the accused was what was known as “spectral evidence” in which the victim of witchcraft would claim to see the apparition or the shape of the person who was allegedly afflicting them.  Other means of determining if someone was a witch included: pricking the flesh of the accused (to see if they felt pain); the discovery of ‘familiars’ (demonic spirits in the guise of animals); possession of books on horoscopes, palmistry & other occult matters; & the  ‘touch test’, in which the accused was made to lay their hands on the afflicted whilst the latter was in the throes of a fit (the immediate cessation of the fit proving the guilt of the accused).  Although the Salem Witch Trials are named after Salem Town (now Salem) & Salem Village (present day Danvers), around 14 & 11 miles south of Ipswich respectively, many other communities were to become involved, Ipswich being just one of them.  Preliminary hearings in early 1692 were conducted in a number of towns across the counties of Essex, Suffolk & Middlesex, including Ipswich, until in May of that year a Special Court of Oyer and Terminer was established by Sir William Phips, Governor of the Province of Massachusetts Bay, to hear the trials in Salem Town ( oyer et terminer  is an Anglo-French term literally meaning  “to hear and determine”). Phips appointed Lieutenant Governor William Stoughton as the chief judge.  Although Phips was to order the termination of the court only four months later in September 1692, arrests continued until May 1693, when the trials were finally suspended & the remaining prisoners released. The allegations had begun in early 1692, when three women from Salem Village - Sarah Good,  Sarah Osborne & a slave named Tituba – were accused of causing fits* in the nine year old daughter Elizabeth, & eleven year old niece Abigail Williams, of the Reverend Parris, as well as two other girls. They were interrogated & sent to jail pending sentence; Sarah Good being confined in Ipswich jail. These allegations seemed to spark a wave of religious fervour, which, over the next few months, resulted in many other people, both men & women, being accused & brought to trial. Although these were mainly confined to the communities of Salem Town & Salem Village, the people of Ipswich were not immune to the ongoing crisis:  In March 1692, Ipswich resident Rachel Clinton (or Clenton) was accused by various Ipswich people of being a witch.  Amongst these allegations were those by Mary Fuller that Rachel had caused the death of a neighbour, whilst Thomas Boreman alleged she was able to shape-shift into a dog or a turtle. William Baker accused her of causing the loss of a quantity of beer by supernatural means. Although acquitted, she died destitute in 1695.  Elizabeth How (or Howe) lived in Linebrook Parish, close to the boundary with the neighbouring town of Topsfield. She was arrested in May 1692 on charges of being a witch. Her main accusers were the Perely family of Ipswich, who alleged that Elizabeth had caused fits in their ten year old daughter. She was also accused of afflicting several other girls within Salem Village, & causing the death of livestock. She was executed on 19th July 1692; the only Ipswich resident to be put to death during the Salem Witch Trials. A former Ipswich resident, Sarah Buckley, was also among the accused, although by the time of the events she was living in Salem Village. She was eventually found not guilty & released. Several Ipswich men served on the Grand Jury of the Court of Oyer and Terminer, held in Salem, including Robert Paine, Richard Smith & Thomas Boreman (the latter being one of the accusers of Rachel Clinton). *Many of the accusations leveled at the so-called witches were that they caused fits in their victims. One modern theory suggests that, far from being of supernatural origin, these fits were, in fact, a condition known as convulsive ergotism caused by eating rye bread made from grain infected by the fungus Claviceps purpurea  (a natural substance from which the drug LSD is derived).  Top of Page  Ipswich Militia Regiment  Ipswich Company, Essex Regiment (Ipswich militia): The New England colonists did not maintain a standing professional army. Their defence relied on town militiamen.  As soon as the settlers arrived they had to post guards, and arrange armed expeditions when moving around outside the settlement.  As early as April 1631, the General Court of the Massachusetts Bay Colony established the first military legislation—a simple requirement for all adult males to possess arms.  Based on the English system, local colonial militias or “train bands” were to be established in each town. (For greater detail on the organisation and history of the militia in Massachusetts, see Suffolk County Militia on Suffolk County, Mass. page of www.planetsuffolk.com )  On 13th December 1636 the General Court ordered that the town militia companies be merged into North, South and East Regiments.  The first muster, as far as is known, was held on 9th March 1637 in Salem to prepare to fight the Pequot Native Americans.  Militia units in that region—from Salem, Saugus, Ipswich and Newbury—formed up for the first time as the East Regiment, commanded by Col. John Endicott of Salem.  The Ipswich Company was established under Capt. Daniel Dennison appointed by the General Court.  Training was to be eight times in a year.  The 101st Engineer Battalion of the Massachusetts Army Guard is the direct descendant today of the East Regiment.  On 7th September 1643 the East Regiment became the Essex Regiment, and the Ipswich militia constituted a company within the Essex Regiment.  A reorganisation of the colony’s armed forces took place on 13th October 1680 when the Ipswich Company had grown sufficiently large to be divided into three companies.  In 1689 another reorganisation introduced three Essex Regiments, and the companies of Ipswich, Rowley, Gloucester, Wenham, Topsfield, and Boxford formed the 1st Essex Regiment. The Essex Regiment provided protection to the settlers and fought in the Pequot War, King Philip’s War, and the French and Indian War.  The Ipswich Companies served in each of these conflicts.  Local militiamen usually marched off for one brief engagement, normally within a 200 mile radius of Ipswich, and returned home within days of their departure, although some volunteered for longer campaigns further afield, such as the Quebec expedition of 1690.  The local committee at Ipswich would reward individuals with grants of land for outstanding service.  Although the militia was inactive after the French and Indian War (1754-1763), it was revived with the realisation that action against the British was inevitable.  By 1774 there were six Essex Regiments.  In January 1776 five of these were adopted into the Continental Army.  Those who enlisted for three-year terms in the Continental Army went further and saw action in some of the war’s major campaigns.  The remaining Essex Regiment remained in the service of Massachusetts during the Revolutionary War.      Ipswich Minutemen: On 24th January 1775, the Massachusetts Provincial Congress formed a special company of Minuteman in which Captain Nathaniel Wade of Ipswich would be the commander.  “Minutemen” were teams of select men from the colonial militia.  They were generally younger and highly mobile, and could be rapidly deployed.  Members underwent additional training, and held themselves ready to turn out rapidly (“at a minute’s notice”), hence their name.  Nathaniel Wade’s men were known as the Ipswich Minutemen.  Their training field was the South Green.  (The oldest house now standing on the Green is the Nathaniel Wade House, built in 1727.)  On 19th April 1775 the Ipswich Minutemen marched to join the Battle of Lexington and Concord that started the war for independence.  They took part in the Siege of Boston, and Wade led the Minutemen Company at the Battle of Bunker Hill.  In January 1776 Wade and many of the fellow Minutemen re-enlisted and were transferred to New York, where they saw action in the Battle of Long Island, Battle of Harlem Heights, Battle of White Plains, and assisted in the Battle of Trenton.  On 31st December 1776 the enlistments of the soldiers ended, and those who did not re-enlist in the Continental Army returned home.  Nathaniel Wade reenlisted and was eventually promoted to Lieutenant Colonel and made aide-de-camp to General George Washington.  In 1780 Washington gave command of West Point fort to Wade after General Benedict Arnold deserted to the British.  By his vigorous action, Wade prevented the loss of West Point to the British.  After the war he served as a Colonel in the Massachusetts Militia.  Nathaniel Wade lived in Ipswich throughout the rest of his years. Another regiment connected to Ipswich was that of Col. Jonathan Cogswell, also known as the 3rd Essex County Militia Regiment.  This was called up at Ipswich on 19th April 1775, during the Battles of Lexington and Concord and was used to guard the Massachusetts coast from July 1775 to January 1776. The regiment was also called up again in September 1777 as reinforcements for the Continental Army during the Saratoga campaign, and it finally disbanded in November 1777.After the Revolutionary War the militias stood down.  In the 1812 War with Britain militia from the towns were mustered but saw little activity other than guard duty in the ports.  The militia was by then simply called the “Massachusetts Militia”.  After the War of 1812, the militia fell into decline, although officers were still commissioned up to 1831.  In 1840 the enrolled militia throughout Massachusetts was disbanded and replaced by a state-wide volunteer militia.  Companies of organised militia based on towns and counties no longer existed.It should be noted that the “Washington Blues”, a local militia organisation formed in 1834 for ceremonial duties and colonial war re-enactments, although occasionally referred to as the “Ipswich Militia”, has never officially been given that name. The Chartered Military Company of Ipswich: In addition to militia units there were a number of chartered “Military Companies” organised during the early colonial period.  These were considered élite units that were privately financed and chartered by the Colony.  On 14th May 1645 “The Military Company of Ipswich, Newbury, Rowley, Salisbury and Hampton” was chartered.  However, it never seems to have been activated since there are no further references to it thereafter. Top of Page  “The Great Ipswich Fright”  On 21st April 1775 an event took place during the early stages of the Revolutionary War in the Massachusetts town of Ipswich, which became known as “The Great Ipswich Fright”.A rumour, which no one tried to authenticate, spread that British ships had been seen sailing up the Ipswich River towards the town.  The alarm was sounded.  Old men, boys and all the women in the place who were not bedridden or sick met in front of the meeting house.  The rumour soon had it that British regulars had landed on the coast and were marching upon the town.  A scene of terror and confusion followed.  Defence was out of the question as all the able bodied men had marched to fight in the battles of Lexington and Concord.  Soon after the people of Beverly, a village a few miles away, heard the rumour, but by now the word was that the enemy had fallen upon Ipswich and massacred all the inhabitants.  Soon the stories spread to other towns.  There ensued an irresistible, uncontrollable panic across this part of north-eastern Massachusetts.  Flight was resolved upon.  All the horses and vehicles in the towns were requisitioned; men, women and children hurried towards the north.  Some threw their valuables into wells.  Large numbers crossed the Merrimac and fled into New Hampshire.  All the boats on the river were constantly employed for several hours in conveying across the terrified fugitives. The next day somebody realised that there had been no invasion, no houses were burnt down and no inhabitants had been massacred.  The refugees slowly returned homeward, with the uncomfortable feeling of having been made to look rather foolish in their premature flight.  After that, an “Ipswich Fright” became a saying in America during the 19th century for any unwarranted panic. Top of Page  The Ipswich Witchcraft Trial  This trial, considered the last witchcraft trial in America, took place in 1878. So named due to the fact that one of the main participants, Lucretia L. S. Brown, lived in Ipswich, the trial actually took place twelve miles away in Salem, & is therefore alternatively sometimes known as the Second Salem Witch Trial (the first being the famous cases of 1692-3, see above ). Lucretia L. S. Brown was an adherent of the Christian Science religion; a system of thought and practice derived from the writings of Mary Baker Eddy (1821 – 1910) & the Bible. Having been left an invalid by a childhood spinal injury, she sought, apparently with some success, a cure through “Animal Magnetism”; a form of  hypnosis advocated by Baker Eddy in her book Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures  (1875).  In 1878, having suffered a relapse, Brown accused fellow Christian Scientist Daniel H. Spofford of attempting to harm her through his “mesmeric” mental powers. Spofford had known Mary Baker Eddy & been one of her supporters; being instrumental in the publication of her book. The two had since fallen out, however, & he had been expelled from the Association of Christian Scientists on the grounds of “immorality”. The trial commenced on 14th May 1878, with Baker Eddy herself amongst the witnesses giving evidence against Spofford. The presiding Judge Horace Gray, however, dismissed the case three days later on the grounds that the complaint was “framed without a knowledge of the law of equity”. Although Lucretia Brown appealed against the decision, this too was dismissed in November of that same year. Top of Page  John Whipple House  John Whipple House was built in the  late 1630’s or early 1640’s, possibly for John Fawn. It is widely regarded as the best surviving example of early seventeenth century Colonial architecture in New England.  Bought by the British soldier Capt. John Whipple soon after its completion & thereafter in the Whipple family for five generations, it still features original timber framework & panelling from the late seventeenth century. It had been used as housing for mill workers in the late nineteenth century, until in 1898 it was purchased by The Ipswich Historical Society.  It was restored &, since 1899, the house has been open as a museum, although it was moved in 1927 from its original location on Market & Saltonstall Streets, to its current position at the intersection of County & South Main Streets. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1966. “An Old Ipswich House” by W.H.Downes is one of three papers that constitute No.10 of the publications of the Ipswich Historical Society introduced in December 1900, and was published in 1901 by The Salem Press Co.  It tells the story of John Whipple’s house, the home of the Historical Society.  Top of Page  Heard House  Built by John T Heard between 1795 & 1800, this neo-classical style mansion was home to the Heard family until 1936, when it was bought by the Ipswich Historical Society.  Heard was a prominent Ipswich businessman & merchant, with links to China & the West Indies. For many years the house was also known as the Waters Memorial, after Thomas Franklin Waters who was the author of the two volume Ipswich in the Massachusetts Bay Colony , as well as being founder of the Ipswich Historical Society in 1890 . The house is situated on South Main Street & is now open as a museum. Exhibits include the Arthur Wesley Dow Collection, the Ipswich Painters Collection & the China Trade Collection.  Top of Page  Hall-Haskell House  Situated on South Main Street (next to the Town Hall), & locally referred to as the “Little Red House”, the property that is now known as the  Hall-Haskell House  was originally bought by Thomas Perin in 1691, before being sold to the Wise family in 1733. There is no record of when the original house was demolished. In 1800, the land was acquired by Charles Hall, & by 1819 Mary Hall is known to have been resident in the present house; from the ground floor of which she ran a general store. The Haskell family bought the property in 1825, before it passed to Abraham Caldwell. It was eventually bought by John Heard in 1864 & remained in the Heard family until 1930. Marked for demolition in the 1980s, the house was seen as providing valuable historic information on the social history of the ordinary people of Ipswich in the early nineteenth century, & was therefore saved by a group of local people, with restoration work beginning in 1982. The house now operates as the Ipswich Visitors Center, & is also in use as an art gallery. Top of Page  First Period Houses       Merchant-Choate House  With 62 houses from the “First Period” of American architecture (1625 – 1725) still in existence, Ipswich has more buildings from this era than anywhere else in the country. The most famous of these is the John Whipple House  (see above), but many more are also listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Most are named after the builder or original occupant of the house. Many names of early Ipswich families recur time & again in the list of First Period Houses, & in the Other Historic Buildings  section below, such as Burnham, Caldwell, Dodge, Kimball, Kinsman, Lord etc. The features of a First Period house include board & batten front door, large central chimney, narrow clapboards, steeply pitched roof & small casement leaded glass windows.  John Kimball House Many of the First Period houses still extant in Ipswich exhibit later modifications & additions, & various sources disagree as to which buildings do actually date from this period & which are of a later vinatge.  Those recognised by the Ipswich Historical Commission are listed below by street,with approximate date of construction: Argilla RoadGiddings-Burnham House c 1650Tilton-Smith House   c 1706-1730Isaac Goodale House   c 1670 - Originally located in Salem, this house was moved to its present location in Ipswich in 1928. Candlewood RoadRobert Kinsman House  c 1714 County RoadRust-Rogers-Brown House  c 1685-1750 - Sometimes called the Nathaniel Rust House, this building initially stood on the site of the later South Meeting House, before being moved to its present location by Asa Brown in 1837.  Isaac Goodale House County StreetBennett-Caldwell House   c 1725Benjamin Dutch House  c 1700-10Thomas Dennis House  c 1670 -1750 East Street Matthew Perkins House   c 1701-09Hodgekins-Lakeman Houses   (three houses)   c 1690Perkins-Hodgkins House   c 1700 Jordan-Snelling House   c 1700   (also known as the Francis Jordan House) Fellows Road Ruth Fellows House   c 1714Fellows-Appleton House c 1693 Fox Creek/Labor In Vain RoadBennett’s Farm  c 1680-1740 Green StreetAndrew Burley House  c 1688  - Run as “Smith’s Tavern” between 1760 & 1790 Heartbreak Road Thomas Low House  c 1680James Burnham House c 1677-1700 High Street Edward-Brown House   c 1650White Horse Inn  c 1658       Waldo-Caldwell House  c 1660  - This building stands on the site of the earlier house of Gov. Simon Bradstreet (built around 1630). Daniel Lummis House   c 1700Jonathan Lummis House   c 1712Kingsbury-Lord House   c 1660John Kimball House    c 1680-1700  John Kimball House   c 1715  Caleb Kimball House  c 1715 (also known as the House with Orange Shutters)  John Brewer House  c 1680Tuttle-Shatswell Houses (four houses)  c  1690-1720Simon Adams House   c 1700-20Merchant-Choate House    c 1650  -  One of the oldest buildings in Ipswich, the house still has its                                                                          original English-type cottage frame.Philip Call House   c 1659Thomas Lord House  c 1658Joseph Willcomb House  c 1668   Hovey Street John Kendricks  House  c 1675 Jeffrey’s Neck Road Paine-Dodge House  c 1694  (also known as Robert Paine House)Ross Tavern/Collins-Lord House   c 1700Shatswell Planter’s Cottage  c 1650 Linebrook Road Hart House   c 1640Chapman House  c 1720 Mineral StreetEphraim Harris House  c 1696 North Main StreetJohn Appleton House  c 1707 - Built by Colonel John Appleton, who had been a leader in the   rebellion against the taxation measures brought in by Sir Edmond Andros (see Birthplace of American Independence  section,  above) Poplar Street Doctor John Calef House  c 1671Swazey Tavern   c 1700 -  It is said that George Washington was offered refreshment here whilst on his way to Newburyport. It was later used as a dormitory for the Ipswich Female Seminary. South Main Street Shoreborne-Wilson House c 1685Phelomen Dean House  c 1716  (also known as the Madeline Linehan House) South Village Green John Whipple House  c 1640  (see separate section, above) Summer Street Jonathan Pulcifer House  c 1718Knowlton House   c 1688James Foster House   c 1720Willcomb-Pinder House  c 1718Foster-Grant  House   c  1717   (also known as Grant House)Nathaniel Hovey House c 1718 Topsfield Road Appleton-Kimball House  c 1700  (also known as Moses Kimball House) Turkey Shore Road Emerson-Howard House  c 1680  (also known as Howard House)Nathaniel Hodgkins House  c 1720 Warren Street David Grady House  c 1720 Water Street Jabesh Sweet House   c 1713Harris-Stanwood House   c  1696Preston-Foster House  c 1690York-Averill  House  c 1715Captain Sutton House   c 1715  Top of Page  Other Historic Buildings    Capt. Moses Jewett House                                                                                                 Col. Nathaniel Wade Hou In addition to the sections above, Ipswich also possesses many other historic buildings from the eighteenth & nineteenth centuries. These are listed below & date from the Second or Georgian Period (1725-90), the Third or Federal Period (1790-1830), or the Victorian Period (1830-1900).  Sources differ as to exactly when some of these houses were built, & as you will see, some of the buildings below date from prior to 1725, i.e. within the timeframe for First Period houses.  Those listed in the First Period Houses  section above are, however, those that are listed as such by the Ipswich Historical Commission. Any others from that period not listed by this organization are included in the list below. (With different sources giving different dates, & occasionally different names, to the same property, it may be that there is some duplication & inaccuracy here. If anyone notices any discrepancies or omissions, please let me know by emailing the details to info@planetipswich.com ) Agawam Avenue2 Agawam Avenue   c 1763Newmarch-Spiller House   1800s Argilla RoadSamuel Kinsman House   c 1750Argilla Farm   c 1734Stephen Smith House   c 1742John Patch House   c 1760T. Brown House   1840s Candlewood Road Isaac Fellows House   c 1705 Jeremiah Kinsman House   c 1756Rhoda Kinsman House   c 1818 Ebenezer Stanwood House County Road Col. Nathaniel Wade House   c 1727Brown-Burnham House   c 177585 County Road   c 1815 County Street Ringe-Leatherland House   c  1718 (also known as the Ringe-Pinder House)Dennis Dodge House   c 1740Capt. Abraham Knowlton House   c 1726 (also known as Bethia Fitz House)Benjamin Grant House   c 173545 County Street   early 1800s East Street Foster-Russell House   c 1856Baker-Newman House   c 1725Dodge House   c 1725Polly Dole House   c 1720Willcomb Mill   c 1830Widow Caldwell House   c 1740Luther Wait House   c 1810John Harris House   c 1742Hovey-Dodge House    c 1865Ringe-Lord House   1832Wainwright-Treadwell House   c 1727 Elm Street 16 Elm Street    1830s Fellows Road Joseph Fellows Jr. House   c 1734 Fox Creek Road Epes-Brown House   c 1720   (also known as Bellosellsky House)  High Street The Olde Manse   c 1727       (also known as Rogers Manse, after Rev. Nathaniel Rogers) John Gaines House   c 1725 Joseph Newman House   c 1762 George A Lord House   1857 Haskell-Lord House   c 1750 Harris House   1700s Lord-Baker House   c 1720 Holland-Ringe House   c 1742 James Fitts House   c 1767 Stone-Rust House   c 1750 Wood-Lord House   c 1725 Nathaniel Lord House   c 1720 The Old Jail   c 1771 Elizabeth & Philip Lord House    c 1774 Joseph Fowler House   c 1756 Dow-Harris House   c 1735 Capt. Moses Jewett House   c 1759 Aaron Jewett House   c 1780 Caldwell House   c 1733 Joseph Boiles House   c 1720 Baker-Sutton House   c 1725 John Kimball Jr. House   c 1730-40     4 High Street   1800s (Pink House) Jeffrey’s Neck Road Capt. John Smith House   c 1740 Lakeman’s Lane Benjamin Fellows House   c 1740 Linebrook Road Old Cross Farm   c 1726William Conant House   c 1769Abraham Howe Barn   c 1750Howe Homestead   c 1725Allen Perley House   c 1784 Market Street Stacey-Ross House   c 1734Bailey House    date unknown Mill Road William Warner House   c 1780Caleb Warner House   c 1734 Mitchell Road Mitchell House   c 1790Mitchell Barn   1700s Newbury Road Foster-Hills House   c 1787 Newmarch Street Tobias Lakeman House   c 1732 North Main Street Old Post Office   c 1825 James Brown House   c 1720E benezer Stanwood House   c 1747 Christian Wainwright House   c 1741 Dr. John Manning House   c 1765 Funeral Home   c 1825 John Chapman House   c 1770 Thomas Morley House   c 1750 Day-Dodge House   c 1737 Capt. Richard Rogers House   c 1728 40 North Main Street   1800s 47 North Main Street   late 1800s Old England Road Capt. Treadwell House   c 1748 Pineswamp Road Harris-Spiller House   c 1740 South Main Street Timothy Souther House   c 1726Samuel Dutch House   c 1723 Heard House   c 1795   (see separate section, above) Hall-Haskell House   c 1800   (see separate section, above) Town Hall   c 1843    -    Originally a Unitarian church Jones-Caldwell House   c 1728Fuller House   c 1738 - Once used as a baker’s store South Village Green Aaron Smith House    c 1776Col. John Baker House   c 1761 Spring Street John Henderson House   c 1777 Summer Street Benjamin Kimball House   c 1720 Widow Fuller House   c 1725 Thomas Treadwell House   c 1740 Soloman Lakeman House c 1750 48 Summer Street    date unknown Topsfield Road Goodhue-Adams House   c 1763  (also known as Goodhue-Patch House)Robert Wallis House   c 1703 Turkey Shore Road Burnham-Patch House   c 1730Heard-Lakeman House   c 1776Stephen Boardman House   c 1725 Turnpike Road John Foster House   late 1700s - May have once been a tavern Waldingfield Road Applefield House   c 1759 Water StreetG lazier-Sweet House   c 1728 Woods Lane Grant House   date unknownVivian Endicott House   late 1800s Top of Page  “The Ipswich House” - Smithsonian Institution in Washington DC  In 1963, the house that formerly stood at 16 Elm Street in Ipswich, known as the Abraham Choate House, was relocated to the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History in Washington DC.The ten room house was built in the mid 1760s by Abraham Choate, although the building also incorporated parts of an older structure, believed to date from around 1710. In 1822 the house was purchased by Josiah & Lucy Caldwell, who used it to host meetings of the Ipswich Female Anti-Slavery Society. It was later bought by the Heard family, who divided the building up into apartments for workers at the town’s hosiery mill.  The house was owned by the Scott family from 1942 to 1961, & then stood empty until 1963, when plans to demolish it to make way for a parking lot were scheduled. Through the efforts of two local women, Kay Thompson and Helen Lunt, however, the house was saved & moved to the Smithsonian, where it is on display to this day as the centerpiece of an exhibition on two hundred years of American home-building technology. It is known as “The Ipswich House” & is the museum’s largest single artifact. “ Within These Walls ” described as a living history play that celebrates the house, five families & 200 years of history, is performed annually at the site of the house in Elm Street. Written by Ipswich Playwright J T Turner, the play was performed by the Ipswich-based The Actors Company at the Smithsonian on 3rd August 2013, to mark the fiftieth anniversary of the relocation.    Top of Page  Choate Bridge    Built in 1764, Choate Bridge spans the Ipswich River & is the oldest surviving stone arch bridge in the United States. Named after Colonel John Choate, an Ipswich resident who funded & oversaw its planning & construction, he is alleged to have been the first person to ride his horse across the bridge after completion. In 1838 the bridge was widened & in 1989 extensively renovated. Since 1972 it has been on the National Register of Historic Places.     Whilst it was being built, a blind man from Rowley, named Mr Clark, recited the following poem on the bridge, in the presence of, amongst others, Colonel Choate. The verses were written down many years later, from memory, by Nathaniel Dutch. Behold this bridge of lime and stone!The like before was never knownFor beauty and magnificenceConsidering the small expense How it excells what was expected,Upon the day it was projected!When faithful men are put in trust,They’ll not let all the money rust. But some advance for public goodIs by this fabric understood;And after this it will be wroteIn honor of brave Colonel Choate It was his wisdom built the same,And added lustre to his fame,That filled this Country with renown,And did with honor Ipswich crown Top of Page  John Winthrop Junior  John Winthrop Junior, also known as John Winthrop the Younger, was born in Groton, Suffolk, England (around 15 miles west of Ipswich) in 1605 or 1606. He studied at Trinity College Dublin, then returned to England to study law in London, before spending two years at sea; travelling to such places as Italy & Turkey. His father, John, the governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, had emigrated to America in 1630, & the younger John followed his father the year after, where he was given the post of Assistant to the Massachusetts Bay Colony. In 1633 he was instrumental in establishing the settlement that was to become Ipswich. In 1634, after his first wife & daughter died, he returned to England, remarried &, in 1635, returned to America to establish a colony on the Connecticut River which he named Saybrook. He was also influential in establishing the settlement that was to become New London. Later he became one of the magistrates of Connecticut & in 1657 he was elected governor of the Colony of Connecticut; a position he was to hold until his death. In 1675 he became one of the commissioners of the United Colonies of New England. He was also a renowned physician & was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society in England. He died in Boston in April 1676. Top of Page  Nathaniel Ward  Nathaniel Ward was born in Haverhill, Suffolk, England in 1578. He studied law at Cambridge & became a barrister before entering the ministry; becoming a chaplain for a while in Prussia.  His brothers, Samuel & John, both became ministers in Ipswich, Suffolk (see The Master’s House  section on the Ipswich, England page). After being dismissed for his puritan beliefs, he left England & settled in Ipswich, Massachusetts. At this time he wrote The Body of Liberties , which established a code of principles based on Common Law, the Magna Carta and the Old Testament. Published in 1641, it was later to be adopted by the General Court of the Massachusetts Bay Company.  It is often said that The Body of Liberties  was instrumental in formulating the American tradition of liberty that would eventually evolve into the United States Constitution. This led to Ward being regarded as the ‘Father of the First American Constitution’.Ward’s second book, written in 1645-6, was entitled The Simple Cobler of Aggawam in America , which was published in England under the pseudonym ‘Theodore de la Guard’. Later versions contained additions & amendments to the original. The book has been described in some quarters as the most interesting literary work from America in the first half of the seventeenth century.After the end of the English Civil War, Ward returned to England, where he settled in Shenfield, Essex; dying there in 1652.  Top of Page  Anne Bradstreet  America’s first published poet, Anne Bradstreet, lived in Ipswich for several years during the seventeenth century. Born Anne Dudley in Northampton, England in 1612, at the age of sixteen she married Simon Bradstreet who worked for the Massachusetts Bay Company. Two years later the couple emigrated to America along with Anne’s family.  Her father, Thomas Dudley was to become Deputy Governor under John Winthrop of the new Boston settlement, while her husband became its Chief Administrator. Both her father & husband were involved in establishing Harvard University.Initially settling in Salem, then Cambridge, the Bradstreet family soon moved to Ipswich, where Anne began writing poetry, whilst also looking after their eight children; her husband being away on business for extended periods during this time. Anne’s poems were intended to be read by close friends & family only, & were never meant for publication.  Her brother-in-law, John Woodbridge, however, secretly copied some of her works & took them to England, where they were published in 1650 as The Tenth Muse Lately Sprung Up in America, By a Gentlewoman of Those Parts , without Anne’s permission. This was the only collection of her work to be published during her lifetime; the Tenth Muse  not being published in America until 1678, when it became the first book written by a woman to be published in the United States. A second volume, Several Poems Compiled with Great Variety of Wit and Learning  also found its way into print that same year. This second volume contained one of her most famous poems, To My Dear and Loving Husband . After eight or nine years in Ipswich, the Bradstreet family moved to North Andover, where Anne died in 1672. In 1997, the Bradstreet Gate was opened at Harvard University in her honour, adorned by a plaque with a quote from one of her poems. Top of Page  Arthur Wesley Dow  Arthur Wesley Dow was born in Ipswich in 1857 & is probably the town’s best known artist; many of his works depicting scenes from the Ipswich area.  After studying art in Paris, Dow returned to America & taught art for many years; later becoming director of the Fine Arts Dept at Columbia Teachers College in New York City. He always, however, retained a house in Ipswich &, as well as being a founder member of the Ipswich Historical Society, between 1891 & 1907 he & his wife ran the popular Ipswich Summer School of Art.  The Long Road - Argilla Road, Ipswich by Arthur Wesley Dow Dow was much inspired by Japanese art, & in 1899 he published ‘Composition: A Series of Exercises in Art Structure for the Use of Students and Teachers’.  In 1908, he & his friend Everett Stanley Hubbard, also an Ipswich  man, published ‘By Salt Marshes: Pictures & Poems of Old Ipswich’.Dow was also interested in photography,  & in 1899 he produced an album of 41 photographs entitled ‘Ipswich Days’, which has now been published, but was originally intended as a present for his friend Hubbard. When he died in 1922, Dow bequeathed 18 acres of land to the town to be used as a public park, & donated his house to the Society for the Preservation of New England Antiquities.     Top of Page  John Updike  Author John Updike (1932-2009) lived in Ipswich between 1957 & 1974. Born in Reading, Pennsylvania, Updike is probably best remembered for his 1984 novel The Witches of Eastwick  & his Rabbit series of novels, which chronicle the life of Harry ‘Rabbit’ Angstrom. Two of this series; Rabbit is Rich  & Rabbit at Rest  received the Pulitzer Prize.  Much of Updike’s best work was written whilst living in Ipswich, including Rabbit Run , The Centaur  & the 1968 novel Couples . The latter is set in the fictional town of Tarbox, which many people consider to be based on Ipswich; with many of the characters that the novel portrays being based on Ipswich residents of the time. Updike, however, always denied this. John Updike published more than 20 novels, as well as several collections of poetry & short stories. He was also renowned as a literary & art critic, & wrote regularly for The New Yorker . In 1963 he received the National Book Award for The Centaur  & the following year he was elected to the National Institute of Arts & Letters. After leaving Ipswich he moved to Boston. He died of lung cancer in Danvers, Massachusetts in 2009. Top of Page  Chevy Chase (Cornelius Crane Chase)  Born in New York in 1943, Cornelius Crane Chase is better known as actor & comedian Chevy Chase.  On his mother’s side he is part of the Crane family who owned Castle Hill, & he is known to have spent his summer vacations there as a child.  Chase is probably best known for such films as ‘Caddyshack’, ’The Three Amigos’ & the National Lampoon’s Vacation series.  His name derives from the fifteenth century English ‘Ballad of Chevy Chase’ & was given to him as a nickname by his grandmother.  Top of Page  Castle Hill  The geographical feature Castle Hill is a 165 acre promontory that overlooks Ipswich Bay & is surrounded by sea & salt marsh. It is part of the 2100 acre Crane Estate & was supposedly named after the Castle Hill area of Ipswich in England. The area once belonged to the founder of Ipswich, John Winthrop. The estate was bought in 1910 by Richard Teller Crane Jr. The mansion called Castle Hill is the second to grace the site, the first being an Italian Renaissance style building built in 1910 but demolished in 1924 to make way for the present 59 room Stuart-style house, which was completed in 1928.  During this period extensive landscaping of the estate was also carried out. After Crane’s death in 1945, part of the estate was donated to a land conservation & historic preservation group called The Trustees of Reservations. Four years later, the remainder of the property, including the mansion, was also donated to the same organisation, who today offer tours of the house. The venue also hosts weddings & other functions.In 1998 Castle Hill was designated a National Historic Landmark.  It has been used for the filming of several movies including ‘The Witches of Eastwick’ & ‘Flowers in the Attic’. The Crane family don’t only have links with one Ipswich. In 1855 Richard Teller Crane Snr, founded the engineering company Crane Co. of Chicago, which the younger Crane inherited. In 1919, when he was looking for somewhere to expand his business into the UK, he chose the town with the same name as that in which he had built his home. If you look closely at a picture of Castle Hill, then look at a picture of Christchurch Mansion  in Ipswich, England, you will note some striking similarities. How much the design of the second Castle Hill mansion is based on the English house, & how much is mere coincidence, is not known. (See Ipswich, England page & Buildings: Ipswich, England album in the Photo Gallery  for comparison). Top of Page  Turner Hill  Designed by architect William G Rantoul in the style of Haddington Hall in Scotland, Turner Hill Mansion was built in 1903 for the Boston industrialist Charles Rice & his family. The family occupied the house until after Mr Rice’s death in 1943, when it was sold to The Missionaries of Our Lady of La Salette, who used the property as a spiritual retreat until 1997. In that year it was bought by the Raymond Property Company, who have restored the property & opened it as a golf course & wedding & event venue.  Since 2007, the golf club has been member-owned & is ranked as one of the top courses in Massachusetts. The Elizabethan style house boasts hand-moulded plaster ceilings, wall friezes, oak floors and hand-carved panelling, doors and stairways. Numerous function rooms of varying sizes are available, whilst the grounds include an outdoor chapel.  Today the Turner Hill estate covers more than 300 acres & includes 120 residences set among towering pine trees, lawns, gardens & ponds. Top of Page  Appleton Farms  Established in 1636 by Samuel Appleton, Appleton Farm is considered America’s oldest continuously operating farm. Samuel Appleton was born in 1586 at Little Waldingfield, Suffolk, England (around 20 miles west of Ipswich). He emigrated to America in 1635. After settling in Ipswich, he later moved to Rowley & died there in 1670.  Initially growing vegetables, corn & hay, later generations of Appletons diversified into timber, beef & dairy production.  By the late nineteenth century, the farm had primarily become a country estate, holding fox hunts & steeplechase meetings. In 1898, Samuel Appleton's original house was incorporated into a new house named 'Waldingfield'; named after the family's place of origin in England. In 1998 the 658 acre estate was gifted to The Trustees of Reservations, who run the farm today.  Now open to the public, the estate includes historic farm buildings, the oldest dating back to 1794. Six miles of trails cross the farm through grassland, woodland & wetland habitats, together with crop fields & livestock pastures. These trails are suitable for walking & horse riding. The wetland areas are home to the rare blue and yellow spotted salamander. Adjacent to the farm are the Appleton Farms Grass Rides;  a further five miles of trails through forest, open fields & wetlands originally laid out for horse riding & carriage driving, but which can now be used for walking, mountain biking &, in winter, cross country skiing.   Starting in 2009, work began on converting the estate’s historic Old House into the Appleton Farms Center for Agriculture and the Environment. Top of Page  Greenwood Farm Reservation  Owned by The Trustees of Reservations, Greenwood Farm is now a nature reserve situated at Jeffrey’s Neck. It features a First Period farmhouse known as the Paine House, named after Robert Paine, later foreman of the Salem witch trial jury, who arrived in 1640 & began farming the land; building  the salt-box style house in 1694 (a salt-box house is usually a wooden framed building with a long, pitched roof that slopes down at the back. It is asymmetrical, having one storey at the back & two at the front, & takes its name from the resemblance to a wooden lidded box in which salt would be stored). Greenwood Farm Reservation is named after Thomas Smith Greenwood, who was born in 1807 on what was known at that time as Hickory Farm or Hickory Grove Farm.  After going to sea, he returned to raise his family in a house built around 1828 close to the Paine House.  Smith Greenwood was the first keeper of the lighthouses built at Lakeman Beach (now Crane Beach), & was instrumental in rescuing several of the passengers of the Deposit , that ran aground in 1839. After becoming a summer retreat for the Dodge family in 1916, who turned the Paine House into a guesthouse, Greenwood Farm was acquired by The Trustees of Reservations in 1975. The house today contains a fine collection of Colonial Revival furniture and decorative arts. The Reservation offers great views of the Ipswich River & the salt marshes, & the property includes several islands, of which Diamond Stage, Homestead &Widow’s Island are the largest.  Top of Page  Willowdale State Forest  Situated predominantly within the boundaries of Ipswich, Willowdale State Forest offers 40 miles of trails for walking, biking, horse riding & cross country skiing. The forest includes the Pine Swamp area & also the 100 acre Hood Pond, which is suitable for fishing & boating. The Ipswich River runs through the southern part of the forest & beyond this the forest adjoins the Bradley Palmer State Park. Top of Page  Sandy Point State Reservation  Sandy Point State Reservation is situated at the Southern-most tip of Plum Island; an 11 mile long Atlantic Ocean barrier island. Managed by the Department of Conservation & Recreation, the 77 acre reserve is a popular & scenic coastal beach habitat. It is also an important nesting area for the piping plover & the least tern; both species being considered endangered. The reserve includes the glacially formed hill known as Bar Head, as well as Stage Island Pool; a freshwater pond created by salt workings that were undertaken here during the nineteenth century. Just to the north is the Parker River National Wildlife Refuge, the southern part of which falls within the boundaries of Ipswich & through which access is gained to Sandy Point. Top of Page  Wolf Hollow  Situated on Essex Road, Wolf Hollow is a non profit organisation established in 1990 by the late Paul C. Soffron & run by the North American Wolf Foundation Inc. Wolf Hollow is  dedicated to the preservation of the wolf in the wild & offers the visitor the chance to see wolves in their natural environment & to discover how a wolf pack functions. It is home to a pack of British Columbian timber wolves (a subspecies of the gray wolf) started from five cubs donated from other organisations across the USA. At any one time the pack consists of around ten to twelve individuals. Wolf Hollow is open to the public at weekends, during which visitors are given an hour long presentation.   Top of Page  'Ipswich Town' - Poem by James Appleton Morgan  James Appleton Morgan, the author of the poem below, was born in Portland, Maine in 1850. He is probably best remembered for his controversial theories as to the origins of Shakespeare’s plays.    IPSWICH TOWN  By James Appleton Morgan I love to think of old Ipswich town,Old Ipswich towne in the east countree,Whence on the tide you can float downThrough the long salt grass to the wailing sea,Where the Mayflower drifted off the bar,Seaworn and weary, long years ago,And dared not enter, but sailed awayTill she landed her boats in Plymouth Bay. I love to think of old Ipswich town,Where Whitefield preached in the church on the hill,Driving out the Devil till he leaped downFrom the steeple's top, where they show you still,Imbedded deep in the solid rock,The indelible print of his cloven hoof,And tell you the Devil has never shownFace or hoof since that day in the honest town. I love to think of old Ipswich town;Where they shut up the witches until the dayWhen they should be roasted so thoroughly brown,In Salem village twelve miles away;They've moved it off for a stable now;But there are the holes where the stout jail stood,And, at night, they say that over the holesYou can see the ghost of old Goody Coles. I love to think of old Ipswich town;That house at your right, a rod or more,Where the stern old elm trees seem to frownIf you peer too hard through the open door,Sheltered the regicide judges threeWhen the royal sheriffs were after them,And a queer old villager once I met,Who says in the cellar they're living yet. I love to think of old Ipswich town;Harry Main - you have heard the tale - lived there;He blasphemed God, so they put him downWith an iron shovel, at Ipswich Bar;They chained him there for a thousand years,As the sea rolls up to shovel it back;So when the sea cries, the good wives say"Harry Main growls at his work to-day."  I love to think of old Ipswich town;There's a graveyard up on the old High Street,Where ten generations are looking downOn the one that is toiling at their feet;Where the stones stand shoulder to shoulder, like troopsDrawn up to receive a cavalry charge,And graves have been dug in graves, till the sodIs the mould of good men gone to God.  I love to think of old Ipswich town,Old Ipswich town in the east countree,Whence on the tide, you can float downThrough the long salt grass to the wailing sea,And lie all day on the glassy beach,And learn the lesson the green waves teach,Till at sunset, from surf and seaweed brown,You are pulling back to Ipswich town. Top of Page  Ipswich Lace  From the 1750s to the 1840s, women throughout the town of Ipswich, Massachusetts, were heavily engaged in the only successful commercial production of handmade bobbin lace in the United States.  Today handmade Ipswich Lace is rare, and nearly always found as museum pieces.  Ipswich was a prosperous port until the 1740s, when the Ipswich River silted up, closing the harbour to larger ships.  This brought about an economic depression as the menfolk lost their livelihoods.  About 1750, in  order to compensate for this loss of income, a group of Ipswich women started making and selling bobbin lace, used for collars, cuffs or trim on handkerchiefs and household linens. The distinctive patterns were mostly floral, geometrical or abstract.  Unlike needle lace, bobbin lace is made using spools to hold the many threads that go into it.  In the 18th century the thread and pins were imported, but the bobbins were made locally and passed down from mother to daughter. Wearing lace was a status symbol for both men and women.  However, at that time only the wealthiest colonists could afford to buy imported French, Flemish or English lace.  The cheaper Ipswich Lace soon became so popular that traders travelled to Salem and Boston to sell it.  The onset of the Revolutionary War cut off European imports and gave a further boost to the industry.  George Washington’s 1789 visit to Ipswich made its lace even more fashionable after he picked up some of the black silk variety for his wife, Martha.  Owning Ipswich Lace now became a source of national pride.  By 1791 some 600 women, more than 1 in 4 of the adult female population, were engaged in lace production in Ipswich.  Then the men got involved.  In an effort to mechanise the industry, Ipswich men in the 1820s started importing machines from Britain that could produce background netting.  Men monitored the machines, while the women embroidered the designs on the netting.  Lace, once a symbol of wealth, lost its social prestige, having been replaced by machine laces that were available to almost everyone.  Within two decades the handmade Ipswich Lace industry was gone. Top of Page                                        Crane Beach (Ipswich Beach)  Situated on the Crane Estate is  the 1,234 acre Crane Beach, formerly known as Ipswich Beach, on the Atlantic Ocean; a popular recreation site as well as being a conservation area. Like Castle Hill it is maintained by The Trustees of Reservations. It consists of approximately four miles of sandy beach & dunes skirted by pitch pine forest.  Crane beach is recognised as one of the most important breeding sites in the world for the endangered piped plover; a species that came close to extinction in the nineteenth century.Just inland from Crane Beach is the 680 acre Crane Wildlife Refuge, which includes salt marshes around the estuary of the Castle Neck River. Around 180 species of birds have been recorded here. Top of Page  Ipswich Range Lights  Ipswich Range Lights were two lighthouses located on Crane Beach to serve as a navigation aid for mariners coming through the main channel toward the mouth of the Ipswich River. (Range lights, known in some parts of the world as leading lights, are a pair of lights that provide safe passage for shipping entering a shallow or dangerous channel, & can also be used for position fixing.) Situated 542 ft apart on an east-west axis, the lights were initially built as 29 ft tall brick towers in 1838, together with a keeper’s house. Originally both towers had fixed lights but, due to mariners confusing these with a pair of fixed lights on Plum Island to the north, the western tower was quickly replaced with a revolving light.   By 1867 the front light had been replaced by a wooden structure described as a “shanty-like affair known as the “bug light””, that could be moved as the channel shifted. By 1878 the shifting of the sands had resulted in the rear tower becoming cracked, & it too was replaced in 1881; in this instance with a cast iron conical tower (see photo, right). In 1932 the front light was discontinued & the rear light automated. Six years later the rear light was replaced with a skeleton tower that still functions to this day; the cast iron tower being removed & shipped to Edgartown in Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts in 1939, where it replaced the Edgartown Harbor Light that had been destroyed in the hurricane of the previous year.  Sometime after this, the keeper’s house was destroyed by fire, & the skeleton tower is all that now remains of the Ipswich Range Lights. Top of Page  Heartbreak Hill  Situated to the east of town, just off the Argilla Road, stands Heartbreak Hill; made famous in the poem of that name by Celia Thaxter. The legend attached to this spot concerns an Indian woman who fell in love with a white sailor &, when he returned to sea, would pass her time on the hill, watching over the ocean for his return; which he never does. Eventually, she pines away & dies of a broken heart. Celia Thaxter (1835-94) was born in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. She lived much of her life on Appledore Island, where she ran the Appledore House hotel for many years. During the latter part of the nineteenth century she became one of America’s best known authors.   Heartbreak Hill IN Ipswich town, not far from the sea,Rises a hill which the people callHeartbreak Hill, and its historyIs an old, old legend, known to all. The selfsame dreary, worn-out taleTold by all peoples in every clime,Still to be told till the ages fail,And there comes a pause in the march of Time. It was a sailor who won the heartOf an Indian maiden, lithe and young;And she saw him over the sea depart,While sweet in her ear his promise rung; For he cried, as he kissed her wet eyes dry,“I'll come back, sweetheart; keep your faith!”She said, “I will watch while the moons go by”:Her love was stronger than life or death. So this poor dusk Ariadne keptHer watch from the hilltop rugged and steep;Slowly the empty moments creptWhile she studied the changing face of the deep, Fastening her eyes upon every speckThat crossed the ocean within her ken;Might not her lover be walking the deck,Surely and swiftly returning again? The Isles of Shoals loomed, lonely and dim,In the northeast distance far and gray,And on the horizon's uttermost rimThe low rock heap of Boon Island lay. And north and south and west and eastStretched sea and land in the blinding light,Till evening fell, and her vigil ceased,And many a hearth-glow lit the night, To mock those set and glittering eyesFast growing wild as her hope went out.Hateful seemed earth, and the hollow skies,Like her own heart, empty of aught but doubt. Oh, but the weary, merciless days,With the sun above, with the sea afar,—No change in her fixed and wistful gazeFrom the morning-red to the evening star! Oh, the winds that blew, and the birds that sang,The calms that smiled, and the storms that rolled,The bells from the town beneath, that rangThrough the summer's heat and the winter's cold! The flash of the plunging surges white,The soaring gull's wild, boding cry,She was weary of all; there was no delightIn heaven or earth, and she longed to die. What was it to her though the Dawn should paintWith delicate beauty skies and seas?But the sweet, sad sunset splendors faintMade her soul sick with memories. Drowning in sorrowful purple a sailIn the distant east, where shadows grew,Till the twilight shrouded it, cold and pale,And the tide of her anguish rose anew. Like a slender statue carved of stoneShe sat, with hardly motion or breath.She wept no tears and she made no moan,But her love was stronger than life or death. He never came back! Yet faithful still,She watched from the hilltop her life away,And the townsfolk christened it Heartbreak Hill,And it bears the name to this very day.   Top of Page      Ipswich River  The Ipswich River is approximately 45 miles long & is formed by the convergence of six tributary  streams at Wilmington: the Mill Brook, Lubbers Brook, Sawmill Brook, Maple Meadow Brook, Patches Pond Brook and Cold Spring Brook.  The actual source of the named Ipswich River (or alternatively the Mill Brook) occurs in swampland just north of Mill Pond Reservoir near to Burlington, although the Sawmill Brook is the larger and longer tributary.  The Ipswich River then flows through the towns of Wilmington, Reading,  North Reading, Middleton, Topsfield, Hamilton & Ipswich, before emptying into Ipswich Bay & the Atlantic Ocean. At its confluence with the sea, the Ipswich River becomes a tidal estuary, with mud flats & marshland uncovered at low tide. The river is navigable by small craft only as far as the centre of Ipswich, where rocks & a change in elevation prevent further progress upstream.   Predominantly flatwater, although it can become fast flowing in the spring, the river is flanked by swamp & wetland areas along much of its course. The river has two dams; the Willowdale Dam & the Ipswich Dam (previously known as the Sylvania Dam). Although much of the land adjoining the river is in private ownership, boating, swimming & fishing are allowed in certain areas, & the river is very popular with canoeists. The upper parts of the river can sometimes dry up during the summer months.  The Ipswich River watershed covers an area of approximately 155 sq miles, providing drinking water for an estimated 350,000 people.  At Topsfield, around six miles from the town of Ipswich, is the Ipswich River Wildlife Sanctuary, which, at 2,800 acres, is the Audubon Society’s largest wildlife sanctuary in Massachusetts. Created by glacial action 15,000 years ago, the park comprises more than ten miles of trails through forest, meadow & wetland habitat. The Ipswich River runs for eight miles through the Sanctuary. In the town of North Reading, some 15 miles or so from Ipswich, is the Ipswich River Park. This is a 49 acre site created in the 1990s & includes a conservation area, wild flower meadows & picnic sites, together with various sports facilities. Top of Page  Ipswich Bay  Situated on the Atlantic coast of northern Massachusetts, Ipswich Bay stretches from the southern tip of Plum Island to the most northerly point of Cape Ann; a distance of around six miles. The Bay’s deepest point is approximately 70 ft, although the southern & southwestern areas are much shallower. Apart from the town of Ipswich, two other towns share a coastline with Ipswich Bay; Gloucester & Rockport. The northern shoreline of Ipswich Bay is located within the town of Ipswich, where both Plum Island Sound & the Ipswich River empty into the bay. Heading southwards, Plum Island Sound is separated from the mouth of the Ipswich River by the protruding headlands of Great Neck & Little Neck. On the southern shore of the Ipswich River, the shoreline of Ipswich Bay continues eastwards along the peninsula of Castle Neck, with its 4 mile stretch of unbroken sandy beaches including Steep Hill Beach & Crane Beach  (see above). This is the easternmost point of the town of Ipswich, where it borders the town of Essex. At the eastern tip of Castle Neck, Ipswich Bay is fed by Essex Bay, which itself is fed by the Essex River & Castle Neck River; the latter forming much of the boundary between the towns of Ipswich & Essex. The town of Essex itself has no direct access to Ipswich Bay, however, as the narrow entrance to Essex Bay forms the town line between Ipswich on the western shore & the city of Gloucester to the east. Until 1819, the town of Essex was part of Ipswich (see The Ones That Got Away  page). On the Gloucester or eastern side of the Essex Bay estuary, the coastline of Ipswich Bay follows Coffin’s Beach eastwards to Wingaersheek Beach & the mouth of the Annisquam River. (With a coastline on both Ipswich Bay & Massachusetts Bay, the city of Gloucester is cut in half by the Annisquam River, which connects to Gloucester Harbor & then, by way of the Blynman Canal, to Massachusetts Bay; essentially making Cape Ann an island). From the mouth of the Annisquam, the coastline of Ipswich Bay takes a northeasterly turn onto Cape  Ann, with Annisquam Harbor Light, (see photo, right) situated on Wigwam Point overlooking the bay. There has been a lighthouse here since 1801, although the current structure dates from 1897. Further north along the Cape Ann coastline is the small community of Bay View, with the headland of Davis Neck jutting out into the bay. Further north still are the communities of Lanesville & Folly Cove. Whilst the shore between the Ipswich & Annisquam rivers consists almost entirely of sandy beaches, the Cape Ann peninsula coastline is far more rocky, with sandy beaches only found in the sheltered bays such as Hodgkin’s Cove & Plum Cove.  Folly Cove marks the town boundary between the city of Gloucester & the town of Rockport. Rockport is situated at the northern tip of Cape Ann & is surrounded on three sides by sea. Halibut Point is the most northerly point of the town, & also marks the eastern extremity of Ipswich Bay.   Top of Page  Ipswich Bar & Ipswich Bluff  Ipswich Bar: More commonly known nowadays as Sandy Point, Ipswich Bar is the historical name for a spit of land at the southern tip of Plum Island.  With strong year-round currents & dangerous submerged rocks, the area has a long history of ship wrecks & groundings, such as the Falconer , a 360-ton brig from Belfast in 1847, the Argus  in 1850 & the City Point  in 1883. Many shipwrecked sailors lost their lives here, usually due to hypothermia or drowning, as although the spit was no more than a quarter of a mile from land, the only way to reach it was through the icy waters, raging surf & strong currents. Ipswich Bluff: Located on the west coast of Plum Island, around half a mile east of Great Neck, Ipswich Bluff is a headland or cape that juts out into Plum Island Sound. During the late nineteenth & early twentieth centuries, there were a few small hotels located here & the Bluff was a popular destination for Ipswich residents, with a passenger steamer service operating. Top of Page  Essex County  Essex County, in which Ipswich is situated, is the most north easterly county of Massachusetts.  To the north it is bordered by the New Hampshire county of Rockingham, to the west is Middlesex County & to the south Suffolk County.  In the east it is bounded by the Atlantic Ocean. The county was created in 1643 by the Massachusetts General Court & has two county seats: Salem & Lawrence.  In 1812, the ninth Governor of Massachusetts, Elbridge Gerry, divided the electoral districts of Essex County to favour the Democratic-Republican party candidates over the Federalists. At some point, it was noted that the new boundaries resembled a salamander (see map by Boston cartoonist Elkanah Tisdale, left). Or, as one journalist is said to have remarked “That’s not a salamander, that’s a Gerrymander”.  From this time onwards, the word ‘gerrymandering’ entered the English language to describe the process of manipulating electoral district boundaries. Since 1999, Essex has ceased to have any county government, as all such functions are now run by state agencies.  In 1996, the Essex National Heritage Area was established, which covers the whole of the county. The aim of this organisation is to promote tourism & cultural awareness & to preserve the historic buildings, sites & districts of the county, with their important examples of colonial & maritime settlements & industries. Top of Page

Military: Ipswich Barracks The Loyal Ipswich Volunteer Corps  The Ipswich Mutiny -1689 Transport:  Railways   Ipswich Airport   Sport:  Ipswich Racecourse Greyhound Racing in Ipswich – Suffolk Stadium   Ipswich Town Football Club Foxhall Stadium & Ipswich Witches People:  Geoffrey Chaucer Cardinal Thomas Wolsey William Shakespeare - The Ipswich Connection  Thomas Eldred High Steward of Ipswich Thomas Gainsborough David Garrick  Admiral Lord Nelson Sir Thomas Slade Ransomes (Ransomes, Sims & Jefferies/Ransomes & Rapier)   The Cobbold Family Margaret Catchpole Charles Dickens in Ipswich Jean Ingelow Sir John Gordon Sprigg    Sir Charles Sherrington  Edith Maud Cook Leonard Squirrell V S Pritchett Enid Blyton Wallis Simpson's Divorce Sir John Mills Giles Prince Alexander Obolensky Geography: The Half Hundred of Ipswich    The Boundaries and Expansion of Ipswich The Villages & Hamlets of the Liberties of Ipswich Extra-parochial Parts of Ipswich   Housing Estates, Neighbourhoods, Suburbs  Modern Day Distinction Between the Town & the Borough Ipswich Village Modern Day: Ipswich Charter Hangings Ipswich - Arras Partnership IP Postcode Area  The Ipswich Murders 2006 County Town of...  Suffolk Why not also visit www.planetsuffolk.com - Bringing together the Suffolks of the world Ipswich Barracks  During the late eighteenth century, fears of an invasion of Britain by the French, coupled with  the convenient situation of the town’s port for embarkation to the continent, resulted in large numbers of troops being billeted in Ipswich.  In 1795, the first permanent barracks were built in the town, in the area just north of the St Matthew’s Street/Norwich Road junction (still known locally as Barrack Corner), on the site of the present day residential streets of Cecil Road, Geneva Road & Barrack Lane.   Known originally as the Horse Barracks, the first regiment to move in were the 2nd or Queen’s Regiment of Dragoon Guards. They were succeeded by other cavalry regiments until, in the second half of the nineteenth century, artillery regiments such as the Royal Field Artillery & the Royal Horse Artillery took over. St Matthew’s became the garrison church, with troops parading through the streets to the church each Sunday morning. The 2 ½ acre site initially consisted of a large parade ground, surrounded on three sides by the barrack rooms & officer’s mess.  In early 1855 the barracks were rebuilt.  The Illustrated London News of 17th February 1855 described the new barracks as “the first that have been erected upon a regularly fortified plan”. The Barracks were closed & demolished around 1929, at which time the land was acquired by Ipswich Borough Council for residential development. Parts of the barrack walls are still in evidence at the bottom of some of the gardens of the houses in Geneva Road & Cecil Road, & in Barrack Lane gate posts still exist with stone balls on top & inscriptions on the pillars (see photo, left). Around the time of the Napoleonic Wars, there were also two other less permanent barracks in the town.  One was known as Stoke Barracks, situated in the maltings buildings off Wherstead Road (now Felaw Maltings), which were converted for the purpose. The buildings reverted to maltings around 1813. There is no visible evidence today of the second site; a wooden hutted camp known as St Helen’s Barracks that was situated  just north of Woodbridge Road, in the vicinity of Brunswick Road,  Belvedere Road (formerly Parade Field Terrace) & Parade Road. This too closed about 1813.    The Loyal Ipswich Volunteer Corps   This image shows a Loyal Ipswich Volunteer Corps button from the early 19th century.  In 1794 Ips wich Corporation put forward a proposal to raise an Ipswich Regiment of regular troops. Although this plan never came to fruition, an internal defence force known as the Loyal Ipswich Volunteer Corps was proposed & came into being in that same year.  This was in response to the growing threat of an invasion by France during the War of the First Coalition, (1793-97) which followed the French Revolution,  & the later Napoleonic Wars (1803-1815), during which time many towns raised their own defence forces.  Although the troops were part time volunteers, the Loyal Ipswich Volunteer Corps were willing to take garrison duty if required. They received new colours in 1803, in which year they spent three weeks on permanent duty in Hadleigh. A further three weeks of permanent duty followed at Ipswich barracks in 1805.  The Corps’ first taste of serious action, however, came not from a foreign invasion force, but a much more local source, when in 1800 the Volunteers were called out to quell a riot at Stoke Mills, caused by protests over inflationary prices after seven years of war. Initially being pelted with bags of flour from the mill, the trouble shifted to St Peter’s churchyard, where the Volunteers found themselves under fire from rocks & bricks. The crowds were eventually dispersed when cavalry troops from the barracks were called in.  There is very little information available about the demise of the Loyal Ipswich Volunteer Corps, although it seems likely to have been disbanded around the year 1816, after the threat of invasion had diminished.  (You may also be interested in the sections on the Suffolk Regiment  & Reserve Forces in Britain Bearing the Name Suffolk , on the Suffolk Misc. page of Planet Ipswich’s sister site www.planetsuffolk.com ).     The Ipswich Mutiny - 1689  It is a little known fact that an army mutiny at Ipswich was instrumental in a change of military law. When King James II fled Britain in December 1688, William of Orange and his wife, Mary, the daughter of James II, became king and queen, thus ensuring the Protestant ascendancy in the country.  William had come to Britain accompanied by his Dutch guards and most of the troops in Britain went over to his side.  However, the loyalty of some of the British forces, particularly the Scots, still seemed favourably disposed to the cause of King James.  The government resolved to retain the Dutch troops in England, and send over to the Netherlands, in case of French intervention, those British regiments that were considered the most disaffected. Therefore, on 8th March 1689 certain regiments were ordered to march to the sea coast, and embark for the Netherlands.  Of these the Scottish regiment of Dumbarton mutinied on its march to Ipswich on 12th March whilst the Royal Scots, already at Ipswich, mutinied on 14th March.  The mutineers seized the military chest, disarmed the officers who opposed them, declared for King James and, with four pieces of cannon, 800 men marched out of the town to make their way to Scotland.  King William ordered General Ginckel to pursue them with three regiments of Dutch dragoons, and the mutineers quickly surrendered.  As the mutineers were citizens of Scotland, which had not yet agreed to the new government, the king did not wish to punish them as rebels, but ordered them to proceed to the Netherlands.  Though this attempt proved abortive, it made a strong impression upon parliament since it appeared that the mutineers had not actually done anything seriously wrong.  The army was under the control of the monarch in respect of his sovereign prerogative and acted in accordance with military law as laid down by articles.  However, these articles of war could not prevail over common law in England, and whilst in England the soldiers remained subject to common law and were still regarded as civilians.  These rights could only be over-ruled when the soldiers were overseas or if martial law applied in times of war, and Britain was not in a state of actual war.  Punishment that might “endanger life or limb” was the preserve of common law, so the military could not take immediate action to discipline the men while in England and at a time of peace.   It seemed that the men, being civilians, could just walk away and return home.  There may have been remedies under common law for breach of their contract with the sovereign, or theft of military equipment, but this was a slow and cumbersome procedure.  Parliament felt that soldiers who mutinied, stirred up sedition or deserted should be brought to “a more exemplary and speedy punishment than normal civil law would allow”.  Therefore, a bill was introduced and passed all its stages with rapidity, receiving royal assent on 28th March, and became effective on 12th April 1689.  The British Mutiny Act of 1689 provided the discipline needed for a standing army in times of peace, and initiated modern Anglo-American military law.  It allowed a court-martial to take life or limb in cases of proven mutiny, sedition or desertion.  And it all began at Ipswich.    Railways   Proposals to bring rail travel to Suffolk, & Ipswich in particular, can be dated back to the mid 1820s, when an abortive attempt at setting up a railway company was made. This occurred in February 1825, when a meeting in the Shire Hall, chaired by Rev. Dr. John Chevallier of Aspall Hall, Suffolk, proposed plans to set up a company that was to have been known as the Ipswich and Suffolk Railway Company . The proposal was for a line that connected Ipswich with the Suffolk town of Eye, & then onwards to Diss in Norfolk. This, & a further attempt to bring the railway to Suffolk in 1833, failed to get off the ground. The prospects of rail lines being laid on Suffolk soil really began to take shape in 1834, however, when the Grand Eastern Counties Railway proposed to build a line from London to Great Yarmouth.  Although the company’s bill was successfully introduced into the House of Commons in 1836, with work beginning on the line in the following year, by 1838 it had been decided that, due to lack of funds, the line would terminate at Colchester.  Many of the directors of the Eastern Counties Railway (ECR; the ‘Grand’ having by now been dropped), were from other parts of Britain & were therefore unconcerned about where the line ended, providing it proved profitable. Three of the directors, however, were Suffolk men, & they fought for the continuation of the line into Suffolk.  John Chevallier Cobbold (see The Cobbold Family  section, below), together with his father John & uncle the Rev. Dr. John Chevallier (see above), had been some of the earliest champions of rail travel & were determined that Suffolk should not miss out.  Being a minority on the ECR board, they were continually being outvoted, however, & by the early 1840s it became apparent that the only way forward was for the formation of a new company; the result of which was the birth of the Eastern Union Railway Company (EUR).  For this project, the EUR hired Peter Bruff as the company’s chief engineer, & he proposed a different route from that originally planned by the Eastern Counties Railway.  Bruff’s route crossed the River Stour into Suffolk at Cattawade, reaching Ipswich via Brantham, Bentley & Belstead. The Eastern Union received the go-ahead from parliament in July 1844 (despite opposition from the now rival Eastern Counties Railway Company), with work on the line from Colchester to Ipswich commencing almost immediately. A subsidiary company, the Ipswich and Colchester Railway , was set up to build the line. The Ipswich to Colchester line was opened with great ceremony on 11th June 1846, with a special train running to Colchester from Stoke Station; at that time the northern terminus of the line, located in the vicinity of  today’s Station Street & Croft Street (to the east of Stoke Hill & the present station). The journey took around 1 ½ hours. The public passenger service commenced four days later on 15th June, with stops at Ardleigh, Manningtree and Bentley.  Relations between the EUR & the rival ECR, at the  confluence of their lines at Colchester, were always uneasy. Passengers journeying from Ipswich to London had to change to ECR trains at Colchester, & the ECR made connections as difficult as possible, using such tactics as altering its timetable & ordering its ticket inspectors & clerks to make life awkward for passengers wishing to change trains. Under no circumstances were Eastern Union trains allowed onto the lines built by Eastern Counties. The dispute between the two companies would last until 1854, when the Eastern Union was taken over by the Eastern Counties, although it would be a further eight years until the companies were formally merged in 1862 as the Great Eastern Railway (GER).   In July 1845 the Ipswich and Bury Railway Company  (I&BR) had been formed to extend the line  a further 26.5 miles from Ipswich to Bury St Edmunds.  Although a separate company, the I&BR had many shareholders and directors in common with the EUR, as well as sharing offices, & the two companies formally amalgamated in 1847.  It was the Ipswich and Bury Railway Company who built the tunnel under Stoke Hill, just to the east of today’s station. Being on a sharp curve, the tunnel was the first of its kind ever attempted.  Opened in early December 1846 for freight transport, a passenger service commenced on the line from the 24th of that month.  Stations along the route were located at Needham Market, Stowmarket, Haughley, Elmswell & Thurston. In 1846, a venture was authorized to build a new junction at Haughley, with an extension line to the junction with the Norfolk line at Trowse, to the south of Norwich, which would then connect to Norwich Victoria station. This was built by the Ipswich and Norwich Railway , another subsidiary company of the EUR. The line opened in stages, finally being completed on 12th December 1849. Once again, the opening of this line brought the EUR into confrontation with their rivals the ECR, who already ran a service to Norwich via Cambridge.  A proposal for a rail service from Ipswich to Woodbridge had first been muted in 1847, with the Ipswich and Bury Railway having secured the rights to build the line. Financial constrictions, however, caused the postponement of these plans.  In 1859, the Ipswich and Woodbridge Railway , a subsidiary of the Eastern Counties Railway, was set up to build a line that would link the East Suffolk Line at Woodbridge with Ipswich & the main line to London. The line opened in June 1859.  I pswich Station : The station at Stoke Hill, to the east of the tunnel, served as Ipswich station from 1846 until July 1860. The reason for its location here, away from the town centre, was due to its convenience for passengers transferring from the steamboats that docked on Stoke Quay (close to today’s Steamboat Tavern on the New Cut West). With the construction of the new station at the other, western, end of the tunnel, the Stoke Station closed, although the site remained in use as a railway siding & engine shed until the 1980s, when the lines were removed for development into a residential area. One of the roads in this area has been named Bruff Road, after the engineer responsible for bringing the railways to Ipswich.  The present station (see photo, above) was built on the western side of the tunnel, & opened in July 1860, with the island platform being built in 1883. Located on Burrell Road close to the junction with Princes Street, the station now serves the Great Eastern Main Line from London Liverpool Street to Norwich.  It is estimated that around 3 million passengers use the station annually. For details of other railways in Suffolk, see the Railways section on the Suffolk, England page of www.planetsuffolk.com      Ipswich Airport  Ipswich Airport was located on 144 acres of land in the far southeast corner of the Borough of Ipswich. Established in 1930, the Ipswich Municipal Aerodrome, as it was then known, was opened on 26th June of that year by the future King Edward VIII, who was Prince of Wales at the time. He described the new airfield as “one of the finest in the country”. His brother, Prince George (King George VI after Edward’s abdication), also flew into the airport less than a month later. Throughout its existence, the airport was always predominantly used by privately owned & flying club operated aircraft, although passengers services did fly during the first decade of the airport’s existence, & again after the war, to such destinations as Southend, Ramsgate & the Channel Islands.  The start of the Second World War, however, saw the abrupt cessation of all civilian flights. With the beginning of hostilities, the RAF took immediate control of the airport, which became a satellite base for RAF Wattisham, around 15 miles from Ipswich.  No. 110 squadron quickly moved its Bristol Blenheim IV bombers to Ipswich, & aircraft flying from Wattisham & Ipswich are thought to have mounted the first air raid of the war; an attack on German warships in Schillig Roads (the approaches to the Jade Bight and Wilhelmshaven in Lower Saxony on Germany’s North Sea coast). Despite a new terminal building being opened in 1938, & plans for expansion being mooted on several occasions, these schemes never came to fruition & the airport was earmarked by Ipswich Borough Council for closure in 1993; the reason given being that the land was needed for housing development. Ironically, the early 1990s had been some of the busiest years for the airport, which now included a parachute centre & helicopter school, & hosted regular airshows.  Campaigns to keep the airport open, however,  resulted in a stay of execution until the Civil Aviation Authority delicensed the airport on 31 December 1996. Even so, efforts were made to keep the airfield open, until the last plane finally departed in January 1998.  The terminal building (see photo, above), which was declared a Grade II listed building in 1996, lay derelict for several years before being developed into a community centre and apartments for the new Ravenswood housing estate, which has now been built on the site of the airport.   Ipswich Racecourse  The site of Ipswich Racecourse was situated in the east of the modern day town, in the area now known as the Racecourse estate. With a total length of one mile seven furlongs, the course ran along modern day Lindberg & Cobham Roads, then parallel to Felixstowe Road as far as Hatfield Road, before looping around & running parallel with Nacton Road for the six furlong finishing straight. The finishing line is said to have been in the vicinity of the Racecourse pub on Nacton Road, which was demolished in 2009. The first recorded race meeting was held in 1710, & for over 170 years both flat & National Hunt racing took place here. Ipswich Races gained in stature in 1727, when a Royal Plate worth 100 guineas was awarded. In 1775 a gallery was erected, followed a year later by a covered structure called the ‘Gentlemen’s Stand’. Support steadily declined in the late nineteenth century & the final flat race was run in 1884, although the course continued as a National Hunt venue until the last meeting on 29th March 1911. The First Steeplechase on Record : Also on the subject of horse racing, a popular myth has arisen over the years that Ipswich was the location for the first ever steeplechase to be held in England.  Whether based on fact or fiction, the story goes that on an evening in December 1803, an officer named Hansum from the 7th Hussars Cavalry Regiment stationed at Ipswich, challenged anyone in the regiment to race against his horse across four & a half miles of countryside to Nacton church. Seven others took up the challenge &, dressed in nightshirts over their uniforms, & with nightcaps on their heads, they set off in the moonlight.  The scene was later depicted in a set of four paintings produced in 1839 by Henry Alken, collectively entitled “The First SteepleChase on Record”, which gave rise to the myth. (see Paintings of Ipswich, England album in Photo Gallery ).  However, even if this event took place (which is very doubtful), the first recorded steeplechase in England was in 1790 in Leicestershire over 8 miles from Melton Mowbray to Dalby Wood.         Greyhound Racing in Ipswich – Suffolk Stadium  Situated off the Old London Road, just east of Yarmouth Road and close to the river, the first licenced race meeting at the Suffolk Greyhound Stadium took place on 11th September 1935, although contemporary records suggest that racing had taken place here prior to this date. The track at this time had a circumference of 405 yards (370 metres), with races normally being run over 300, 500 and 700 yards. Race meetings were normally held on Wednesday and Saturday evenings, usually with eight races per event.  For many years the stadium operated as an independent track, and only began operating under National Greyhound Racing Club (NGRC) rules in 1974. The most prestigious races run here were the Suffolk Derby, which was run over 440 metres, and the Suffolk St Leger, run over 625 metres.  The last meeting at the stadium was on 17th February 1988, after which the stadium was sold off. The site is now occupied by Suffolk Retail Park.        Ipswich Town Football Club   The name of Ipswich Town Football Club has probably done more than anything else to put the town of Ipswich on the map; not just in the UK, but in Europe & throughout the world. Founded in 1878 as Ipswich Association Football Club, their first ground was at Brook’s Hall, just off Norwich Road.   The club’s first president was T.C. Cobbold (see The Cobbold Family  section, below), starting a family association that continues to this day. In 1888, the club changed their name to Ipswich Town, which coincided with a move to Portman Road, where they have been ever since. In 1936 the club turned professional &, after playing for two seasons in the Southern League, joined the Football League in season 1938-39; playing in the Third Division South. In 1955, Ipswich acquired the services of Alf Ramsey as their new manager. Then still in the Third Division South, Ramsey led the side to the Second Division title in 1960/61, then to the ultimate prize of First Division Champions in the following year; the club’s first ever season in the top flight of English football. Ramsey left the following season to take over managership of the England national side, which he led to World Cup glory in 1966; a feat for which he was later knighted. After his death in 1999, Portman’s Walk was renamed Sir Alf Ramsey Way & his statue erected at the junction with Portman Road. Ipswich’s greatest sustained period of success was still in future when Ramsey left, however. The seeds of this success were sown in 1969, when a young manager named Bobby Robson was appointed. After three seasons of struggle against relegation from the First Division, Ipswich finished fourth in the table in 1972/73 & qualified for the UEFA Cup. Until his departure to manage England in 1982, Ipswich would be second only to Liverpool in league consistency; qualifying for European competition in nine out of ten seasons.  In season 1977/78 Ipswich beat Arsenal 1-0 at Wembley to lift the prestigious FA Cup for the first & (so far) only time in their history.  Three years later, in 1980/81, Ipswich achieved success on the European stage when they beat the Dutch side AZ 67 Alkmaar 5-4 on aggregate i n the UEFA Cup final. During Robson’s reign, several Ipswich players went on to represent their countries at international level including: Mick Mills, Paul Mariner, Kevin Beattie & Terry Butcher for England, George Burley, John Wark & Alan Brazil for Scotland, Allan Hunter for Northern Ireland & Arnold Muhren & Frans Thijssen for Holland. Robson himself later received a knighthood & the CBE for his services to football. His statue now stands in Portman Road &, since his death in 2009, the North Stand has been renamed The Sir Bobby Robson Stand in his honour. A new footbridge, the Sir Bobby Robson Bridge also opened in 2009 over the river, near to Constantine Road weir. Since the Robson era, it has been an up & down journey for the club, alternating between spells in the top division & periods in the league below. In 2019 however, they were relegated to League One, the third tier of English football, where they had not played for more than sixty years. However, under current manager Kieron McMckenna they rose again, to win back to back promotions to the Championship  in 2022/23 and the Premier League in 2023/24, only to be relegated back to the second tier of English football after only one season in the top flight, for the 2025/26 campaign. (see Statues, Plaques & Signs:Ipswich, England album in  Photo Gallery  for pictures of Sir Alf Ramsey, Sir Bobby Robson and Kevin Beattie statues, & Rivers & Bridges:Ipswich, England album for the Sir Bobby Robson Bridge). Since 1990, outdoor concerts have been staged occasionally on the Portman Road pitch during the summer months. Beginning with Tina Turner, subsequent acts to appear include: Rod Stewart, Status Quo, Dire Straits, Bryan Adams, Elton John, REM & The Red Hot Chili Peppers.  Foxhall Stadium & Ipswich Witches  Foxhall Stadium,  situated on Foxhall Road, was opened in 1950 & hosts both stock car racing & speedway. The outer track is a 382 metre tarmac oval & is used for stock car racing. The inner, shale track is used for speedway.  The stadium is run by Spedeworth Motorsports & is home to the National Hot Rod World Championships, held over the first weekend in July every year. Other big events are the Gala Night, held on the nearest Saturday to Guy Fawkes Night (5th November) every year, & the Unlimited National Bangers Championship of the World, which is held in October. Other events take place regularly, featuring stock cars, stock rods, superstox, hot rods, bangers & lightning rods, amongst others. The stadium is shared with the Ipswich Witches speedway team, one of the oldest & most established teams in the country.  From 2011 the Witches competed in the British Premier League, having dropped down from the Elite League at the end of the 2010 season. In 2019 the Witches returned to the top flight of British speedway, now known as the SGB Premiership. The first speedway meeting in Ipswich was held at Ipswich Town FC, in Portm an Road. After plans to build a track in Bramford Road were turned down, Foxhall Stadium was purpose built for speedway & the first meeting took place in 1951; continuing until 1965, when the stadium was converted to a stock car track.  In 1969 the inner track was built & speedway recommenced & has been held there ever since. The Witches’ best ever season was 1998, when they won the Elite League, the Knockout Cup and the Craven Shield. Probably Ipswich’s most famous rider is John “Tiger” Louis, who rode in the 1970’s & later became the club’s promoter. Speedway meetings are normally held on Thursday evenings. The season runs between March & October.                                                               Geoffrey Chaucer  Although most sources state that Geoffrey Chaucer was born in London, there is no evidence of his exact place of birth & it is possible that he was born in Ipswich.  The year of his birth is also uncertain, but it is most often recorded as around 1343.  Chaucer’s family kept at least three inns in Ipswich, two of which stood on opposite corners of Tavern & Tower Streets. One of these was run by Geoffrey’s grandfather, the other by his great aunt Agnes. Another relative, Albreda, also kept a hostelry further along Tavern Street.  The family name was originally Malyn, & it seems that they were also involved in the shoemaking industry; the name Chaucer deriving from chausseur or shoemaker. Geoffrey’s father John was known to have been in Ipswich after the death of his own father, when his aunt Agnes ‘kidnapped’ him & brought him to Ipswich from London, in the hope of marrying him off to her daughter.  Even assuming that he wasn’t born in Ipswich, from 1374 to 1386 Geoffrey Chaucer was employed as Controller of Customs in the Port of London, & travelled frequently around the country on the King’s business, which would probably have included visiting such an important port & town as Ipswich during the course of his work. This would account for the fact that, in his most famous work, The Canterbury Tales , Chaucer satirises the merchants of Ipswich.  In the general prologue, line 275, speaking of the merchant who later features in The Merchant’s Tale , the River Orwell is mentioned: "His bootes clasped faire and fetisly.  His resons he spak ful solempnely,Sownynge alway th’ encrees of his wynnyng.He wolde the see were kept for any thing Bitwixe Middleburgh and Orewelle."  A rough translation from the Middle English is as follows: "His boots were fastened neatly and elegantly. He spoke out his opinions very solemnly,Stressing the times when he had won, not lost.He wanted the sea were guarded at any costBetween Middleburgh & the Orwell." -   Geoffrey Chaucer - Ipswich Library  Top of Page                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     Cardinal Thomas Wolsey  Thomas Wolsey (or Wulcy as the family spelt the name at the time) was born in Ipswich between 1471 & 1475. His father Robert, an innkeeper & butcher, & his mother Joan, lived at that time near St. Mary Elms church, but moved soon afterwards to St. Nicholas Street where Thomas grew up. A plaque now marks the spot near to where this house stood. Thomas attended Ipswich School before going on to study theology at Magdalen College, Oxford, where he later became a master. He was ordained in 1498 & became rector of the Church of Saint Mary, Limington, Somerset in 1500, before becoming chaplain to the Archbishop of Canterbury two years later. In 1507 he entered the service of King Henry VII as Royal Chaplain.  When Henry VII died in 1509 he was succeeded by his son Henry VIII, who appointed Wolsey to the post of Almoner; a position which gave him a seat on the Privy Council & allowed him to raise his profile & get himself noticed.  Wolsey became a Canon of Windsor in 1511, & in 1514 he was consecrated as a Bishop; being made both Bishop of Lincoln, & then Archbishop of York in that same year. In the following year he was made a Cardinal. The Pope made him Papal Legate to England in 1518, & in 1523 he became Prince-Bishop of Durham. Running parallel with his religious career, his rise to power in the Royal court saw him become a powerful & controlling figure in most matters of state, & the King's most trusted advisor and administrator. By 1515 he had become Lord Chancellor. Over the next 14 years he gradually destroyed or neutralised many other influential courtiers who he perceived as a threat to his position.  One of his greatest triumphs was arranging the Field of the Cloth of Gold; a meeting between King Henry VIII & King Francis I of France, that took place in June 1520 near Calais. The object of the meeting was to increase the friendship between the two nations following the Anglo-French treaty of 1514. Wolsey had an interest in architecture; having Hampton Court Palace in Richmond upon Thames built around 1514, as well as rebuilding York Place in Whitehall, London  around the same time. Both properties were seized by the King after Wolsey’s downfall.  This came in 1529, when he was unable to get Henry’s marriage to Catherine of Aragon annulled by the Pope. He was stripped of office & had his property confiscated; although he retained his position as Archbishop of York. It was whilst travelling to York in the following year that he was arrested & accused of treason. He died at Leicester on 29th November 1530, on his way to stand trial in London. He was buried in Leicester Abbey. Wolsey had a great interest in education. In Ipswich he had sought permission to build a school, the aim of which was to act as a feeder for Cardinal College, Oxford (now Christ Church), which he also founded. The site chosen was near St Peter’s Church in what is now College Street, close to the quay. The school opened in 1528, but within a year was being dismantled after his fall from power. All that remains today is the gateway to the Cardinal College of St. Mary, commonly known as Wolsey’s Gate (see photo, above right).  Apart from Wolsey’s Gate, there ar e several other places in Ipswich named either Wolsey or Cardinal in his honour, such as: Wolsey Street, Cardinal Street, New Cardinal Street, Cardinal House (offices in St Nicholas Street, close to where his house stood), Wolsey House (offices in Princes Street), New Wolsey Theatre (in Civic Drive), & Cardinal Park (leisure complex on Grafton Way, featuring restaurants, bars & cinema). Sculpted by David Annand, a bronze seated statue of Cardinal Thomas Wolsey was unveiled on 29th June 2011 on Curson Plain, at the junction of Silent Street & St Peter’s Street; close to the site of the house that Wolsey grew up in (see photo, above). Top of Page    William Shakespeare - The Ipswich Connection  Ipswich is mentioned twice by William Shakespeare in his play King Henry the Eighth , both in relation to Cardinal Wolsey. In Act 1 Scene 1, the Duke of Buckingham, talking about Wolsey to the Duke of Norfolk says:  I’ll to the King, and from a mouth of honour quite cry down this Ipswich fellow’s insolence, or proclaim there’s difference in no persons. In Act 4 Scene 2, Griffith, Gentleman-usher to Queen Katharine of Aragon, says to her, again referring to Wolsey: Those twins of learning that he raised in you, Ipswich and Oxford! One of which fell with him, unwilling to outlive the good that did it. It is thought that Shakespeare may have visited Ipswich on more than one occasion, as part of a travelling troupe of actors, during his early years. Top of Page    Thomas Eldred  Thomas Eldred was born in 1561 in Brook Street, Ipswich.  In July 1586 he was part of Thomas Cavendish’s expedition that set sail from Plymouth on the second English circumnavigation of the world (Drake’s 1577-80 voyage having been the first). Cavendish himself was also a Suffolk man; being born in Trimley, ten miles east of Ipswich.  The master of one of the three ships, the Desire , was Thomas Fuller, also from Ipswich. (see also Thomas Cavendish section on the Suffolk, England page of www.planetsuffolk.com )  Upon his return in September 1588, Eldred settled back in Ipswich, where he became a successful merchant; exporting, amongst other things, cloth to the continent.  He was elected to the 24 man Council in 1608 & was the town treasurer in 1613-14. In 1620 he became one of the 12 portmen of the town & became eligible for the office of bailiff the following year. He died in 1624 & is buried in St. Clement’s church.  For many years he lived in Fore Street &, although the house has since been demolished, the overmantel from the largest room can now be seen in Christchurch Mansion. It features three oil painted panels showing a ship, a globe & Eldred’s portrait.  Until recently his name was commemorated in the Thomas Eldred public house on the corner of Cedarcroft Road & Burke Road. This has, however, been demolished in 2012. Top of Page    High Steward of Ipswich  The title High Steward is an honorary title given by the local council of some towns or districts of England. It is the highest office that the Council can bestow. Originally this was a judicial office with considerable local powers, although over the centuries the duties of the High Steward have gradually declined, until today the post is largely ceremonial. Although the practice can be traced back to the Middle Ages, Ipswich began conferring the office of High Steward in 1557. Today, Ipswich is one of 25 communities in England that possess the right to appoint a High Steward, although in some of these locations the practice has fallen into disuse.  Ipswich, however, still retains its High Stewardship, which is normally awarded for life. There have been 23 High Stewards of Ipswich. The office of High Steward of Ipswich was first bestowed on Sir William Cordell in 1557. Cordell (1522–1581) was Solicitor General and Master of the Rolls during the reign of Queen Mary I, & Speaker of the House of Commons during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I. He lived at Long Melford, Suffolk, where he founded the Hospital of the Holy and Blessed Trinity in 1573.  The most famous High Steward of Ipswich was undoubtedly Horatio Nelson, 1st Viscount Nelson, 1st Duke of Bronté (1758 - 1805), best remembered for his service with the Royal Navy during the Napoleonic Wars, & particularly at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805, during which he lost his life. He was High Steward of Ipswich from 1800-05. (See also Admiral Lord Nelson  section, below). Others to have held the post include:    The 1st, 2nd & 3rd Earls of Suffolk during the seventeenth century   John Chevallier Cobbold from 1875-82 (see The Cobbold Family  section, below)   Field Marshal Horatio Herbert Kitchener, 1st Earl Kitchener (1850 -1916), who served in the British Army in the Franco-Prussian War, Second Boer War & First World War, & whose iconic image appears on the much imitated 1914 “Lord Kitchener Wants You” recruitment poster (see right). Although born in County Kerry, Ireland, Kitchener’s mother was Frances Anne Chevallier-Cole of Aspall Hall in Suffolk. His grandfather, the Rev. Dr. John Chevallier, had been one of the leading figures in the fight to bring the railways to Ipswich from the 1820s onwards (see Railways  section, above).  The present holder of the office of High Steward of Ipswich is Stuart Whiteley, CBE, QPM, who has held the post since 1990. Top of Page     Thomas Gainsborough   Born in 1727 in Sudbury, Suffolk, the portrait & landscape painter Thomas Gainsborough lived in Ipswich between 1752 & 1759; at first in Lower Brook Street, then moving to 34 Foundation Street. In 1759 he left Ipswich & moved to Bath.  As well as his famous works such as Mr and Mrs Andrews (1748/49) & The Blue Boy (1770), he also painted landscape scenes of Christchurch Park & Holywells Park in Ipswich (See Paintings of Ipswich, England album in Photo Gallery ). He died in London in 1788. 34 Foundation Street was knocked down in the 1960’s, but a commemorative plaque adorns the wall of no.32.  For a more in depth biography of Thomas Gainsborough, see the Suffolk, England page on www.planetsuffolk.com   Holywells Park by Thomas Gainsborough Top of Page    David Garrick  One of the most influential English actors of all time, David Garrick (1717-79), made his professional debut in Ipswich in 1741, when he appeared with a travelling troupe from London as an African slave named Aboan in Thomas Southerne’s play Oroonoko, or the Royal Slave  at the Playhouse in Tankard Street (modern day Tacket Street). At the time he was using the pseudonym Lyddal & he seems to have been lacking in confidence prior to his appearance here, but this was boosted by the reception he received. He played other roles that summer in the town, before returning to London, where he made his debut as Richard III at the Goodman's Fields Theatre, before going on to have a very influential 30 year acting career, as well as being a successful playwright, theatre manager and producer. He died in London & is buried in Poets’ Corner, Westminster Abbey. Several theatres are named after him, the most notable being the Garrick Theatre in Charing Cross Road, London. Opened in 1736, The Playhouse, or New Theatre, was built by Ipswich merchant & brewer Henry Betts, next to his tavern, The Tankard, in what was then called Tankard Street. It closed in 1892 after the opening of the Lyceum Theatre in Carr Street. Top of Page     Admiral Lord Nelson  In September 1797 Admiral Lord Horatio Nelson acquired a house in Rushmere Road, Ipswich called Roundwood (since demolished). Set in 50 acres, Roundwood was described as having  a “ barn, stables, cow-house and other offices and a well-planted garden ”. Although he was seldom there, his wife, Lady Nelson, & his father, the Rev. Edmund Nelson, lived there for several years. Nelson sold the house in January 1801. In 1800, Nelson was appointed High Steward of Ipswich  (see above), a position he held until his death. It is also known that Nelson visited the Great White Horse Hotel in Tavern Street in November 1800.  Born in Norfolk, Nelson’s Royal Navy career began in 1771 & he soon began to rise rapidly through the ranks; obtaining his own command in 1778. He was renowned for his inspirational leadership & his grasp of strategy & tactics, winning many important victories & rising to the rank of Admiral. He served during the American War of Independence, the French Revolutionary Wars, & the Napoleonic Wars. Injured several times in the line of duty, he suffered the loss of both one arm & one eye. His most famous victory was at the Battle of Trafalgar in October 1805, in which he received a fatal wound. His funeral was held in St Paul’s Cathedral, London, where his body is interred.   Top of Page    Why not also visit www.planetsuffolk.com   - Bringing together the Suffolks of the world  Sir Thomas Slade  Designer of Nelson’s flagship HMS Victory ,  Sir Thomas Slade (1703/4 - 1771) spent some time early in his career in Ipswich, as surveyor for the Navy Board supervising the ships being built at John Barnard’s shipyard in St Clement’s parish. In 1747 he married an Ipswich woman named Hannah Moore. He later rose to the post of Master Shipwright &, in 1755, was appointed Surveyor of the Navy. Both he & his wife are buried in St. Clement’s churchyard, where a memorial to him now stands. Top of Page    Ransomes (Ransomes, Sims & Jefferies/Ransomes & Rapier)  Up until the late twentieth century, the names of the firms Ransomes, Sims & Jefferies, and Ransomes & Rapier were known throughout the world for their engineering & machinery; the former company producing ploughs, agricultural implements, lawn mowers, tractors, fork lift trucks & the like; the latter being involved in the manufacture of railway components, cranes, excavators  & sluice gates.  Robert Ransome (1753 – 1830), who was born in Wells, Norfolk, set up his first general ironmongery shop in Norwich in 1774; later establishing a foundry there. In 1785 he patented a process for tempering cast iron plough shares, before moving his operations to Ipswich in 1789; probably due to the better port facilities that made the import of raw materials & the export of finished goods easier. Initially setting up at St Mary at the Key, the business soon relocated to a newly built foundry in the area then known as St Margaret’s Ditches (now Old Foundry Road). Initially called Ransome & Co, the firm became Ransome & Son in 1809 when Robert’s son James became a partner. An ‘s’ was added to become Ransome & Sons in 1818, when James’ younger brother, also called Robert, joined the firm.  After the senior Robert Ransome retired in 1825, the firm became J. & R. Ransome, whilst a further name change was required five years later when James’ own son, James Allen Ransome,  joined as a partner & the company became J. R. & A. Ransome. It was the younger James who would publish, in 1843, The Implements of Agriculture , which proved to be one of the most popular books on agricultural implements & machinery prior to the age of steam. Over the course of the nineteenth century, the firm underwent several other names changes as various other partners joined:  Ransomes & May in 1846, when long term employee Charles May became a partner. Ransomes & Sims in 1852, after James Allen Ransome’s nephew William Sims was invited to become a partner. Ransomes, Sims & Head in 1869, when John Head became a partner. Ransomes, Head & Jefferies in 1881, when James Allen Ransome’s son-in-law John Jefferies was made a partner (with William Sims temporarily leaving the business). And  finally Ransomes, Sims & Jefferies in 1884, upon the death of John Head & the return of William Sims.  Under this name they would become a limited company in 1911, & the name would remain until 1998.  In 1841, the firm began to move their business to Orwell Works on Duke Street by the docks. This move was completed in 1849, when the foundry in St Margaret’s Ditches finally closed. By this time the firm employed more than a thousand people. The Orwell Works site was in operation until 1966; new premises having been opened in Nacton in 1949, with the business gradually being transferred there. From the 1830s onwards, Ransomes had been manufacturing lawn mowers &, in 1902, produced the first commercial powered lawn mower, driven by an internal combustion engine. They also later went on to produce electric mowers.  Ransomes supplied munitions during both World Wars; manufacturing Royal Aircraft Factory F.E.2 fighter biplanes for the 1914-18 conflict, whilst gun carriages & parts for tanks & aircraft were amongst the armaments produced from 1939 onwards. In 1987, Electrolux Group bought the agricultural division of the company, leaving Ransomes solely as a lawn mower manufacturing concern. In 1998, a takeover bid was accepted from Textron Inc. Of Providence, Rhode Island, & three years later the company was rebranded Ransomes Jacobsen Ltd, which still survives to this day as part of the Textron Group. Today the company’s site is part of the Ransomes Industrial Estate, also known as Ransomes Europark;  a combined retail and business park on the south eastern outskirts of Ipswich.Ransomes & Rapier: Although the Ransomes reputation had been built on ploughs & other farm machinery, with many patents having been taken out from the earliest days, by the 1830’s Ransomes had diversified into other areas, especially the manufacture of railway materials, which were being developed by employee & future partner Charles May at a time when the railways were expanding to cover the whole of Britain. Eventually, in 1869, a separate firm was established named Ransomes & Rapier, which took over the railway side of the business, leaving Ransomes, Sims & Head to concentrate on their agricultural machinery.  The latter half of the new firm’s name was derived from Richard Rapier (1836 – 97), who had been in charge of the railway division since 1862.  Ransomes & Rapier moved into the Waterside Works on the Stoke side of the River Orwell, where they went on to produce locomotive turntables, water control & sluice gear, cement mixers & cranes. They also made some of the world’s largest walking draglines for open cast coal mining. They were involved in the construction of the Niagara hydro-electric power station &, in 1902, produced the sluice gates for the Aswan Dam on the River Nile in Egypt.  Like their neighbours on the other side of the river, Rapier’s also supplied munitions during the world wars, including shells, guns and tank turrets.  In 1875, Ransomes & Rapier had sent several of their workforce out to China, where they were involved in building the first railway in that country (linking Shanghai with Woosung on the Yangtse River, a distance of around 12 miles).  Two engines built in Ipswich were shipped to the Far East to operate on the narrow gauge line. The line, however, was shut down & destroyed the following year for political reasons, after it had been handed over to the Chinese. Another feat of engineering attributable to Ransomes & Rapier is the turntable built in the 1960s for the revolving restaurant in what was then known as the Post Office Tower in London (now the BT Tower). Ransomes & Rapier merged with Newton, Chambers & Company of Sheffield in 1958, after which a subsidiary company was formed named NCK-Rapier. When NCK was acquired by Robert Maxwell’s media group, the rights to their walking dragline technology and patents were sold to Bucyrus International of Wisconsin, & in 1988 the Waterside Works in Ipswich closed & Ransomes & Rapier ceased to exist. Top of Page     The Cobbold Family  Ever since the middle of the eighteenth century, the Cobbold family have played an important part in the development of the Ipswich we see today. Thomas Cobbold (1680-1752) began brewing at Harwich in 1723, before moving to an existing brewery in Ipswich in 1743. Three years later he built Cliff Brewery on the eas t bank of the River Orwell (see photo, right), & began brewing using waters from the nearby Holywells. Although he died six years later, his son, also named Thomas, continued brewing, as did his own son John on the death of the younger Thomas in 1767. For more than 250 years the Cobbold name was synonymous with brewing in Ipswich. Merging their business with the Tollemache brewing operation in 1957, the two families ran the business for twenty years, under the name Tolly Cobbold. In its heyday during the 1970s, the company owned around 400 pubs, more than 80 of which were in Ipswich. In 1977 the business was taken over & changed hands several times before it was announced in 1989 that the Cliff Brewery was to close. At this time the brewery was classified as a listed building &, after a successful management buy-out, brewing recommenced once more in 1991; with the building now also housing a brewing museum. It finally closed in 2002.  In February 2020 the now derelict building was partially destroyed by fire. (See also “Tolly Follies”  in part 1) John Cobbold (1746-1835) who took over the business on the death of his father, was not only a brewer & maltster, but also had many other business interests in the town such as banking, ship owning & corn merchant. He had Holywells mansion built as the family home around 1814. It was he, along with his second wife Elizabeth, who employed Margaret Catchpole, about whom John’s son, the Rev. Richard Cobbold (1797-1877) wrote a  semi-factual account . (See Margaret Catchpole  section, below) Another of John’s sons (he had twenty two children), also named John (1774-1860), together with his  son John Chevallier Cobbold (1797-1882), were to become leading figures as Ipswich developed into an industrial centre during the nineteenth century.  John Chevallier Cobbold, who represented Ipswich in parliament during the years 1847-1868, was instrumental, along with his father, in forming the Eastern Union Railway, which brought the railways to Ipswich in 1846. The Eastern Union Railway was established by the father & son partnership when the Eastern Counties Railway decided not to extend their line any further than Colchester. The official opening of the new line took place on 11th June 1846 & was opened for public passengers six days later.  The line from Ipswich to Bury St. Edmunds opened in December of the same year & was extended as far as Norwich in 1849. For the next few years there was much rivalry between the EUR & the ECR, until in 1854 the two companies amalgamated, before becoming the Great Eastern Railway in 1862.  As well as the railways, this father & son team were also Dock Commissioners during the period in the late 1830s & early 1840s when the new wet dock was being planned & built. John Chevallier Cobbold was mayor of Ipswich in 1842 when the dock was opened.  In 1875 he was made High Steward of Ipswich; a post he held until his death. (See also River Orwell & River Gipping  in part 1) Felix Cobbold (1841-1909), son of John Chevallier Cobbold, is best known for donating Christchurch Mansion to the town; having bought the estate from the Fonnereau family. He also gave land & provided funds for the construction of Fore Street Baths in 1894. He was elected as one of the town’s MPs in 1885 & became mayor of Ipswich in 1896. Two of his brothers, John Patteson & Thomas Clement Cobbold also represented Ipswich in parliament. From its very earliest days in 1878, the Cobbold family have been influential in the running of Ipswich Town Football Club.  The club’s first president was Thomas Clement Cobbold (1833-83), son of John Chevallier Cobbold.   Captain John Murray ‘Ivan’ Cobbold (1897- 1944), grandson of John Patteson Cobbold, became president of the still amateur club in 1935 & then chairman of the new professional Ipswich Town Football Club Ltd in 1936; a position he held until his death during World War II. His sons John & Patrick would both also hold the post of chairman during the club’s most successful period between the 1960s & the 1980s. Ivan Cobbold’s widow, Lady Blanche Cobbold, also served as honorary club president until her death in 1987. Other family members to have served as club chairman are John Patteson’s son Philip Wyndham Cobbold from 1944 to 1945, & his  son Alistair Philip Cobbold from 1945 to 1957. (See also Ipswich Town Football Club  section, above) Top of Page    Margaret Catchpole  Margaret Catchpole was born in 1762 in the village of Nacton near Ipswich. In 1793 she found employment in the household of John & Elizabeth Cobbold, who lived at Cliff House, Ipswich, as a nurse & cook; a position she held until 1795. It was during this time that she learned to read & write. Catchpole’s boyfriend was a smuggler named William Laud, who was a wanted man after shooting another of Margaret’s admirers, John Barry. In May 1797, when she found out that Laud was in London, Margaret stole a horse from her former employers & rode the 70 miles or so to London to meet him.  On arrival, however, she was arrested & tried for theft at the Suffolk Summer Assizes at Bury St. Edmunds. Initially sentenced to death, her sentence was commuted to seven years imprisonment at the intercession of the Cobbolds, from whom she had stolen the horse. For three years she seems to have been a model prisoner, until in 1800 she escaped from Ipswich gaol by scaling a 22 ft wall using a clothes line, having heard that Will Laud was waiting for her; their intention being to go to Holland.  They were apprehended, however, with Laud being shot dead & Margaret being recaptured.  Tried for gaol breaking & once more sentenced to death, her punishment was this time commuted to transportation to Australia. Arriving in New South Wales in 1801, she at first found employment as a servant; later becoming a midwife as well as keeping a small farm. Although pardoned in 1814, she never returned to England. She died of influenza in 1819 & is buried in Richmond NSW (near Sydney, around 450 miles south of Ipswich, Queensland). In 1847, ‘The History of Margaret Catchpole: A Suffolk Girl’ was published. Written by the Rev. Richard Cobbold, son of John & Elizabeth, the book is based on fact, but with a large element of fiction thrown in.  For example, Cobbold claims that Catchpole was born in 1773, making her 20 years old when she went to work for his family, whereas she was, in fact, 31. He asserts that she married in 1812, although there is no evidence of this. He also states that she died in 1841, even though there is clear evidence from the register of burials at Richmond that the correct date was 13th May 1819. Today, the Margaret Catchpole public house can be found in Cliff Lane (see “Tolly Follies”  in part 1). Top of Page    Charles Dickens in Ipswich  Charles Dickens stayed in Ipswich, at the Great White Horse Hotel in Tavern Street, for the first time in 1834. In The Pickwick Papers , published in 1836/7, he mentions the hotel: “ In the main street of Ipswich, on the left-hand side of the way, a short distance after you have passed through the open space fronting the Town Hall, stands an inn known far    and wide by the appellation of The Great White Horse, rendered the more conspicuous by a stone statue of some rampacious animal with flowing mane and tail, distantly resembling an insane cart-horse, which is elevated above the principal door. The Great White Horse is famous in the neighbourhood, in the same degree as a prize ox, or county paper-chronicled turnip, or unwieldy pig - for its enormous size. Never were such labyrinths of uncarpeted passages, such clusters of mouldy, ill-lighted rooms, such huge numbers of small dens for eating or sleeping in, beneath any one roof, as are collected together between the four walls of the Great White Horse at Ipswich.” In the story, Mr Pickwick inadvertently strays into a lady’s bedroom &, having extricated himself from an awkward situation, gets disorientated in the maze of the hotel’s dimly lit corridors & has to rely on his servant, Sam Weller, to guide him back to his own room. Although the hotel building still stands on the corner of Tavern Street & Northgate Street, & the signage still remains in place, the building no longer functions as a hotel; the ground floor now being split into retail units. Elsewhere in The Pickwick Papers , Sam Weller goes for a walk from the hotel & ends up in St.Clement’s parish, where he “ strolled among its ancient precincts ” . Also in this novel, the character of Mrs Leo Hunter is said to be based on Mrs Elizabeth Cobbold; second wife of John Cobbold (see Margaret Catchpole  section, above). Elizabeth Cobbold wrote & published several volumes of poetry, & the character of Mrs Hunter is also a poetry lover, for whom Dickens wrote the poem “ Ode to an Expiring Frog ”. In another of his novels, Bleak House  (1852), one of Dickens’ characters, the rag and bottle merchant Krook, dies by spontaneous human combustion. This phenomenon, whereby a human body burns to ashes without an apparent external source of ignition, is hotly debated even today, & in the mid nineteenth century was widely thought of as being impossible. Dickens, however, believed in its existence, & one famous case that he may have heard of during his visits to Ipswich, & which may have inspired him to use this method of death in his novel, involved Grace Pett of St Clement’s parish in the town, who was found dead one morning in April 1744 by her daughter, with her torso burnt to resemble a block of charcoal, although the wooden floor beneath her, plus many other flammable items close at hand, remained unscathed.  Dickens was to come to Ipswich many times over the years. In his “Weekly Journal”  issue 23, published in October 1859, he reports that he went fishing in the River Gipping. (See also Charles Dickens - The Suffolk Connection on the Suffolk, England page of www.planetsuffolk.com ) Top of Page    Jean Ingelow  Born at Boston, Lincolnshire in March 1820, poet & novelist Jean Ingelow moved to Ipswich with her family in 1834, when her father became manager of a bank called the Ipswich & Suffolk Building Company in Elm Street, on what is now the corner with Arcade Street.  The family lived in the rooms above the bank for ten years & it was during her time in Ipswich that Jean began to write.  In 1844 the family moved to London, where she spent the rest of her life; dying there in July 1897. As a girl, Jean had contributed stories & poems to various magazines, using the pen name Orris. Her first volume of poetry ‘ A Rhyming Chronicle of Incidents and Feelings’  didn’t, however, appear until 1850 & was published anonymously. It attracted the attention of Sir Alfred Tennyson, with whom she was later to become friends. Other volumes of poetry followed; either anonymously or under her pen name.  Her fame increased in 1863 with the publication of a volume entitled ‘ Poems ’ which proved very popular both in Britain & America. Probably her best known poem is ‘ A High Tide on the Coast of Lincolnshire ’.  She also wrote novels, including ‘ Off the Skelligs ’ (1872) & ‘ Sarah de Berenger ’ (1880), as well as several childrens’ books; the most popular being ‘ Mopsa the Fairy ’ (1869). Top of Page     Sir John Gordon Sprigg  John Gordon Sprigg was born in Ipswich in 1830 & attended Ipswich School.  He emigrated in 1858 to East London in the Cape Colony of what is now South Africa, where he worked for a while as a journalist.  In 1873 he became a member of the Cape Parliament & was appointed Colonial Secretary & Prime Minister of the Cape Colony in 1878; holding the position until 1881 during a period that included the First Boer War.  In all, he held the position of Prime Minister four times: 1878-81, 1886-90, 1896-98 & 1900-04. The latter period coincided with the Second Boer War. In 1897 he was appointed as a Privy Counsellor of the United Kingdom & in 1902 he received the GCMG (Knight Grand Cross of the Order of St. Michael & St. George). He died in February 1913. Top of Page    Sir Charles Sherrington   Neurophysiologist, histologist, bacteriologist, & pathologist Sir Charles Scott Sherrington OM, GBE, PRS was born in November 1857. His father was the eminent Ipswich surgeon Caleb Rose & his mother was Anne Brookes Sherrington, widow of James Norton Sherrington. As his parents were unmarried at the time, Charles & his two brothers, William & George, took their mother’s surname. Although born in Islington, London, the family moved to Ipswich sometime after 1861, & lived in a house in Anglesea Road. Caleb & Anne finally married in 1880. Charles Sherrington attended Ipswich School from 1871, after which he enrolled with the Royal College of Surgeons of England at  St Thomas’s Hospital, London, before entering Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge in 1880 where he began neurological research. There he studied under the “father of British physiology” Sir Michael Foster.  He earned his Membership of the Royal College of Surgeons (MRCS) in 1884 & his Bachelor of Medicine and Surgery (MB) degree in the following year. In 1886 he added the title of  Licentiate of the Royal College of Physicians (LRCP), & became Fellow of the Royal Society of London in 1893. During 1884 & 1885, Sherrington moved to Strasbourg, where he worked with the German physiologist  Friedrich Goltz. In 1885 he was part of a team sent to Spain to investigate a claim that a cure had been discovered for cholera.  Whilst the team discredited the Spanish claim at the time, Sherrington traveled to Berlin later that year to inspect the samples from Spain & ended up spending a year there studying physiology, morphology, histology & pathology under the noted physician Robert Koch.  In 1887, after his return to Britain, Sherrington was in appointed Lecturer in Systematic Physiology at St. Thomas’s Hospital, & was also elected a Fellow of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge (where he is now commemorated with a stained glass window in the college dining hall. See left). In 1891 he was appointed as superintendent of the Brown Institute for Advanced Physiological & Pathological Research at the University of London, a centre for human and animal physiological & pathological research.  Also in 1891 he married Ethel Mary Wright. They had one son, Carr, born in 1897. Sherrington’s first full professorship post came with his appointment as Holt Professor of Physiology at Liverpool in 1895, where his major research focused on muscle reflexes & reciprocal innervation.  Although he had been trying for a post at Oxford since 1895, he had to wait until 1913 before being offered the Waynflete Chair of Physiology by Magdalen College. He would hold the post until his retirement in 1936. His students included three future Nobel laureates (Sir John Eccles, Ragnar Granit & Howard Florey), plus Canadian neurosurgeon Wilder Penfold & the American pioneer of brain surgery Harvey Williams Cushing.  In 1932 Sherrington received, together with Edgar Adrian, the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for their work on the functions of neurons, in which they showed that reflexes require integrated activation and demonstrated reciprocal innervation of muscles. This was to become known as Sherrington’s First Law.  Other eponyms to bear his name are: the Liddell-Sherrington reflex, the Schiff-Sherrington reflex, Vulpian-Heidenhain-Sherrington phenomenon, & Sherrington’s Second Law.   Honours bestowed upon him include the Royal Medal of the Royal Society of London in 1905 (he would later become President of the Royal Society between 1920 and 1925), Knight Grand Cross of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire in 1922 (which allowed him to use the title ‘Sir’),  &  the Order of Merit in 1924. Over the course of his lifetime, Sherrington accumulated honorary doctorates from a host of universities in Europe, Canada & the USA including Birmingham, Manchester, Liverpool, Glasgow, Paris, Strasbourg, Athens, Brussels, Berne, Toronto, Montreal, & Harvard.  Away from medicine, Sherrington’s interests included poetry, art, history, philosophy & collecting rare books. He was also a keen sportsman, having played rugby & rowed for his college at Cambridge, & was also a pioneer in winter sports.  Sporting prowess ran in the family, as both Charles’ brothers, William & George (or W.S. Sherrington & G.S. Sherrington as they are often recorded), played football for Ipswich Association Football Club, the forerunner of Ipswich Town, in the years immediately after the club’s formation in 1878. After retirement Charles returned to Ipswich & had a house built on Valley Road in the Broom Hill area of the town. (The Sherrington family owned much of the land in this area, & the modern day Sherrington Road derives from this association. Much of this land, including Broom Hill Park, was sold to Ipswich Borough Council in 1925 by Charles’ brother George). From 1944 until his death, Charles Sherrington was president of Ipswich Museum. He died of heart failure whilst at Eastbourne, Sussex in March 1952, at the age of 94.  Sherrington’s published medical works include The Integrative Action of the Nervous System  (1906), Mammalian Physiology: a Course of Practical Exercises  (1919), The Reflex Activity of the Spinal Cord  (1932) & The Brain and its Mechanism  (1933). He also published a volume of wartime poetry entitled The Assaying of Brabantius and other Verse  (1925) & two philosophical volumes on the works of  the sixteenth century French physician Jean Fernel: Man on His Nature  (1940) & The Endeavour of Jean Fernel  (1946).  Top of Page    Edith Maud Cook  Edith Maud Cook was born in Fore Street, Ipswich in September 1878. As well as being a parachutist & balloonist, she is reputed to have been the first female pilot in Britain. She learnt to fly Bleriot monoplanes in early 1910, having been a pupil at Claude Graham-White’s school in Pau, France from 1909; after which she made several solo flights. She is said to have made more than 300 parachute jumps during the first decade of the twentieth century, often using the aliases Violet Spencer & Viola Kavanagh.  She also used the name Viola Spencer-Kavanagh or Miss Spencer-Kavanagh as a pilot, & may also have gone under the names Viola Fleet & Elsa Spencer on occasion. Edith Cook died on 14th July 1910, having suffered severe injuries sustained during a parachute jump in Coventry five days earlier; having landing on a factory roof where a gust of wind caught her parachute & she fell onto the roadway below. Top of Page     Why not also visit www.planetsuffolk.com   - Bringing together the Suffolks of the world  Leonard Squirrell  Landscape artist Leonard Russell Squirrell was born in Spring Road, Ipswich in October 1893. From an early age he showed a great talent for the art of drawing, & in 1908 he went to Ipswich School of Art, where he trained under George Rushton, before going to the Slade School in London in 1921. Thorpeness, Suffolk by Leonard Squirrell Best known as a watercolour painter, Squirrell was also adept with pastels, as well as being a talented etcher.  He was also an accomplished painter in oils, but produced little in this medium, preferring what he described as the “fluidity” of watercolours.  He wrote books on both pastel & watercolour techniques.                                                                                                                                        Thorpeness, Suffolk by Leonard Squirrell As an etcher, Squirrell produced many fine aquatints, mezzotints & dry-points; being awarded a silver medal at the 1923 International Exhibition in Los Angeles for his mezzotint ‘The High Mill, Needham Market’. Gold medals were to follow at this exhibition in 1925 & 1930, with ‘Notre Dame, Paris’ & ‘Shadowed Corner, Marseilles’ respectively. His pastel work included the 1928 ‘Kersey Village Street, Summer Evening’ (which is now in the Colchester and Ipswich Museums’ collection), as well as many scenes from Italy & France.  His work in watercolours included railway carriage prints & railway posters (such as the one of Monks Eleigh, left) for Great Eastern Railways/British Rail from the 1950s onwards, as well as paintings for commercial companies such as Rolls Royce, & local firms such as William Brown, Pauls, Compair, Fisons, & Ransomes Sims & Jeffries. Although he travelled & painted widely in Britain & Europe, he lived most of his life in Ipswich, & it was East Anglia that inspired him most. He once wrote “I am abidingly glad that my eyes look upon East Anglia as home. How much it means to me is demonstrated when I come back after journeys afield. As an artist I feel more satisfied with its countryside, its villages and architecture every time I return.”  Squirrell married in 1923 & had two children; living at first in Foxhall Road & later in Crabbe Street. He died in July 1979 at his daughter’s home in Uttoxeter, Staffordshire. A Blue Plaque commemorating his life & works now adorns the house he was born in at 82 Spring Road.  As well as in Ipswich Museum’s collection, Squirrell’s work today can also be found in such places as the Victoria & Albert Museum & the British Museum in London, as well as Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge. Local art writer Josephine Walpole has produced several books on Squirrell’s life & works, the latest being Leonard Squirrell RWS RE: Artist of East Anglia 1893 – 1979 , published in 2011. Top of Page       V S Pritchett  A blue plaque now adorns the wall of 41 St. Nicholas Street, to commemorate where writer Sir Victor Sawdon Pritchett was born in 1900. Within a year of his birth, his family had moved from Ipswich, although they did return to live here for a year or so in 1910. Pritchett is probably best known for his short story writing; collected & published in a number of volumes such as The Spanish Virgin and Other Stories  (1930). He also wrote five novels, as well as two autobiographies; A Cab at the Door (1968) and Midnight Oil  (1971).  In 1975 he received a knighthood for his services to literature & was made Companion of Honour in 1993. He died in London in 1997. Since 1999 The V.S. Pritchett Memorial Prize for unpublished short stories has been awarded annually by the Royal Society of Literature.  Top of Page    Enid Blyton  Whilst training to be a kindergarten teacher at Ipswich High School, famous children’s writer Enid Blyton (1897 – 1968) lodged for some time at 73 Christchurch Street. She enrolled on the National Froebel Union course in September 1916, having previously stayed with friends at Seckford Hall near Woodbridge. She left Ipswich in 1918, after qualifying as a teacher. Born in East Dulwich, London, Enid Blyton is known all over the world for her Famous Five  series & Secret Seven  series of novels for young people. Her most famous character, however, is Noddy , about whom she wrote numerous books between 1949 & 1963. She also occasionally wrote under the name Mary Pollock. Top of Page    Wallis Simpson's Divorce  On 27th October 1936, Mrs Wallis Simpson was granted her decree nisi  from her husband Ernest Simpson at the Suffolk Assizes in Ipswich; allowing her to marry King Edward VIII.  Mrs Simpson had been living in Felixstowe on the Suffolk coast (12 miles from Ipswich) for six weeks prior to this, which allowed her to claim residence status & so have the hearing held in Ipswich. The thinking behind this was that, being away from London, the whole thing could be done quietly & with publicity kept to a minimum. The press, however, got wind of what was afoot & swarmed into Ipswich on the day of the hearing at the County Hall in St. Helen’s Street. After the 25 minute hearing was over, Mrs Simpson was whisked away back to London.  In December of that same year, Edward abdicated the throne due to the outcry caused by his wish to marry a divorcee. His brother succeeded him, becoming King George VI. Wallis & Edward were married in June 1937. Top of Page    Why not also visit www.planetsuffolk.com   - Bringing together the Suffolks of the world  Sir John Mills  Lewis Ernest Watts Mills, better known as the actor Sir John Mills CBE (1908 – 2005), spent some time during the 1920s working in Ipswich for the corn merchants & maltsters R & W Paul. His time in Ipswich included the General Strike of 1926, when he volunteered as a special constable for the police; their task being to maintain order on the quays & provide escorts for vehicles leaving the docks. In 1988 the Sir John Mills Theatre was opened in Gatacre Road, to commemorate his association with Ipswich.  In 2000, Sir John was awarded a Doctor of Letters by the University of East Anglia/ Suffolk College. Sir John Mills appeared in more than 120 films, spanning seven decades, including Goodbye, Mr Chips (1939), Ice-Cold in Alex (1958) & Ryan’s Daughter (1970). He was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 1960 & was knighted in 1976. Top of Page    Giles  The famous cartoonist Ronald ‘Carl’ Giles, better known simply as Giles, lived at Witnesham near Ipswich from 1943 until his death in Ipswich Hospital in 1995. For many years he rented a studio in East Anglia House, on the corner of Queen Street & the Buttermarket. Giles was born in London in 1916. After becoming a junior animator at Elstree Studios, he worked for a while for the weekly Reynolds News, before being hired by the Daily Express & Sunday Express. His first cartoon for the Sunday Express appeared on 3rd October 1943. After the end of the Second World War, Giles created a group of characters that became known as the ‘Giles Family’; twelve characters spanning four generations that all seemed to live together in the same house. The most famous Famil y member was Grandma; a short, rotund woman always dressed in black, with hat, glasses, handbag & umbrella. The Family’s first appearance came in August 1945 & over the years they appeared in more than two thousand of Giles’ cartoons.  Giles worked for the Daily Express until 1989, but continued until 1991 with the Sunday Express.  Ever since 1946, collections of his work have been published annually.  In 1959 he received the OBE.Many of the scenes in Giles’ cartoons are influenced by streets & buildings in Ipswich (the Cornhill & the Woolpack pub on Tuddenham Road being two examples). In 1993, a statue of Grandma & several other Family members was erected.  Sculpted by Miles Robinson, the statue stands at the junction of King Street, Queen Street, Princes Street & the Buttermarket; just yards from the office Giles had once rented.  With Giles in attendance, it was unveiled by his old friend, actor Warren Mitchell (best known as Alf Garnett in ‘ ‘Til Death Us Do Part’).  The junction has since been renamed Giles Circus & in 2010 the area has been renovated & the statue moved a few yards & raised onto a three-tiered plinth. Grandma now gazes up in the direction of the window of Giles’ former studio. Top of Page    Prince Alexander Obolensky  In Cromwell Square, just off St Nicholas Street, stands a statue of Prince Alexander Obolensky, who was killed in an air crash at Martlesham Heath, just outside Ipswich, on 29th March 1940 during a training exercise. Born in St Petersburg, Russia in February 1916, he was the son of Prince Serge Obolensky, an officer in the Czar's Imperial Horse Guards, & his wife Princess Lubov. With the Russian Revolution of 1917, the family fled the country & settled in London. In 1934, Alexander went to Brasenose College, Oxford, where he represented Oxford University at Rugby Union.  He went on to play for Chesterfield, Leicester & Rosslyn Park, before being selected to play for England. He gained British citizenship in 1936. Obolensky played four times for England, scoring two tries on his debut against the New Zealand All Blacks in 1936. He also played seven times for the Barbarians. In 1939 he joined the RAF, but died when his Hawker Hurricane Mark 1 crash landed. He is buried in Ipswich. The statue by Harry Gray was unveiled by his niece, Princess Alexandra Obolensky,  on 18th February 2009. A suite at Twickenham Stadium, London is also named in his honour. Top of Page    The Half Hundred of Ipswich  During medieval times, the fortified area of the town was at the centre of the Half Hundred* of Ipswich; an area thought to roughly correspond to the modern day borough. The area outside the ramparts was split into four hamlets or holdings; Wicks Bishop, Wicks Ufford, Brookes & Stoke, although their exact boundaries are uncertain. Wicks  Bishop: Sometimes spelt Wykes, & also known as Bishop’s Wick or Wicks Episcopi, this is generally thought to have been an area to the south east of the town, extending from modern day Bishop’s Hill down to the river, & centred on Holywells Park, which had earlier been the estate held by Edward the Confessor’s wife, Queen Edith. The name derives from the fact that Richard I granted the land to one of the founders of Trinity Priory, which came under the jurisdiction of the Bishops of Norwich. It remained under their control until the reign of Henry VIII. The name is still remembered today in Wykes Bishop Street, which leads off Duke Street. Wicks Ufford: To the north of Wicks Bishop, was the hamlet of Wicks (or Wykes) Ufford, which probably extended out as far as the village of Westerfield.  Prior to the Norman Conquest, this holding had belonged to Earl Gyrth, brother of Queen Edith, but at the time of the Domesday Book (1086) was in the hands of Roger Bigod, Sheriff of Suffolk. The name is taken from the D’Ufford family; Robert D’Ufford, being made first Earl of Suffolk in 1337. When exactly Wicks Ufford was acquired by this family is not recorded.  Brookes:  Brookes (Brokes or Brooks) was the hamlet to the west of Wicks Ufford, & is thought to have encompassed much of the western side of the modern town north of the river; stretching as far as Thurleston & Whitton in the north, & almost to Sproughton & Bramford in the west. The holding was originally granted to Aluric de Clare by Edward the Confessor before the Norman Conquest, & was later gifted to the Priory of St. Peter & Paul.  The moated house of the Brokes Hall estate, which was located in the vicinity of modern day Westwood Avenue, was demolished in the early twentieth century. Stoke: The location of the hamlet of Stoke can be ascertained with far more precision than the other three hamlets, as it was the section of Ipswich on the southern side of the River Orwell; the boundaries following the river from Stoke Bridge to Bourne Bridge, then along the course of Belstead Brook, before diverting away from the water towards the holy well in the vicinity of today’s Holcombe Crescent on Chantry estate, probably rejoining the river somewhere to the west of Handford Bridge. In 970 AD, Stoke was granted to the Abbey of Ely by King Edgar (great-grandson of Alfred the Great).  One part of the modern town that wasn’t within the Half Hundred of Ipswich at the time of the Domesday Book was the settlement listed as Grenewic, which roughly corresponds with the modern day Greenwich & Gainsborough estates. The area was to the south of Wicks Bishop on the eastern bank of the Orwell, with the boundary between the two probably in the vicinity of modern day Cliff Lane. At the time Grenewic was listed as being in Carlford Hundred, which also included Alnesbourne further down the river. At some point Grenewic was integrated into Ipswich, whereas Alnesbourne was transferred into Colneis Hundred, although exactly when is unknown.  *A hundred was not a fixed measurement of land, but an ancient term that relates to a hundred 'hides' or 'carucates', which themselves were units of land that could sustain an extended family. Therefore one hundred could vary considerably in size from the next.  The Half Hundred of Ipswich was, therefore, made up of fifty carucates.  Top of Page    The Boundaries and Expansion of Ipswich  Sixth century Anglo-Saxon cemeteries have been found near to Stoke Bridge, Boss Hall and Handford Road alongside the original settlement areas which were used at that time, and the Anglo-Saxon town of Ipswich can be dated back to the early 600s.  The communities at Boss Hall and Handford Road were located at suitable crossing points over the River Gipping just above the tidal waters and marshlands.  The early Gippeswick, however, seems to have been primarily a port, and was probably centred around the dock area in the 7th and 8th centuries, near to St Peter’s church and Stoke Bridge.   The prosperity brought by trade with the Rhineland brought the first expansion of Gippeswick.  Excavation work has revealed that the town expanded to become 120 acres (50 hectares) in size during King Ælfwald’s reign (713-749).  In about 720 AD a rectangular grid of streets linked the earlier quayside town with an ancient trackway to the north that ran along an east-west ridge above the areas likely to be flooded.  This is the present town centre along the line of Westgate, Tavern and Carr Streets.  The present town hall is built on the site of St Mildred’s church.  St Mildred had links with the East Anglian royal family.  She died about 700, and the conjecture is that this church was built soon afterwards as the centerpiece of a new town founded around it (see also Cornhill  in part 1). The medieval town did not grow much larger and as noted above (see Early History  ) the ramparts clearly defined its limits.  However, some time before the year 1000 Ipswich was given the status of a half-hundred which covered the four manors beyond its ramparts of Brookes, Stoke, Wicks Bishop and Wicks Ufford (see The Half Hundred of Ipswich , above). Probably at some date after the establishment of the original half-hundred, parts of the adjoining hundreds of Carlford (Rushmere), Samford (Sproughton and Belstead), and Bosmere & Claydon (Whitton, Bramford and Westerfield) were included within the medieval limits of Ipswich.  The actual extent of the administrative unit was four miles from west to east and five miles north to south.   After receiving its charter in 1200 it was important for the new corporation to impose its authority within the “Liberties of Ipswich”. In order to ensure that the extent of the jurisdiction of the corporation was known, the boundaries of the Liberties of Ipswich were supposed to be perambulated periodically.  This was done in 1351, 1522, 1674 and 1721 and the information was recorded, so it was reasonably known which lands lay within the borough.  However, there continued to be disputes over detail, particularly by landowners in the neighbouring hundreds. In 1518 goods were seized at Whitton Street by bailiffs acting for the Hundred of Bosmere & Claydon, but complaint was made to the Courts that this act was illegal because that location was within the Liberties of Ipswich.  Since there was uncertainty as to where the boundary went, a commission was set up to determine the exact boundaries for the whole of Ipswich.  In 1522 this found that parts of Whitton-cum-Thurleston, Westerfield, Rushmere, Sproughton, Bramford and Belstead were within the boundaries of the Liberties of Ipswich.  This finally determined that these parishes were divided between the corporation and the neighbouring hundreds.   As a port town, the burgesses also exercised control over the waters giving access to Ipswich.  However, there were questions over how far this control should extend.  Did it end where the land boundaries reached the waters, and what about the foreshore, that bit between low tide and high tide?  In 1378 the borough of Ipswich was given jurisdiction over the whole extent of the River Orwell to “Pollshead on the Andrew Sands” in the North Sea beyond Felixstowe (Pollshead was a tongue of land near Landguard Fort, now eroded).  As early as 1398 the corporation had taken action to enforce its rights to the foreshore on “the saltwater” (River Orwell) at the port of Ipswich and successive actions had affirmed these rights.  It remained uncertain as to how far these rights to the foreshore extended.  In 1533 the Courts upheld that the boundaries of the corporation included the foreshore, i.e. the marshes in saltwater below the high water mark, along the whole extent of the river on both shores.  A fish weir erected at Trimley was ordered to be demolished. (See also The Lost Port of Orwell , in part 1) In 1812 a further perambulation of the boundaries was performed and this time a detailed map was produced (the John Bransby Map).  Generally, the boundaries were not dissimilar to those of today.  The only large areas that were outside today’s boundaries were those to the west of Ipswich, which were then part of Bramford and Sproughton.  Nevertheless, there were then large areas of the divided parishes that were included within the boundaries of the Liberties of Ipswich, and the extent of these was as follows:- There was only a small part of Belstead within the Liberties of Ipswich comprising part of the grounds of Belstead Lodge (now Belstead Brook Hotel) by Belstead Bridge.  That part of the parish of Sproughton in Ipswich comprised a large area south of Crane Hill on the London Road.  The boundary went along London Road to Crane Hill, and then ran down towards Belstead Brook, east of and including Stone Lodge, thus covering all except the extreme eastern end of the present Chantry Estate.  The western boundary was as today, where it runs through the centre of the housing estates and then down London Road.  This tract of land did not extend to Belstead Brook, but ended a couple of fields to the north.  There was another small part of Sproughton in Ipswich near to Boss Hall.   Bramford in Ipswich was quite complex.  The western boundary for both Ipswich and Bramford in Ipswich ran from Whitton across to and through the courtyard of Lovetofts Hall, essentially down today’s Lovetofts Drive, and then along field boundaries to Bramford Road at Lone Barn Farm (Lone Barn Court today).  The eastern boundary of Bramford went from Whitton down Norwich Road to just south of White House and then diagonally across fields to Lone Barn Farm.  Here a few yards separated the two boundaries.  Bramford then formed a long panhandle running from west to east between Ipswich and Sproughton.  The northern boundary went down the middle of Bramford Road towards Ipswich and the southern boundary followed only a few yards south of the road.  As it got near to the junction with Sproughton Road the southern boundary cut across to that road so that the intersection of the two roads was in Bramford.  It then ran in a diagonal direction to the River Gipping.  The northern boundary continued along the Bramford Road towards Ipswich to Hampton Road where it then went straight down to the river.  This peculiar appendage was originally a separate ecclesiastical holding of Bramford containing an ancient chapel of St Albright, located near the junction of Bramford and Sproughton Roads.  The boundary of the Liberties of Ipswich remained the same as the southern boundary of Bramford for only part of the way, and it took a different route down to the river near Boss Hall, which included a small part of Sproughton in Ipswich.  Boss Hall and the land to the immediate north of the River Gipping was part of Sproughton outside the Liberties of Ipswich.           The boundary of the Liberties of Ipswich dividing Whitton parish ran along Whitton Church Lane and then north to Thurleston Lane, to cross over the Henley Road before meeting up with the boundary at Westerfield.  Whitton-cum-Thurleston extended into Ipswich along a part of, and then just above the Norwich Road to the present Valley Road area, then up to the other side of Henley Road, including Grove Farm, and then back to the boundary above.   The part of Westerfield that was in Ipswich was quite extensive and peculiar in that it divided the village down the middle, and was an odd shape.  In the north it comprised a long finger of land west of Westerfield Road (B1077).   The boundary ran along the middle of Westerfield Road and Cockfield Hall Lane north to Beestons Farm, and then back to Lower Road where the boundary of Ipswich ran towards Whitton.  The parish of Westerfield outside the Liberties was to be found either side of this finger of land.  The boundary of the Liberties of Ipswich then ran along Westerfield Church Lane to meet up with the boundary along Humber Doucy Lane.  Westerfield in Ipswich extended south of the railway station, cutting through Redhouse Park estate to the other side of Tuddenham Road, and then back up towards Humber Doucy Lane.     Rushmere in Ipswich extended approximately to Sidegate Lane and the boundary then cut diagonally across the California district to Bixley Heath.  The eastern boundary of Ipswich that divided Rushmere ran down the middle of Humber Doucy Lane and then across part of Rushmere Heath, not much different from today.   In 1889 the boundaries of the new County Borough of Ipswich were made co-extensive with those of the Liberties of Ipswich.  It was realised that the position of the divided parishes and the former extra-parochial area of Warren House needed to be formalised.    Those that had the larger population within the corporation boundaries became civil parishes within Ipswich County Borough: Warren House and Whitton-cum-Thurleston in 1889; Westerfield-in-Ipswich in 1894; and Rushmere in 1895.  Those parts of Bramford, Sproughton and Belstead in Ipswich had fewer inhabitants (230, 58 and none respectively in 1891) than the rest of their parishes outside Ipswich.  Thus, in 1895 the parts within the borough boundaries were formally transferred from their original parishes and absorbed by the adjacent parish in Ipswich.  However, in 1903 Ipswich abandoned the parochial system, and these all became fully integrated with the rest of the town from that year.  This transfer of land to Ipswich left a detached part of Sproughton near to Belstead Brook, and a detached part of Bramford by Boss Hall.  Both were small and unpopulated. In 1895 they were only sorting out the anomalies where the boundaries of the former Liberties had not coincided with those of the parishes.  Up to that time there had been ample room into which the urban growth could expand.  It was not until the 20th century that it became obvious that land would be required for new housing developments, and that Ipswich would expand up to and possibly beyond its boundaries.  To allow for this, in 1935 and again in 1952 the boundaries of Ipswich were further extended. The boundary south of Stoke has always run along the Belstead Brook to Belstead Bridge.  However, from that bridge the fields north of the brook were long part of Belstead parish.  The boundary between Belstead and Ipswich in this area was very irregular and included the detached part of Sproughton.  In 1935 the position was regularised by extending the western boundary of Ipswich straight down to Belstead Brook, as it is today, thus bringing that part of Belstead which was north of the brook around Gusford Hall and the detached part of Sproughton into Ipswich.  This now freed up vast areas of land for the future building of the Chantry housing estate fully within the boundaries of Ipswich.   The boundary used to run along London Road and then across to Hadleigh Road between Crane Hall (in Ipswich) and Chantry Farm (in Sproughton).  In 1927 Chantry Mansion and Park (which were in the parish of Sproughton) were donated to the people of Ipswich.  It therefore seemed sensible to transfer this land to the borough.  This was done in 1935 and the boundary now runs along the perimeter of the park and down Hadleigh Road.  This also allowed the development of the Dickens Estate on land which was once allotments (community gardens). In 1935 the small detached part of Bramford near to Boss Hall was transferred to Ipswich. The boundary at Warren Heath was moved slightly eastward so that the whole of Warren Heath Road was in Ipswich.  The boundary used to run diagonally through what is today the Priory Heath estate.  In 1935 it was moved much further to the southeast between the Felixstowe and Nacton Roads so that the housing estate could be built, and the factories and engineering works could be included within the Ipswich boundary.  The latter is now the Ransomes Industrial Estate and Europark.     The boundary used to run along the edge of the Gainsborough estate through Brazier’s Wood and Pond Hall Farm to the river, leaving Ipswich Airport outside the town’s boundary.  In 1935 it was moved southeast and further along the river, thus bringing Brazier’s Wood, Pond Hall Farm and the airport into Ipswich; the Ravenswood estate has since been built on the airport site. By 1952 housing developments had reached the boundaries of Ipswich and it was obvious that more land would be needed for future expansion.  The boundary in the west was subject to most change with a general move towards and along the main railway line and then north along the approximate route of the A14 dual carriageway as it is today (although, of course, the A14 had not been built in 1952).  This brought substantial parts of Sproughton and Bramford into Ipswich, including Boss Hall and Lovetofts, and allowed for the expansion in that direction with both housing and light industrial estates.  In Whitton the boundary moved north of Whitton Church Lane to accommodate housing on the north side of that lane in Ipswich, and also at Thurleston so that all parts of that former hamlet are now within Ipswich.   The eastern boundary of Ipswich was subject to small changes so that the whole of housing and industrial estates on that side of Ipswich could be brought into the borough.  At Rushmere the boundary had always gone down the middle of Humber Doucy Lane; in 1952 it was moved eastward so that the whole of that lane now came within Ipswich.  Westerfield House and Farm (now Tuddenham Road Business Centre), on the corner of Humber Doucy Lane and Tuddenham Road, had always been a part of Tuddenham parish.  The boundary was moved to bring these into Ipswich.  The boundary was also moved east at Bixley Heath to allow the Broke Hall estate to be built wholly within Ipswich, and the boundary at Ransomes engineering works (now the Europark) was moved further along Nacton Heath to allow expansion of the industrial estate there. Although Ipswich has once again “burst its boundaries” since 1952 (see Modern Day Distinction Between the Town & the Borough , below), there has been only one further change to the boundaries over the last 60 years.  For over a thousand years Westerfield had been a divided community with a boundary that ran through the middle of the village.  It had been expected that the urban spread would reach Westerfield, but it never did.  Finally, in 1985 the Boundary Commission recommended the boundary changes needed to bring unification to the village outside the area of Ipswich. It would have been impracticable to revert to the area of the original historic parish of Westerfield because so much of that parish had been encroached upon by the expansion of Ipswich, so a new boundary was created. Today this runs south of the village, embracing Westerfield Junction station, and then runs along the railway line to Tuddenham Road (see also The Village of Westerfield  section on The Ones That Got Away page).There has been much discussion on the further expansion of Ipswich (see the What Might Have Been  section on the The Ones That Got Away page).  The latest proposal in 2008 was for the creation of a new unitary authority called “North Haven” which would include the urban areas immediately outside the boundaries of Ipswich, and stretch to Felixstowe, thus creating a large administrative unit between the Rivers Orwell and Deben.  Discussions continue in 2012.  The Villages & Hamlets of the Liberties of Ipswich  By 1812 Ipswich had expanded beyond the town ramparts.  However, the Liberties of Ipswich was far more than the “borough”, the small built-up urban area.  It encompassed four large manorial estates, and embraced much agricultural land containing several hamlets and villages.  For these outlying hamlets and manors, there were three ways to go during these early centuries: they could be absorbed by the growth of Ipswich, develop into a separate village, or decline to become an individual, isolated farmstead.  With the exception of Westerfield, all these have now been incorporated into Ipswich by its expansion, as noted below. The dockside to the southeast was an area of early expansion and St Clement’s parish outside the ramparts was probably established in the late 12th century as a suburb of Ipswich.  By 1381 the parish had absorbed the hamlet of Wykes Bishop (or Wicks Bishop) that may have existed around the bottom of Bishop’s Hill.  (“Wykes” denotes a hamlet outside a walled town.)  The two areas here became known as Fore Hamlet (nearest to the foreshore) and Back Hamlet.  The manor itself stayed with the bishop until 1535 when Henry VIII confiscated it.  He sold it in 1545 and it remained a large farm estate until the Cobbold family turned it into Holywells Park after 1812. Further along the Orwell, the early Anglo-Saxon hamlet of Greenwich was included in the parish of St Clement’s but remained physically separate as it belonged to the Priory of St Peter. On the suppression of that house in 1528, Greenwich was granted out as a small manor, but it declined to an isolated farmstead with a few cottages. To the north of St Clements the small market gardens supplying the town gradually gave way to the early medieval industries of Ipswich with potteries, rope making and sail manufacture.  By the end of the 17th century this area had become part of the town with narrow streets and alleyways.  It became an early industrial centre with a brick and tile works, and the Old Pottery Works.  The Rope Walk is now the only reminder of this area’s former industrial importance. A natural stream ran down from the hills to the east of the town along today’s St Helen’s Street, and this provided a favourable location for an early hamlet outside the town walls around St Helen’s church, believed to date back to Norman times.  This hamlet, called St Hellens of Cauldwell, served the leper hospital of St Mary Magdalene, located opposite the church.  It came to the town on the dissolution of the hospital in 1536.  St Helen’s was one of the smaller parishes and remained an area of market gardens, hence Orchard Street, until the late 18th century.  It was then easily absorbed by the ribbon development of houses along the two main arteries of Woodbridge Road and St Helen’s Street. Former names for St Helen’s Street were Great Wash Lane and Cauldwell Lane, and this fact provides a link to another hamlet found at the top of the hills.  Cauldwell is believed to have been in existence by the end of the 11th century.  It takes its name from the “cold springs” that emerge from the hillsides and collect together to give the name to Spring Road.  Cauldwell Hall controlled these springs that supplied much of Ipswich with its water needs, which was carried through two pipes to the town.  The manor is recorded from 1300 held by the Holbroke family, and the hamlet stood south of Woodbridge Road along the Caudwell Hall Road with the church of St John the Baptist.  The church was appropriated to Trinity Priory, so it seems likely that the hamlet and its church had declined before the Reformation.  Cauldwell Hall itself existed until 1848 when it and its land were sold for development.   The hills also provided an ideal site for windmills which benefitted from the prevailing south-westerly winds coming up the valley, and there was a group situated at the top of the hill along the Woodbridge Road.  During the Napoleonic Wars a temporary barracks was established nearby in 1803 because of its proximity to the heathland, ideal for military training.  Out of patriotism this was called Albion Hill.  The barracks attracted providers to the military needs, who stayed on and occupied the military buildings after the soldiers left in 1815.  They established the little hamlet of Albion Hill with the windmills being known as the Albion Mills.  Although now forgotten as a district name, this part of Woodbridge Road is still officially called Albion Hill, and the Albion Mills public house used to stand at the junction of Woodbridge and Belvedere Roads.  Its military past is recalled in the name of Hutland Road, laid out over where the huts of the military barracks were located, and there is also a Parade Road.     A number of larger houses followed in the 1840s because of the views afforded from the top of the hills, hence there are Belle Vue and Belvedere Roads.  Thus the urban area of Ipswich reached the top of the hills and spread along the Woodbridge and Caudwell Hall Roads.  However, it was not to be until the 1920s that the fields out to Sidegate Lane and beyond would be built upon. It is recorded that the original seat of the manor of Wykes Ufford (or Wicks Ufford) was at the present Cavendish Street on the north side of Bishop’s Hill near to Wykes Bishop.  This too disappeared at an early date and the name came to be applied to those parts of Rushmere and Westerfield that were in Ipswich.  From the time of Sir Edmund Withipoll, the manor of Wykes Ufford was always attached to the Christchurch estate.  A small hamlet existed around Rushmere Hall in the 1600s but this was reduced to a solitary farmhouse by 1846.  Rushmere remained an area of isolated farm estates until the building of the Colchester Road bypass in 1926 encouraged the growth of Ipswich in this direction. Westerfield  (see The Ones That Got Away page) has always maintained itself as a village separate from Ipswich. St Margaret’s parish was a large parish that extended over the northern part of Ipswich.  The original hamlet was located around St Margaret’s Green just outside the northern ramparts and it was already a suburb of Ipswich in 1200.  However, it is known that there was another hamlet a short distance to the north of St Margaret’s Green known as Bolton Hamlet or Little Bolton.  Bolton is a common Anglo-Saxon place-name meaning ‘an enclosure around a house’.  It was possibly on the western side of Christchurch Park where a Boltonhill House once stood.  However, Bolton Lane is on the eastern side of the park, and in 1855 there was a Bolton Farm in the vicinity.  It could be that a Bolton Hamlet developed around the castle at Ipswich.  One of the locations the castle is conjectured to have stood is on the hill at the Arboretum, where Boltonhill House was located.  If this is the case, when the castle was demolished in 1176 it is likely that the hamlet would also have disappeared since the reason for its existence had gone*. An earlier name for Bolton Lane is known to have been Thingstead Way. This was later changed to Bolton Lane, probably from a folk-memory of Bolton Hamlet being to the north of St Margaret’s Green.  This, in turn, probably gave the name to Bolton Farm, which is known to have been on land where Hervey Street is located, two streets away from Bolton Lane.  The farm was owned by a man called Hervey in 1855 who gave his name to this street.  So a long tradition places the hamlet at the top of Bolton Lane.  Whichever location it was, the hamlet disappeared at an early date.   * Most modern commentators favour Elm Street as a more likely location for the castle.  Further to the north of St Margaret’s, all the way to Westerfield, was an area of very large landed estates and farms.  The largest was Christchurch Park and north of that was Red House Park.  This is where the gentry and minor aristocracy lived.  There was never the opportunity for hamlets and villages to develop on these, and even today there are not the large housing estates that can be found elsewhere around Ipswich. However, in 2011 the development of the Ipswich Garden Suburb in this area was first proposed (see in Housing Estates, Neighbourhoods, Suburbs , below).St George’s was a hamlet immediately outside the Westgate lying at the bottom of today’s St George’s Street.  It was already a suburb of Ipswich in 1200.  It never really developed and remained one of the smallest parishes in 1381.  The last record of it as a separate parish was in 1451; thereafter it was absorbed into St Matthew’s parish.   The areas immediately to the north and west of St Matthew’s church and Barrack Corner, between and around the Bramford and Norwich Roads, were not built upon until the 1830s and 1840s.  Further along the road to Norwich the hamlet and manor of Brookes declined to an individual farm estate.  Brookes Hamlet is recorded for the last time in 1689.  However, in 1352 the hamlet around St Botolph’s church at Thurleston was described as an “appurtenance of Brookes”, and by the 16th century the two seem to be attached as the tax assessments refer to Thurleston-cum-Brooke.  Nonetheless, Thurleston itself had almost disappeared by 1514 since it was united with Whitton as the parish of Whitton-cum-Thurleston.  Whitton dates back to Anglo-Saxon times and grew into a reasonable size village separated from Ipswich by agricultural land until the 1930s (see Housing Estates, Neighbourhoods, Suburbs section, below). There was little development of the western part of Ipswich until the 20th century.  It remained an area of large farm estates.  Like Whitton, Westbourne remained separated from Ipswich by agricultural land until the 1930s.  However, it never grew beyond a small hamlet.  Another two hamlets were reduced to individual farmsteads by the end of the medieval period.  These were Lovetofts and Boss Hall. Lovetofts is first recorded in 1277 as Lovetot when a John de Lovetot had grant of free warren here.  However, it was also known as Tibetot in 1294 when the hall here was the seat of Robert de Tibetot.  The Tibetot family held the lordship of Nettlestead and owned land in Bramford at that period.  The families of Lovetot and Tibetot were related to each other and came over with William the Conqueror, both families first settling in Nottinghamshire.  Both names are of Norse origin, as were the Normans.  Lovetofts means ‘Lufa’s homestead ( toft )’.  A small hamlet arose around the manor house that became known as Lovetofts Hall.  This was in Bramford, although the western boundary of the Liberties of Ipswich ran through the centre of the estate.  However, the hamlet had declined to a single farm house by the 16th century and remained so until about 1955.  In 1959 it was absorbed by the White House estate and is remembered in Lovetofts Drive.    The original settlement around Boss Hall appears to have been a place of some importance in the early Anglo-Saxon period.  The Anglo-Saxon cemetery found there contained one grave of very high status.  There was also an ancient chapel of St Albright near the junction of Bramford and Sproughton Roads which formed an outlying portion of the parish of Bramford.  Since Bramford is known to have been an early royal manor, it seems that there was a long tradition of this area belonging to the East Anglian dynasty and its successors, and beyond the jurisdiction of the Ipswich burgesses.  It survived as a small hamlet beside the River Gipping, and the manor is attested as being part of Sproughton in 1332.  In the perambulation of 1351 it was referred to as Bordshaw Hall and Wood, which means ‘a copse (shaw) where planks (boards) were obtained’.  Because of the way it was then pronounced, the name became corrupted to Boss Hall ( bod-shaw  to bossaw ).  The hamlet declined to a reasonably large farmstead with outlying cottages and remained that way into the 20th century.  Boss Hall was just outside the Liberties and Borough of Ipswich in the parish of Sproughton until 1952.  It is now Boss Hall Business Park. The other original Anglo-Saxon settlement of Handford (Hana’s ford) was recorded as a hamlet in 1227, and this continued to be a separate community around a mill and Handford Hall where there was a bridge over the River Gipping, located where today’s Handford and London Roads meet.  The spread of housing from Ipswich down Handford Road is noted in the 1830s, and by mid-century this hamlet had been absorbed into the main town. Stoke, south of the River Orwell was settled at a very early date, and it was probably during the 8th century when the Stoke Bridge crossing was created.  Although the hamlet itself never expanded far from the bridgehead, its ecclesiastical lords held extensive property to the south and west of Stoke.  There were two parishes by the 11th century around the churches of St Mary Stoke on Stoke Hill, and St Augustine nearer to the river.  St Mary Stoke was the original endowment, belonging to the Abbey of Ely, and it owned most of the lands to the southwest, some of these stretching into the parish of Sproughton.  These were granted out for farming and some, such as Stoke Park and Stone Lodge, became substantial estates in their own right.  However, they never really developed into separate hamlets.   To the south, Belstead Brook was a natural boundary, but further upstream from Belstead Bridge the land to the north of the brook was held by the parish of Belstead.  Here there was another hamlet that existed known as Godlesford (later Gusford Hall).  This name has an Anglo-Saxon origin, ‘the ford by Goda’s field ( leah )’, and is recorded in the Domesday Book (1086) as being held by the Countess of Aumale (a place in Normandy).  In the late 13th century it was acquired by the Priory of Canons Leigh in Devon.  In 1327 the manor is recorded as ‘Godlesford and Belstead Parva’ (Little Belstead), and thereafter Little Belstead, which is the other side of Belstead Brook, appears as “an appurtenance” of Godlesford Canonry.  At this period, Belstead was a large area of land on both sides of the brook with two areas of settlement, Great Belstead (which today is the village of Washbrook) and Little Belstead (which today is the village of Belstead).  As ecclesiastical land this manor was largely free from the parochial authority of (Great) Belstead and that of the burgesses of Ipswich.  The uncertainty over who had authority in this area was reflected in the irregularity of the boundaries of the Liberties of Ipswich around the later Gusford Hall.   Over the next 200 years the far away priory took little interest in its property other than to lease it out for farming.  Godlesford declined to a large farm estate run by one family, while the labourers and their families preferred to live at Little Belstead.  With the Dissolution of the ecclesiastical houses, in 1540 the Crown sold Godlesford (now called Gusford Hall) to the family that had farmed it for the past 200 years, and the connection with Little Belstead was broken.  Since the parish of Belstead had not been able to impose its authority over the manor, the family had developed greater contacts with Ipswich and Stoke St Mary, and by the 17th century Gusford Hall had become part of that parish.  The estate changed hands between prominent Ipswich merchants several times before passing into the hands of the Burrell family, owners of Stoke Park.  Although it became attached to Stoke Park and was sold along with that property in 1918, Gusford Hall was never legally integrated into that estate. The parish of St Augustine’s in Stoke covered the land south of today’s Felaw Street along the River Orwell down to Belstead Brook.  The last reference to the parish was in 1459, and the Priory of St Peter & St Paul then seems to have taken over this parish.  With the demise of the priory in 1527 the ecclesiastical authority was attached to St Peter’s.  The actual land adjacent to the foreshore of the River Orwell to Bourne Bridge seems to have been owned by the medieval leper hospital of St Leonard. This land was purchased by the corporation of Ipswich in 1722.  By 1800 there existed a hamlet called Halifax near to Bourne Bridge.   The first known shipyard in the vicinity dates back prior to 1713, as a deed enrolled with Ipswich Corporation in that year records the sale of a yard by one Roger Mather to a shipwright named John Blichenden. This seems to have disappeared by 1749, however, as the notable Ipswich shipbuilder John Barnard (c1705-84) bought the land & built a new shipyard, situated about three quarters of a mile from Stoke Bridge, near to where the West Bank Terminal is now located.  He called this shipyard Nova Scotia.  About half a mile away, near to Bourne Bridge another shipyard, named Halifax, is first recorded in 1783 and seems to have derived its name from association with Nova Scotia.Although the sources state that it is not known why these names were given, it seems fairly obvious that they owe their existence to periods of national patriotism, with the two key dates of 1749 and 1783.  The French and British were then vying for control of part of North America, which the French called Acadia and the British, Nova Scotia.  The British had captured the capital, Port Royal, from the French in 1710, but had not been able to subdue the rest of the colony.  In 1749 a concerted effort was made to achieve this, and in June of that year the British governor, Edward Cornwallis, arrived with 13 transports to establish Halifax (named after the Earl of Halifax, not the town) as the new capital of Nova Scotia.  By unilaterally establishing Halifax, the British violated earlier treaties and started another war with the French.  However, within 18 months the British had taken firm control of Nova Scotia.  Later, in May 1783, after the American War of Independence, ships carrying Loyalists from New York anchored at Halifax to begin their resettlement in Canada.  By the end of 1783, some 35,000 Loyalists had arrived in Nova Scotia. The Halifax Shipyard was almost next to Bourne Bridge with only a house and garden in between.  The first mention of a shipyard dates from 1783, probably established by Stephen Teague, who is recorded as shipbuilding here two years later. Jabez Bayley is recorded at Halifax before 1787, where he built several East Indiamen.  It was at this yard that the East Indiaman Orwell  was launched in 1817, the largest craft ever to be launched into the river.  Over 100 men were employed in building one large vessel so, with their families, they constituted a sizeable community.  This community took its name from the shipyard and Halifax remained a hamlet separate from the rest of Stoke well into the 20th century.  This part of Wherstead Road is still referred to as “Halifax” by some residents today, although it is increasingly known as “Bourne End”.  A Halifax House still exists on Wherstead Road, occupied today by Orwells Furniture.  The name survives “officially” in Halifax Road that once linked the hamlet to Maidenhall estate, and Halifax Primary School is also located on that estate.  The development of the modern districts of Ipswich is dealt with below in Housing Estates, Neighbourhoods, Suburbs .   Extra-parochial Parts of Ipswich  Individual parishes were responsible for raising taxes, establishing educational charities and looking after their own poor.  However, certain areas were extra-parochial which meant that its residents were outside any parish and, therefore, exempt from parochial taxation and church tithes.  Parliament abolished Extra-parochial areas in 1857, and they were integrated into the surrounding civic parish.  There were a number of these within the Liberties of Ipswich, accounting for 70 acres, as noted below. 1. Warren Heath Hamlet (or Warren House) - This area made up 50 acres of the above total and comprised Warren House and the westernmost part of Warren Heath, which contained six other tenements.  From 1889 to 1903 it constituted a separate civil parish within the county borough.  It was probably the oldest of the extra-parochial parts of Ipswich (see Modern Day Distinction Between the Town & the Borough , below).  2. Cold Dunghills - This was situated just off Upper Orwell Street and still survives today under another name.  In the 19th century it was quoted as being a “filthy, dirty, foul slum, full of disease and undesirable elements”.  In 1861 it comprised some 20 tenements and 66 inhabitants, and it remained the poorest part of Ipswich.  In October 1867 the residents petitioned to have the name changed and it became known as Upper Orwell Court, the name it still retains today.  The area was not entirely cleared until just before 1939. No reason is known why it was extra-parochial, but with a name like this it could have been an original waste-land where the town sewage was deposited.  It was just the other side of the town ramparts.  In 1632 it is recorded as “Cole Dunghill”.  ‘Cole’ is the early English for ‘charcoal’, and waste-land was frequently utilised for the making of charcoal.   Charcoal and dung are both used for fuel in many parts of the world today.  Whichever way it is regarded, ‘waste-land’ was frequently extra-parochial because nobody wanted to go there to collect taxes.    3. Felaw’s House - In 1483 Richard Felaw, an alderman and merchant of Ipswich, bequeathed his house in what is now Foundation Street to Ipswich Grammar School, endowing it with lands so that children of needy parents could attend without paying fees (see Ipswich School  section in part 1).  As a charitable donation it was exempt from taxation.  The site is now a multi-storey car park. 4. Shire Hall Yard - This still exists behind Lower Orwell Street.  This was originally the site of the Dominicans or Blackfriars.  At their dissolution in 1538 the property was bought by William Sabyn who sold it in 1569 to the corporation.  Parts of the Friary were demolished, but in 1572 the corporation converted the remaining buildings into Christ’s Hospital, an establishment supported from charitable donations by the burgesses for the maintenance of orphans and the old.  Christ’s Hospital was in fact an amalgamation of different foundations, and it stretched across to St Edmund Pountney Lane, which henceforth became known as Foundation Street after these institutions.   It included the almshouses built by the bequest of Henry Tooley, a Portman of Ipswich, who left several estates in 1550 for this purpose (See Tooley’s & Smart’s Almshouses  in part 1).  Tooley’s almshouses survive today, rebuilt in 1849 near the site of the original houses.  In 1614 Ipswich Grammar School moved across the road to the old refectory and remained there until 1842.  In 1699 Shire Hall was erected and remained the property of Christ’s Hospital.  The building was leased for purposes of holding courts and assizes.  Part of the Hospital was utilised as a workhouse and a bridewell (an early name for a prison).  Since this area was basically used for corporation purposes, there were no private dwellings, and it became non-parochial.   Over time the buildings became so dilapidated that they were unsafe to use.  In 1837 new courts and a gaol were built in St Helen’s, and the school moved in 1842.  In 1851 the buildings were demolished and the area became an industrial one, with a brewery and factories replacing the foundations.  These have now gone in their turn, but Foundation Street and Shire Hall Yard remain. 5. Five individual Houses in Globe Lane (now St George’s Street) - These were extra-parochial and attached to St Mary le Tower church.  It is unclear why they should be extra-parochial.  They may have been associated with the original St George’s Chapel in this street.  This was still in use in the 16th century and, as the parish church, it was obviously exempt from imposing tithes and taxation on itself.  By 1813 it had been converted into a barn, but the area that it originally covered may have given rise to these tenements.   Housing Estates, Neighbourhoods, Suburbs   Over the centuries, Ipswich has expanded outwards from the original settlement on the river; slowly at first then more rapidly from the mid-nineteenth century onwards.  Detailed below are some of the main housing estates, neighbourhoods & suburbs within the Borough of Ipswich. For details of areas of the town outside the borough boundaries see the Modern Day Distinction Between the Town & the Borough  section, below).  Just across the River Orwell from the town centre & the docks, the ancient area known as Stoke was   one of the earliest settled districts of Ipswich (see also The Half Hundred of Ipswich  section, above). The name comes from Old English ‘stoc’ meaning an outlying farm or place, usually one held by a religious house, in the case of Stoke, by the Abbey of Ely (later Ely Cathedral). Today the estate consists of a warren of narrow streets to the west of Vernon Street, plus newer housing developments to the east of Hawes Street & to the south of the New Cut by the river. To the west, on the other side of the railway line, is Stoke High School, during the building of which woolly mammoth bones were discovered (see also Ipswichian Interglacial  Period on the Ips Misc page). To the southwest of Stoke, & bounded by Wherstead Road to the east & Belstead Road to the west, the Maidenhall estate reaches as far south as Bourne Park, where it then joins Stoke Park estate. Maidenhall takes its name from Maiden Hall Farm, one of the farms belonging to the Stoke Park estate.  Maiden Farm or Maiden Hall, i.e. not yet old, is a common name for newer farms established on an estate.  It is not found on maps before the mid 19th century.  The housing estate was built from 1950 onwards.   Stoke Park is bounded by Belstead Road & the winding Stoke Park Drive, and stretches to the borough boundary at the Belstead Brook. The area was once the site of Stoke Park Mansion, now demolished (see also Belstead Brook Park  section, in part 1). Ely Cathedral leased out the agricultural land of its manor of Stoke, and references to a separate farm estate from the original manor date back to 1505.  The name of Stoke Park is first recorded in 1651. The Stoke Park estate was broken up and sold in 1918 and 1921 to pay for death duties. Between Belstead Road & Prince of Wales Drive is a small housing development known as The Hayes, built on the grounds of Stoke House and Orwell Lodge, so called because each road within the cluster has this as a suffix. “Hayes” is an Old English word meaning a hedge. The main roads are Heatherhayes, Gorsehayes & Broomhayes, with several closes leading off such as Fernhayes, Rowanhayes, Briarhayes & Barleyhayes. The Hayes features in the 1984 novel The Fourth Protocol  by Frederick Forsyth (see Ips Misc.  page for further details).  Ipswich’s largest housing estate is Chantry. Located in the southwest of the town, it was mostly built during the 1950s & 60s. The estate borders Gyppeswyk Park in the north, & the Stoke Park estate to the east, with the London Road forming the western boundary. To the south are the new estates of Pinewood & Thorington Park which are outside the Borough of Ipswich (see Modern Day Distinction Between the Town & the Borough  section, below). The southwestern portion of Chantry, closest to the meandering Belstead Brook, is known as Belstead Hills. It was during building work in this area that a collection of Celtic torcs was discovered (see Ipswich Hoards  section in part 1).  The land was originally known as “chantry fields”; land donated to All Saints church in Sproughton to provide income for paying chantry priests.  These were priests who sung (chanted) masses for the soul of the deceased donor.  After chantries were abolished in 1547 the land passed to the Crown, and the Cutler family soon after occupied “a house at the Chantry”.  By 1668 the land was in the ownership of Sir Peyton Ventris. On the other side of London Road, situated in the triangle formed by the confluence of Hadleigh Road & London Road, & with Chantry Park as its western limits, is the small Dickens Road estate. Originally farmland between Chantry Farm and the railway, it became allotments in the 1920s and the estate was built in the late 1930s. Named after Charles Dickens, who was a frequent visitor to Ipswich, the estate includes roads named after Dickens’ characters, such as Pickwick Road, Copperfield Road & Dombey Road (see also Charles Dickens in Ipswich  section, above).  In the northwest of Ipswich, the Westbourne area is located between Bramford Road & Norwich Road. As the name implies, this was a small stream located to the west of Ipswich. Until the 1930s it remained a small hamlet west of the railway line around a corn mill (later an organ works) in the triangle of roads where Cromer, Deben and Westbourne Roads are today.  Westbourne merges with White House estate further north still. The name refers to the White House; a Grade II listed building overlooking White House Park, in modern day Limerick Close. Parts of the house date from the seventeenth century. It has now been converted into offices. The land remained agricultural until the 1950s when the estate was built. On the other, or eastern, side of Norwich Road, is Whitton. Once a separate village, there has been a settlement in the area since Anglo-Saxon times, with the area being recorded in the the Domesday Book as ‘Widituna’.  The name is Anglo-Saxon and means ‘Hwita’s farm’.  The village & the neighbouring tiny hamlets of Whitton Street and Thurleston were included in the Liberties of Ipswich, but this was disputed by the adjacent Hundred of Bosmere & Claydon. In 1514 these were all combined in the parish known as Whitton-cum-Thurleston.  The original village of Whitton was round the present church of St Mary, where Whitton Church Lane joins Thurleston Lane.  Whitton Street was on the Old Norwich Road and since this was the main road between Norwich and Ipswich it soon became more important than the original village, and by the 19th century was regarded as its centre.  Thurleston or Thurlston is of Norse origin and means ‘Thorulf’s farm’.  It had all but disappeared by the 17th century, the name being retained in scattered farms: Thurleston Lodge, Thurleston Farm, and Church Farm House down Thurleston Lane, around which the original hamlet and church was once located.  The dispute over boundaries was settled in 1894 when the parish was divided and the more rural parts became the parish of Whitton (now Claydon & Whitton) in East Suffolk.  Whitton-cum-Thurleston remained with Ipswich as a separate parish, and in 1903 it was fully absorbed into the county borough.  As the town expanded during the 1930s, much of the present day housing estate was built.  Most of the street names are named after poets and playwrights.  Confusingly, the agricultural land here was situated around another “White House” where Arnold Close and Coleridge Road now stand.  This has no bearing with the White House Estate and house of the same name to the west of Norwich Road. To the east of Whitton, is the Castle Hill estate, which stretches as far as Henley Road to the east. Part of Castle Hill is frequently referred to as “The Crofts” as many of the roads in the district have names of trees, followed by the word ‘croft’ (Ashcroft Road, Fircroft Road, Pinecroft Road etc.). The area was mainly developed during the 1950s & 60s.  As far as is known, there was never a castle on Castle Hill. The name derives, however, from a Roman villa that once stood in the vicinity of modern day Chesterfield Drive.  The stonework being dug up there by the ploughs gave the impression that a castle must have been located on the rising ground.  The name pre-dates the 17th century since it was taken to America, where Castle Hill in Ipswich, Massachusetts, is recorded in 1637.  This was said to have been named after the location in Ipswich, England (see Ipswich, Massachusetts  page).  The Roman villa was first excavated in 1854, & again in 1897, 1929-32, 1946-50, & finally during 1988-9.  The 1946-50 excavations were undertaken by Basil Brown, the archeologist responsible for the discovery of the ship burial at Sutton Hoo near Woodbridge (see Sutton Hoo section on the Suffolk, England page of www.planetsuffolk.com ).  Parts of a patterned mosaic floor, painted wall plaster, a tessellated floor, & evidence of several buildings including a bath-house have been discovered. The villa is the largest of its kind ever found in Suffolk. It featured in an episode of the Channel 4 “Time Team” documentary series, presented by Tony Robinson, which was first shown on British television in 2004. To the east of Castle Hill is the area known as The Dales; built in the 1960s & centred around Dales Road & Dale Hall Lane. Dale Hall itself was north of the railway where Larchcroft Road is today. Radulph de la Dale is known to have made this the seat of his manor in c.1220, and a “Dale Hall” existed on this site until the last one was demolished in about 1960. Dale Hall in turn joins the Broom Hill area on the north side of Norwich Road. This was a privately owned hilltop wood on the outskirts of Ipswich, taking its name from the evergreen shrub that grows there. In 1925 the landowner, George Sherrington, sold Broom Hill to Ipswich Borough Council.  A ring road around Ipswich was built in 1926 and Valley Road then divided the woodland in half.  To the south of Broom Hill just north of Norwich Road lay the Brooke’s (or Brook’s) Hall Estate, now occupied by the houses of Westwood Avenue (see also The Half Hundred of Ipswich section, above). To the north east of Ipswich lies the post-war Rushmere Estate.  This takes its name from Rushmere St Andrew, a village and parish just outside the eastern boundary of Ipswich.  The name “Riscemara” appears in the Domesday Book, and means a ‘mere’ or pond where rushes grow.  In the medieval period the manor of Wykes Ufford included those parts of the parishes of Westerfield and Rushmere that were within the Liberties of Ipswich (see The Half Hundred of Ipswich  section, above).  Rushmere within Ipswich was the part that had been appropriated to the priory of Christ’s Church, and the parish remained divided between the corporation of Ipswich and the Hundred of Carlford from the 13th to 20th centuries.  Rushmere in Ipswich constituted most of the land east of Sidegate Lane and north of Woodbridge Road, a larger area than today’s Rushmere Estate.  In 1841 it contained 5 households, and about 730 acres (out of a total of 2,720 acres for the whole parish), and a population of 230 (out of 564 for the whole parish).  As can be seen by these figures, the 5 households were obviously not smallholdings, but fairly large, isolated estates with the appropriate staff to run them.  There were two gentleman’s estates along the Rushmere Road of Roundwood (where Rushmere Road joins Woodbridge Road) and Pinetoft (on the corner of Rushmere Road and Humber Doucy Lane), both at one time owned by prominent men; Roundwood by Admiral Nelson (see Admiral Lord Nelson  section, above), Pinetoft by Luther Holden (1815-1905), President of the Royal College of Surgeons, and Consultant Surgeon to St Bartholomew’s Hospital in London.  Little Roundwood at the end of Sidegate Lane, Rushmere Hall on Humber Doucy Lane and The Laurels on Woodbridge Road were very much working farm estates.  This area remained agricultural or estate land into the 20th century.  The building of the Colchester Road (A1214) bypass in 1926 encouraged the land to be sold off for housing.  From 1949 through to the late 1950s the Rushmere Estate was built the other side of the bypass.  The large houses were pulled down; Roundwood House itself was demolished in 1961, and Rushmere Hall (built in the 1600s) followed soon after.The eastern boundary of Ipswich went down the middle of Humber Doucy Lane.  In 1952 the boundary was moved eastward so that the whole of Humber Doucy Lane came within Ipswich, thus facilitating the construction of even more housing along this once quiet country lane.  Situated directly to the east of the town centre, between Woodbridge Road & Foxhall Road, is the estate known as California, centred around Cauldwell Hall Road. The name stems from the middle of the nineteenth century, when the Ipswich & Suffolk Freehold Land Society came into being. The idea was for ordinary working people to invest their savings in the society, which in turn used the money to buy plots of freehold land, that could then be divided into plots large enough to give the owner the right to vote (at that time, a man needed to own a freehold worth at least 40 shillings to be eligible). The 98 ¾ acre Cauldwell Hall estate was the society’s first such purchase, & this event coincided with the California gold rush of 1849. Although some people used their plot to build a house, many at first used theirs simply as an allotment, & the area became known as ‘the Diggings’. A parallel was soon being drawn with the scramble for land in the far west of America, however, & the name ‘California’ was adopted; a name that has endured to this day. Incidentally, the first president of the Ipswich & Suffolk Freehold Land Society was the banker & philanthropist Richard Dykes Alexander (1788-1865), who was also a pioneer photographer. He is commemorated by a blue plaque on ‘Alexander House’, close to where his house stood at the junction of St Matthews Street & Portman Road, just west of the town centre. To the south of California, bounded by Foxhall Road to the north & Felixstowe Road to the south is the area known as Rose Hill. This takes its name from the Roe family who owned the land adjacent to Bishop’s Hill, and the property became known as “Roe’s Hill”.  This was later corrupted to Rose Hill in the early 19th century.  Owen Roe (1770-1825) built a house now known as Rose Hill House.  The present Rosehill Road curves round close to the rear of the house, which still survives today as four flats at the end of Sandhurst Avenue. The property was sold off for housing developments from the 1870s.  To the east of Rose Hill, & on the eastern side of Bixley Road, is the Broke Hall estate, which stretches to the borough boundary in the area known as Black Heath, which is where Ipswich Golf Club is situated. This area was originally Bexley Heath (later in the 19th century it became Bixley Heath), and it was part of the large Broke Hall Estate.  ‘Bexley’ means a clearing among box trees.  Broke Hall itself is a Grade II listed stately home overlooking the River Orwell at Nacton opposite Pin Mill.  Its name derives from Sir Richard Broke (d. 1529) who was an English judge who served as Chief Baron to the Exchequor.  His daughter had married George Fastolfe of Nacton, and when the latter died without issue in 1527, he left his estates to Sir Richard.  The Broke family then gave their name to the estate. (The name is a variant of Brooke and was originally applied to someone who lived near a brook.)  In 1925, Captain Saumarez, the then owner, sold parts of the Broke Hall Estate in the areas of Bixley Heath and Black Heath.  Part of it became Ipswich Golf Club, which opened in 1927, and a smaller part was developed in the 1930s for housing to the east of the Bixley Road (A1189). In 1954 and again in 1957 the Golf Club sold off parcels of land along their Bucklesham Road frontage for further housing and this joined with the earlier development to become known as the Broke Hall Estate.  This land had been transferred from East Suffolk to Ipswich County Council in 1952 in anticipation of the expansion. Further south still, & sandwiched between Felixstowe Road to the north & Nacton Road to the south, is the Racecourse estate.  As the name suggests, this was once the centre for horse racing (see Ipswich Racecourse section, above). The last race was held here in 1911.   At the Murray Road entrance to the Racecourse Recreation Ground, a plaque in a wooden sign commemorates the presenting of this open space to the town in 1897 by John Dupuis Cobbold (see The Cobbold Family section, above). Further out from the to wn centre, but also on the south side of Felixstowe Road, is the Priory Heath estate, built in the mid 1930s on  heathland of the same name.  It refers to Alnesbourne Priory, which is thought to have been founded in the thirteenth century as a home to Augustinian monks.  The priory was already “ruinous” by 1514, & these ruins can still be seen close to the river, just outside the borough boundary & to the east of Orwell Country Park. Further east still are Ransomes Industrial Estate & Ransomes Europark, which mark the town’s boundary, close to the A14. To the south of Priory Heath is Ravenswood, one of the most recent districts within the Borough of Ipswich to be developed into a residential area. The estate is situated on the site of Ipswich Airport  (see separate section, above), with the Grade II listed terminal building now housing the local community centre & flats.  Development began in early 1999, & the area boasts several interesting  public works of art, such as “Handstanding” by Martin Heron (see photo, left), “Green Wind 2” by Diane Maclean, “Propeller” by Harry Gray & “Formation” by Rick Kirby, the latter being located on the roundabout as you enter the estate from Nacton Road (see Statues, Plaques & Signs: Ipswich, England album in the Photo Gallery ). To the west of Priory Heath is the Gainsborough estate; built on former farmland from 1926 and throughout the 1930s, & named after the famous Suffolk born artist Thomas Gainsborough, who lived for some years in Ipswich. To the west of Gainsborough, closer to the town centre, is Holywells Park, which features in one of Gainsborough’s paintings (see separate sections on Thomas Gainsborough  & Holywells Mansion & Park , above). To the west of Gainsborough, but south of Holywells Park, is the Greenwich estate, which overlooks the river & includes Cliff Quay. In the Domesday Book the area is recorded as Grenewic (see The Half Hundred of Ipswich  section, above), meaning a “green farmstead”.  Although it is not known with any certainty when this hamlet became part of Ipswich, it seems to have been included in the parish of St Clements when that was established, probably in the 12th century.  By the time Ipswich emerged as a proper Borough in 1200, its quayside parishes were St Peter, St Clement and St Mary at Quay, so Greenwich can be regarded as part of the corporation of Ipswich from its inception.  It remained a small, isolated farming community outside the built up area until the 20th century, reached only by a single track from the Cliff Brewery.  This track was known as Greenwich Way leading to Greenwich Farm, and then continued as Sandyhill Lane leading to a couple of cottages (Greenwich Hill Cottages).  This was the total complement of the hamlet of Greenwich.  The farmland was opened up for development about 1928 with the construction of Landseer Road.  The Greenwich estate was built in the 1930s.  The farm disappeared and on its land below the Greenwich estate was constructed a new dock area with grain and oil storage.  The name survives with Greenwich Road leading off Landseer Road to the dock area, and on the opposite side the small Greenwich Business Park along Greenwich Close. The area north of Valley Road, between Henley Road in the west and Tuddenham Road in the East, stretching all the way to the northern borough boundary close to Westerfield, has remained the most undeveloped area of the town, with Ipswich School playing fields being located just off Valley Road and the remainder of the area being farmland, intersected by the railway line (East Suffolk Line). However, in 2011 Ipswich Borough Council first adopted the strategy of building around 1,000 new homes in the northern fringe of the town before 2021, with further development eventually taking the number to between 3,000 and 3,500.  This proposed development is to be known as the Ipswich Garden Suburb, and will comprise three separate neighbourhoods, each with their own distinct identity. These neighbourhoods are: Fonnereau:Named after the Huguenot family who once owned Christchurch Mansion, this neighbourhood will be situated to the east of Henley Road and straddle Westerfield Road, with the railway line as its northern boundary.  Claude Fonnereau (1677-1740), born in the Huguenot stronghold of La Rochelle in France, was sent to England at the age of 12 after the Edict of Nantes was revoked in 1685 depriving the Protestant Huguenots of their freedom of worship.  Claude became a wealthy London merchant in the linen trade and was naturalised in 1693.  In 1735 he purchased the estate and mansion of Christchurch Park in Ipswich.    Henley Gate: East of Henley Road and north of the railway line, with its northern limits corresponding with the borough boundary close to Lower Road, Westerfield.  The name is self-explanatory – it is the “gateway” to the little village of Henley to the north of Ipswich.  Red House: Taking its name from Red House Farm, this neighbourhood will be located south of the railway line and west of Tuddenham Road, bordering Fonnereau in the west.  The farm is the last remnant of the Red House estate, a large park and mansion that belonged to the Edgar family, originally from the village of Glemham in Suffolk.  Lionel Edgar came to Ipswich in the 17th century and married the daughter of the customs master of Ipswich & Harwich.  His son, Thomas Edgar, became a successful barrister who accumulated sufficient wealth to acquire the land where he built a large house in 1658, close to where the Tuddenham Road roundabout is today.  This was known as The Red House from the colour of the bricks used.  In the mid-18th century it was extended into a three-storey mansion.  The family held the manor of Westerfield from 1820, and the last member of the family died there in 1890.  In 1937 the house and land was auctioned, but by then the house was in very poor condition and it was demolished soon after the sale.  However, the farm survived and the original avenue of large trees leading to the house has been preserved as a small park between Valley Road and Chelsworth Avenue. Plans for Ipswich Garden Suburb include three primary and one secondary school, a community centre, a health centre, two bridges over the railway line (one for vehicles, the other for pedestrians/cyclists), footpaths to Ipswich town centre, playing fields and a Country Park. The planned 30 hectare Country Park will be situated in the north and east of the Henley Gate neighbourhood, and will form a natural greenspace between Ipswich and Westerfield, which will ensure that the latter remains a separate settlement.   Top of Page    Modern Day Distinction Between the Town & the Borough  With the population growth of the twentieth century, the outward expansion from the town centre saw many new housing estates being built within the Borough of Ipswich. However, in recent years this expansion has crept over the borough boundaries into areas administered by other district councils. In other words, the Town of Ipswich & the Borough of Ipswich are no longer one & the same. This can be confusing for those not familiar with Ipswich. Warren Heath: Situated on the southeast side of Ipswich, & bordered by Bucklesham Road to the north & Felixstowe Road to the south, is the small housing estate of Warren Heath, which now stretches almost as far as the Suffolk Showground (Trinity Park).  Predominantly built in the 1990s, the area is within Suffolk Coastal District. This small development has an interesting history that goes back a long way.  In 2002 a Saxon cemetery and associated settlement of 8th-12th century date was discovered on the site just south of Bucklesham Road.  It appeared to be a late Saxon settlement, as Thetford Ware was present throughout (see Ipswich Ware Pottery  section, above).  It is thought that this could be the location of the “lost village” of Brihtolvestuna, which did exist somewhere in this area at that time.  It was recorded in the Domesday Book between the entries for Nacton and Levington.  This area up to 1857 was a small administrative unit within the Broke Hall Estate known as Warren House Hamlet.  It was extra-parochial which meant that its residents were outside any parish and, therefore, exempt from parochial taxation and church tithes.  At the time it comprised seven houses and a population of 26.  The main residence was Warren House itself.  A significant proportion of the medieval diet was waterfowl and rabbits and it was important to safeguard these valuable natural resources.  As such, a part of the heathland was set aside for this purpose where commoners were not allowed to hunt.  This was called Warren Heath where the rabbit warrens were built, and included nearby Bixley Decoy Pond for the wildfowl (now on Ipswich Golf Course).  These are recorded dating back to 1646, but must go back a lot further.  Warren House was the dwelling for the warrener who managed this area.  To ensure that the warrener and his gamekeepers had an interest in maintaining the system, the area that they lived in was free from taxation, and they were allowed to sell carcasses and pelts surplus to needs.  Extra-parochial areas were abolished by Parliament in 1857 and most of Warren Heath was then attached to Purdis Farm. However, Warren House itself and the westernmost part of the heath had always been considered part of the ancient Liberties of Ipswich, so in 1889 they were included in the county borough.  The town boundary still runs in an irregular fashion through the western part of the Warren Heath estate. Warren House was on the corner of today’s Warren Heath Road.  By 1938 it had gone and the first few modern houses were built on its site.  A little further to the east the present Warren Heath estate began in the 1960s and expanded rapidly in the 1990s. Bixley Farm: In the east of Ipswich, to the north of Foxhall Road, is the Bixley Farm Estate. With the estate being bounded by Rushmere Golf Club to the north & Foxhall Stadium to the east (see Foxhall Stadium & Ipswich Witches  section, above), further expansion is no longer viable.  At its northeastern extremity, Bixley Farm Estate has now merged with Kesgrave, which has itself expanded greatly in the past few decades, to such an extent that it was declared a town in 2000. Like Warren Heath, Bixley Farm is in Suffolk Coastal District for administration purposes, & is in the parish of Rushmere St Andrew. The main roads in the neighbourhood are Bixley Drive & Broadlands Way.  Brook Hill: On the opposite side of Foxhall Road from Bixley Farm is the small residential Brook Hill Estate & Heathlands Park caravan site. To the south, the area is bordered by Ipswich Golf Club, with the Brookhill Woods to the east. Like its northerly neighbour, it is in Suffolk Coastal District. It was built in the 1950s and the name has long been applied to this area because of the small stream that runs between Brook Hill and Brookhill Woods, and turns east to flow into the River Deben.  Farthing Road Industrial Estate: Situated just off Sproughton Road to the west of the town, this industrial park is just outside the borough boundary, close to the Sproughton junction with the A14. There were originally sand & gravel pits here which gave rise to a concrete works.  After this closed, the land continued to be used for industrial purposes, and the present light industrial estate was built. Elton Park: To the west of Ipswich, situated on the north side of Hadleigh Road opposite the entrance to Chantry Park, is the small Elton Park development.  This was land owned by William Davie Elton who lived on the London Road.  After his death in 1898 the land was sold and a small residential estate of seven large houses with substantial grounds was built and named after the previous landowner.  This development was, and still is, in the Babergh administrative district.  The largest property was Elton Park House on the east side, whose grounds were adjacent to the Ipswich boundary.  The property across the boundary remained nursery lands until 1950, when they were sold for the Elton Park Works to be built.  The portion of land within Ipswich became the Elton Park Industrial Estate, later renamed the Elton Park Business Centre, comprising light industrial units.  The small residential area still exists but the large properties have been broken up and there are now 33 houses, some of them converted into care homes, and many more now used as office accommodation.  Elton Park House and its grounds were absorbed by the expansion of the adjacent industrial works.   Pinewood: Consisting of the adjacent housing estates of Brookwood & Pinebrook, this neighbourhood in southwest Ipswich is basically an extension of Chantry Estate. Close to the junction of the major A12 & A14 roads at Copdock Mill, & bounded to the west by London Road, the area was built during the 1990s & is administered by Babergh District Council. At its most southwesterly point, the estate has now encroached as far as the once entirely rural area around Belstead House. The population of Pinewood at the 2011 census was 4,342.  (See also Belstead Brook Park  section, above) Thorington Park: Just to the east of Pinewood is the smaller Thorington Park. Built in the early years of the twenty first century, this residential area is situated to the south of the Belstead Brook (which, in this area, forms the boundary between Ipswich Borough & Babergh District councils). The estate has grown up on either side of Ellenbrook Road, with most of the roads & closes being named after butterflies & moths (Marbled White Drive, Oak Eggar Chase etc.). It is named after the former Thorington Hall Estate which was further to the south on the other side of the A14 bypass to the east of Belstead near the railway line.  This estate was sold to the Bence family from Aldeburgh in 1691 and Thorington Hall was built in 1819.  After World War II the family could no longer afford its upkeep and they sold the land.  In 1949 the hall was demolished, but the name was retained by a large cottage built on the farmland.   Population figures listed at the top of this page are for the Borough of Ipswich. With the populations of the estates mentioned above included, however, the population of the Town of Ipswich is considerably higher. Top of Page    Ipswich Village  The area that has in recent years become known as Ipswich Village is situated to the south west of the town centre, & to the west of Civic Drive.  Centred around the Russell Road/Constantine Road area, the Ipswich Village is predominantly a business district that comprises the main offices of both Ipswich Borough Council (Grafton House) & Suffolk County Council (Endeavour House), as well as the Crown Court.  Also within the area is Portman Road football ground, the BT offices in Bibb Way, & the offices of Axa Insurance. The new pedestrian Sir Bobby Robson Bridge over the river links the Village to the newly built residential area on Ranelagh Road.  Greenspace within Ipswich Village is provided by Alderman Road Park, & adjacent to this is the recently rejuvenated Alderman Canal Local Nature Reserve  (see above).  Top of Page    Ipswich Charter Hangings   To celebrate the millennium, Ipswich Arts Association decided to create the Ipswich Charter Hangings; eight tapestries to depict the eight hundred years since the granting of the town’s first Charter. Isabel Clover, lecturer at Suffolk College, was commissioned to design & produce these panels. The initial plan had been to have one embroidered panel depicting each century since the year 1200. This was later altered, however, to have the first pre-dating the Charter. The finished hangings represent the following periods:  Viking (Pre 1200 AD)Charter (1200)MedievalTudorStuart  GeorgianVictorianModern With a team of more than thirty, the Charter Hangings took over three years to complete; each panel being 3'6" wide by 5' tall. With the River Orwell a constant theme flowing through the eight tapestries, each panel is a collage of buildings, coats of arms, ships, historic events, prominent people & features of Ipswich life relevant to the particular period. The Charter Hangings have been displayed in such places as Ipswich Museum & Bury St. Edmunds Cathedral, & are now permanently on display in St. Peter’s by the Waterfront church near Stoke Bridge. Top of Page       Ipswich - Arras Partnership  Since 1993, Ipswich has had a partnership agreement with the town of Arras in the Pas de Calais department of northern France. This led to the Ipswich Arras Association being formed in 1995 to promote economic, educational, cultural & sporting links between the two towns. Across the channel, the French town has its own equivalent organisation known as the Association Arras Ipswich. A new Charter of Cooperation between the towns was signed in 2003. Both towns now have squares named after the other. Situated in St.Stephen’s Lane in Ipswich is the pedestrian only Arras Square, which was created when the Buttermarket Shopping Centre was built in 1992.  Inside the shopping centre stands a French yellow post box. In Arras, the Place d’Ipswich was created at around the same time. Here a British red phone box can be found.  Arras is the capital of the Pas-de-Calais department & is the historic centre of the Artois region. The area was originally settled in pre Roman times & was known as Nemetacum or Nemetocenna; a name given to the region by the Belgic tribe of the Atrebates. The Romans set up a garrison town here & named it Atrebatum. The modern town grew up around the wealthy Benedictine Abbey of St.Vaast; established by the sixth century saint also known as St. Vedast, who started an episcopal see & monastic community here. During the Middle Ages, Arras was at various times under the control of feudal rulers, including the County of Flanders, the Duchy of Burgundy, the House of Habsburg and the French crown. Arras was near the front line during the First World War & a series of offensives by British, Canadian, Australian & New Zealand troops during April & May 1917 took place in the area, which became known as the Battle of Arras. An extensive network of tunnels dug in World War I by the British can still be seen today. During 1940, the second Battle of Arras took place, in which Allied forces attempted to thwart the Germans in their push towards the English Channel. Arras is approximately 110 miles north of Paris by road.  The population in 2012 was 43,693. Top of Page    IP Postcode Area  The Ipswich or IP postcode covers much of the county of Suffolk, as well as some areas of the adjacent county of Norfolk. The bordering postcode areas are Colchester (CO) to the south, Cambridge (CB) to the west, Peterborough (PE) to the northwest, & Norwich (NR) to the north. Although much of Suffolk falls within the IP postcode region, parts of the south of the county, such as Sudbury & Lavenham, have CO postcodes, whilst the far west of the county, including the towns of Newmarket & Haverhill, comes under the CB region. To the north, although Lowestoft & the northeast of Suffolk fall within the NR area, some parts of Norfolk, such as the towns of Diss (IP22) & Thetford (IP24) have IP postcodes.The IP postcode region is divided into 33 districts; IP1 to IP33. The Borough of Ipswich itself is covered by IP1 (northwest), IP2 (southwest), IP3 (southeast), & IP4 (northeast). Generally speaking, the coding then radiates outwards from Ipswich, with the lower numbers being around the town & the higher numbers further afield, finishing with IP31, IP32 & IP33 in & around Bury St Edmunds & the west of Suffolk. There is also an IP98 postcode used by the Royal Mail for bulk mail (based in Diss).Postcodes were introduced in the United Kingdom over a 15 year period from 1959 -1974, to aid the sorting of mail. They are made up of two sections, the first part consisting of one or two letters denoting the town or district, followed by one or two numbers, e.g. IP21. The second part, usually one number then two letters, denotes the road or precise location. The whole is known as a Postcode Unit, such as IP2 8RS. Top of Page      The Ipswich Murders 2006  Sadly, during the final month of 2006, Ipswich was thrown into the world media spotlight for all the wrong reasons, when five women - Gemma Adams, Tania Nicol, Anneli Alderton, Paula Clennell & Annette Nichols  - were murdered & their bodies dumped in rural locations around the town; the first being discovered on 2nd December, the final two on the 12th. On 19th December, London Road resident Stephen Wright was arrested. He was charged with the murder of all five women two days later & was remanded in custody at Ipswich Magistrates Court on 22nd December. It was more than a year later, on 16th January 2008, when Wright came to trial at Ipswich Crown Court. He was found guilty on 21st February & sentenced to life imprisonment, with the recommendation that he should never be released. Two books have since been published about the murders:  Hunting Evil  by Paul Harrison & David Wilson & Cold Blooded Evil  by Neil Root. In April 2010, the BBC showed a three part dramatisation of the events of 2006 entitled Five Daughters . Written by Stephen Butchard, it starred Ian Hart, Sarah Lancashire, Jaime Winstone and Juliet Aubrey.  Top of Page    Suffolk  Ipswich is the county town of Suffolk on England’s east coast. With the North Sea to the east, Suffolk borders the counties of Essex to the south, Norfolk to the north & Cambridgeshire to the west. The name derives from ‘South Folk’; a name that dates from the time of the Kingdom of the East Angles which was formed in the 6th century. In the far north east of the county is Ness Point, the most easterly point on the British mainland, which is in the seaside town of Lowestoft. In the west of the county is the cathedral town of Bury St. Edmunds &, further west still, on the border with Cambridgeshire, is the town of Newmarket. Known as the ‘Home of Horse Racing’ it’s racecourses straddle the border of the two counties. To the south of Ipswich, on the Essex/Suffolk border, is the area known as ‘Constable Country’ where the famous artist John Constable lived. Many of his paintings depict the East Bergholt, Flatford & Dedham Vale area, including his most famous work ‘The Hay Wain’. Suffolk has many picturesque villages including Lavenham, Long Melford, Kersey, Clare & Cavendish. On the coast, to the north of Ipswich is the village of Dunwich; the last remnants of a once thriving town & seaport of the Middle Ages which has slowly been lost to the sea due to coastal erosion. Twelve miles to the east of Ipswich is the town of Felixstowe, the UK’s largest container port.  For more information on the county of Suffolk, as well as the other places around the world named Suffolk, please visit my other website: www.planetsuffolk.com   Top of Page

So you think you know your Ipswiches? 1.       Who suggested that the countryside around what became Ipswich, Queensland reminded him of his home county in England? 2.      What did Charles Dickens describe as a ‘rampacious animal with flowing mane and tail, distantly resembling an insane cart-horse’ ? 3.      Ann N Murray has connections to the origins of which Ipswich? 4.      New Ipswich Mountain is part of which range? 5.      Which town was known as Ipswich Canada between 1735 -64? 6.      Who did John Winthrop pay £20 sterling to for the ‘Bay of Agawam’? 7.      In which year were the Islas Ipswich first surveyed & named? 8.      Name the two types of Rhinoceros that lived during the Ipswichian Interglacial Period. 9.      Which Ipswich is located in Elk Grove Township? 10.    Who was known as ‘Old Grog’ & why? 11.    What is the scientific name for the Ipswich Clam? 12.   Where did John Yates & Richard Scott buy 8,000 acres of land in 1684? 13.   Which Ipswich is the ‘Home of the Yellowstone Trail’? 14.   Where was HMAS Ipswich  (J186) on 2nd September 1945? 15.   When was the Ipswich Prairie designated a State National Area? 16.   The Ipswich Caves are also known by what other name? 17.   What is ‘ Passerculus sandwichensis princeps ’ better known as? 18.   Between which dates did the Shire of Ipswich exist? 19.   What was the profession of George W Sanborn? 20.   Abijah Foster & his family were early settlers in which Ipswich? 21.   Name the indigenous people who lived to the south of modern day Ipswich, Queensland. 22.    When was the last horse race meeting at Ipswich racecourse in Suffolk, England? 23.   At which college did Thomas Wolsey study theology? 24.   Approximately how long is the Ipswich River, Massachusetts? 25.   Apart from Ipswich, name two other communities in the Rural Municipality of Strathclair. 26.   In which English city is Ipswich Circus? 27.   What name did A A Girault first give to the Chalcid wasp Macroglenes ipswichi ? 28.   Which artist published the books 'Ipswich Days'  & 'By Salt Marshes: Pictures & Poems of Old Ipswich' ? 29.   Which Ipswich did US president William McKinley visit by train in 1900? 30.   In which Colorado town is Ipswich Inn motel? 31.   Who designed the Incinerator Theatre in Ipswich, Queensland? 32.   In which Ipswich was landscape artist Benjamin Champney born? 33.   How many roads/streets etc. named Ipswich are there in Florida? 34.   Which architect designed the Willis building in Ipswich, England? 35.   In which Ipswich is the Marcus P Beebe Memorial Library? 36.  Who sung “Which Switch is the Switch, Miss, for Ipswich?”  on the original 1915 recording? 37.  Who built the steamer Ipswich  for the Ipswich Steam Navigation Company, launched in 1825? 38.  Which suburb of Ipswich, Queensland was originally known as Woogaroo? 39.  In which church in Ipswich, England are the world’s oldest church bells? 40.  In which year was the title Viscount Ipswich created?   Good Luck! When you've finished, send your answers to   info@planetipswich.com .   If you get them all correct you will be officially awarded the title of Ipswichologist. If you get stuck, email to the above address & I'll send you a clue. The Prize? There isn't one. But as an Ipswichologist you will be able to boast to your friends & family that your knowledge of the Ipswiches of the world is superior to theirs!

Order of contents on this page: (Click on the links below) Queensland Times Ipswich Chronicle Evening Star  The Queensland Times - 12th March 2010 (by Zane Jackson)   Ipswich Chronicle (Massachusetts) - 1st April 2010  Evening Star (England) - 15th June 2010 (by Lizzie Parry)

I Love Ipswich   Dedicated to all the people who live, work, own businesses, shop, visit and vacation in Ipswich, Massachusetts. Posted July 3, 2010 at 10:48 PM  Ipswich Town FC   Official site for Suffolk's Tractor Boys Posted July 3, 2010 at 11:28 PM  Ipswich Town FC   Official site for Suffolk's Tractor Boys Posted July 3, 2010 at 11:28 PM  Planet Suffolk: Bringing Together the Suffolks of the World   The only website in the world that brings together all the places called Suffolk Posted January 29, 2011 at 11:20 AM  www.ipswichwitches.co   Official Ipswich Witches website Posted April 17, 2011 at 3:06 AM  www.ipswichalebrewery.com   Ipswich Ale Brewery, Massachusetts. Great labels. Shame we can't get this in the UK! Posted April 17, 2011 at 3:12 AM  Ipswich around the world   www.flickr.com/groups/ipswicharoundtheworld/   Group on Flickr where you can share your pictures of the Ipswiches of the world Posted December 19, 2012 at 12:35 PM

Order of contents on this page: (Click on the links below) Fauna: The Ipswich Sparrow Flora: Flora - Introductory Note  Ipswich Daisy ( Olearia nernstii )  Ipswich Wonga Wonga Vine ( Pandorea floribunda ) Ipswich Pink, Ipswich Crimson & Ipswich Mulberry – Varieties of Dianthus plumarius  Gem of Ipswich & Pride of Ipswich – Varieties of Fuchsia   Ipswich Beauty – A Variety of both Dalhia  &  Ipswich Gem – A Variety of both Rosa  & Kniphofia Ipswich Town – Variety of Pelargonium Ipswich Gold, Pride of Ipswich & Little Ipswich - Neoregelia  Hybrids  Ipswich Centenary – Variety of Hibiscus Ipswich – Variety of Hemerocallis Ipswich – Variety of Dahlia Aircraft: City of Ipswich   - F-111C Tactical Strike Aircraft         City of Ipswich – Boeing F/A-18F Super Hornet Aircraft Almost Ipswich - Places with Names Similar to Ipswich: The Ipewik River, Alaska, USA        The Ipewik Formation, Alaska, USA  Gipsvika, Svalbard, Norway  Odds & Ends: I Put Some Water In Charlie's Hat Gyppeswick Historic House, Victoria, British Columbia, Canada Gyppeswick Historic House, Victoria, British Columbia, Canada  Ipswich Time Ipswich Soil Ipswich House, Rangiora, New Zealand (Hunnibell Building) Ipswich Touch Test  ips-wichita.com Ipswich Street in a Californian Ghost Town The Ipswichian Interglacial Period The Ipswich Sparrow ( Passerculus sandwichensis princeps )  Photograph by Allan Murrant, taken from the Cape Breton Birds website First identified in 1868, the name comes from the fact that the discoverer, C J Ma ynard, shot one on the beach at Ipswich, Massachusetts. Initially misidentified as Baird's Sparrow, Maynard later (1872) recognised it as a new species &  gave it the latin name Passerculus princeps , although it also seems to have been known by some as Ammodramus princeps maynard  (see Jonathan Dwight's The Ipswich Sparrow & it's summer home 1895) www.capebretonbirds.ca Initially thought of as a separate species, modern DNA testing now shows that the Ipswich Sparrow is in fact a subspecies of the Savannah Sparrow ( Passerculus sandwichensis ). The two subspecies do sometimes interbreed. The Ipswich Sparrow now has the scientific name Passerculus sandwichensis princeps.                                                    The Ipswich Sparrow is paler & larger than the Savannah Sparrow, with light grey plumage, grey-brown back & narrow pale brown streaks on a white breast. In spring & summer they develop a yellow stripe above the eye. Males & females are similar in appearance. Sable Island, off the coast of Nova Scotia, Canada, is the Ipswich Sparrow's main breeding ground, with an estimated population of around six thousand. Nesting on heaths or beach dunes, some birds remain on Sable Island during the winter, while others migrate south down the Atlantic seaboard. Due to erosion of their habitat & human disturbance, the status of the Ipswich Sparrow is classified as vulnerable. Flora - Introductory Note  In the horticultural world a “variety” is a naturally occurring plant which is different from others within a species, and a “cultivar” is the same, except that it has been ‘man made’.  However, it is common for gardening outlets to refer to them all as “varieties”, and we have adopted this practice, although all of the following, except the first two (Ipswich Daisy and Ipswich Wonga Wonga Vine), are actually cultivars.  Where we have been unable to find an image of the actual plant, we have used an image of a similar variety. Ipswich Daisy ( Olearia nernstii )  Olearia  is a genus of flowering plants belonging to the family Asteraceae (commo nly referred to as the aster, daisy, or sunflower family).  There are about 130 different species within the genus found mostly in Australia, New Guinea and New Zealand.  The genus includes herbaceous plants and evergreen shrubs with large daisylike flowers.  Photo: Robert Whyte Olearia nernstii , which is better known by its common name of the “Ipswich Daisy”, is a shrub two metres high found in forest or open woodland, and is widespread in the eastern coastal areas of Queensland and New South Wales from Sydney to Brisbane.  It has alternate toothed or prickly leaves which has given rise to its other common name in the Sydney area of “Jagged Daisy-bush” (see left).                                                                                                The name Ipswich Daisy was given to this plant by 1853 because it reminded the people around Ipswich, Queensland, of the daisies that they were familiar with back in Britain.  At that time it was noted by the German botanist Ferdinand von Mueller, and he brought it to the notice of the scientific world in 1865 when he gave it the scientific name of Olearia nernstii .  Ferdinand von Mueller (1825-1896) was born in Rostock and emigrated to Australia in 1847, where he was appointed government botanist for the colony of Victoria.  He discovered and named many Australian plants.  The English botanist George Bentham described the plant properly for valid acceptance by the scientific community in his “ Flora australiensis ” (1867).   The name Olearia  was applied to this genus in 1802 by the German botanist Christia Moench, when plants from Australasia were becoming known to Europe.  He named the genus after Johann Gottfried Ölschläger, a 17th century Lutheran theologian and horticulturalist, whose Latinised name was “Olearius”, as all scientific work was then written in Latin.  The species name of “ nernstii ” was given by von Mueller in recognition of his compatriot botanist J. Nernst, the discoverer of the Mount Blackwood Holly, who lived in Ipswich, Queensland. Ipswich Wonga Wonga Vine ( Pandorea floribunda )  The “Ipswich Wonga Wonga Vine” and the “Yellow-flowered Wonga Wonga Vine” are names commonly given to the Pandorea floribunda  plant.  (The second “Wonga” is often omitted, but in the aboriginal language the word is repeated.)  “Wonga” is a common aboriginal word with several meanings, one of which is simply “vine”. Pandorea floribunda  in the Fort Bushland Reserve, Oxley, Brisbane The Ipswich Wonga Wonga Vine is a fast-growing Australian native woody, climbing plant.  It can be found in Australia from north-eastern New South Wales to south-eastern Queensland growing vigorously over tall tr ees.  It is a large and vigorous vine growing right to the top of the tree canopy.  Their height is only limited by the height of the supporting host tree.  The stems of these large vines can measure up to 20 cm in diameter.  It has pale yellow, tubular flowers growing in clusters from 4 to 40 cm long on the ends of the stems.  The vine has a profusion of flowers in early spring, and is a dense evergreen creeper all year round.  It has a brief flowering time for two to three weeks in spring (between early August and October depending on its location).  It grows on the margins of the rainforest, but is also widespread outside the rainforest and can be found in bushland areas. Allan Cunningham (1791–1839), the English botanist and explorer, collected the first specimen in 1828 when he was exploring the Moreton Bay, Brisbane and Bremer rivers area, where Ipswich is now located.  The Swiss botanist Augustin Pyramus de Candolle published a description of the plant and gave it the scientific name of Tecoma floribunda  in 1838.  It was recognised as a Wonga Wonga Vine, but it was not known if it was a separate species.  This was because it is very difficult to differentiate between this species and others from the appearance of the stem, and although the leaves are very different they were difficult to see in the tops of the trees.  The above scientific name was thus just considered another synonym given to the Wonga Wonga Vine.  The latter had first been described by the English botanist Henry Charles Andrews in 1800 as Bignonia pandorana  in the family Bignoniaceae.   It was also named Tecoma australis  by the Scottish botanist Robert Brown in 1810.  Eventually all these names were ruled invalid and the current scientific name of Pandorea pandorana  was finally decided upon in 1927 when the Dutch botanist Cornelis van Steenis coined the name. In 1987 the Australian botanist Keith Williams in the 3rd Volume of his “ Native Plants of Queensland ” referred to the Wonga Wonga Vine in the Ipswich area as “ Pandorea sp. (Ipswich)”.  This is what is known as a cytoform – an entity of which the exact nature is still undetermined.  To emphasise that it is not yet regarded as a separate species, the cytoform name is not italicised and the first letter is capitalised.  This gave rise to its common name of the “Ipswich Wonga Wonga Vine” as it was now accepted as something different from the others.  (See also Ipswich as a Scientific Name  page)   In the scientific literature it remained “an undescribed species that is very similar to Pandorea pandorana ”, until 2008 when Dr Gordon Guymer, today the Director of the Queensland Herbarium, was able to show that it was a separate species ( Austrobaileya  18 Dec 2008).  It was given the scientific name  Pandorea floribunda .  The genus name Pandorea  is derived from Greek mythology, because the tightly packed seed pod of this vine genus recalls the myth of “Pandora’s box”.  (She was the first woman on Earth, and was given a gift of a beautiful jar by the gods, with instructions not to open it under any circumstances.  Impelled by her curiosity, Pandora opened it and all evil contained therein escaped and spread over the earth.)  Floribunda  means “profusely flowering” and, as is customary in scientific circles, this species suffix is taken from the name given to it by the first person to describe it scientifically in 1838. Ipswich Pink, Ipswich Crimson & Ipswich Mulberry – Varieties of Dianthus plumarius   Dianthus  is a genus of about 300 species of flowering plants in the family Caryophyllaceae, native mainly to Europe and Asia. Common names include carnation ( D. caryophyllus ), pinks ( D. plumarius ) and sweet william ( D. barbatus ).  The name Dianthus was cited by the Greek botanist Theophrastus in the 4th century BC; it takes its name from the Greek words dios  (‘god’) and anthos  (‘flower’).  The first recorded modern use of this scientific name was in 1849.  The earliest common name for the various plants of the gen us Dianthus  was “pinks”. This was not because of the colour of the petals but because of their jagged edge (see photograph). In the 13th century, “to pink” a piece of cloth or leather was to cut or punch a hole in a zigzag manner along the edge.  Although the word is now archaic, this meaning is still preserved today in “pinking shears” which are scissors with a serrated blade, used to cut a zigzag edge in fabric. “Pinks” as a flower is in the written record from 1566.  The colour pink is actually named after the flower since, as a colour, it is not recorded before 1669. An individual Dianthus plumarius ‘Ipswich Pink’ clearly showing the jagged edge Dianthus species have been extensively bred and hybridised to produce many thousands of cultivars for garden use, in all shades of white, pink, yellow and red, with a huge variety of flower shapes and markings.  D. plumarius , the parent of all pinks, has been cultivated in Britain since 1560.  ‘ Plumarius ’ means ‘feathery’ pertaining to the shape of the petals.  Its variability of colour led to the introduction of a seed-raised strain which were called ‘Ipswich Pinks’ in the first half of the twentieth century by Jose ph Sangster, breeder and proprietor from 1913 to 1952 of the Ipswich, England, based seed and plant merchants Thompson & Morgan. Dianthus plumarius  ‘Ipswich Pinks Mixed’ Dianthus  ‘Ipswich Pinks’ are considered to be the traditional English-style “pinks”.  They are evergreen hardy perennials and grow to a height of around 9 inches and can spread over an area of up to 30 inches. Tightly knit masses of single, fragrant flowers cover the foliage mound in spring until late summer in a mixture of colours ranging from red to pink to white.  The fragrant one-inch blooms often have a dark rose-red centre, or dark stripes or markings on the petals.  The flowers are rotate shaped with scalloped edges and have a pleasant clove scented smell.  It has a green stem and leaves.  They are ideal for borders, rockeries and containers. Thompson & Morgan were established in 1855.  It began with a baker’s son, William Thompson, who maintained a small garden behind the bakery in Tavern Street, Ipswich.  From the back garden he moved to a nursery at the edge of Ipswich.  William Thompson produced his first seed catalogue in 1855.  He entered into partnership with John Morgan, a businessman who was able to offer capital resources that enabled the expansion of the business into three nurseries. Thompson specialised in growing rare and unusual plants, seeds of which were sent to him from many overseas countries.  His efforts made him one of the most distinguished plantsmen of his day and he was honoured by the Royal Horticultural Society with the Victorian Medal of Honour in 1896.  He died in 1903 at the age of 80 but he had lived to see Thompson & Morgan become one of the country’s largest seed firms with a reputation for introducing more species and varieties to the gardening public than any other seed company.  Joseph Sangster succeeded William Thompson as the leading plantsman at Thompson & Morgan, and in 1913 he became a partner in the business, and took over the company completely when, in 1921, John Morgan died.  Today Thompson & Morgan has become one of the UK’s largest mail order Seed and Plant companies, and also exports a round the world.   Dianthus  ‘Crimson Treasure’ In 1929 another variety named Dianthus  ‘Ipswich Crimson’ was also being advertised in Thompson & Morgan’s catalogue. It is described as a “grand new variety” with “deep crimson flowers”.  The only reference to this variety still being in existence today comes from the Sussex Country Gardener website, which lists the Dianthus  ‘Ipswich Crimson’ as a herbaceous perennial with red double flowers and pale serrated foliage, which thrives on well drained chalk soils. Dianthus  ‘Ipswich Mulberry’ is yet another cultivar listed, but no further details are given.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          Gem of Ipswich & Pride of Ipswich – Varieties of Fuchsia   The first Fuchsia  ( Fuchsia triphylla ) discovered by a European was on the Caribbean island of Hispaniola in about 1696-1697 by the French botanist Charles Plumier.  He named the new genus after the renowned German botanist Leonhart Fuchs, and gave the first description of the plant in 1703.  It was introduced to Britain in 1788.  The first attempts to raise hybrids began in 1825, but it was not until 1832 that English growers were really able to raise new varieties of this plant. All but one Fuchsia  are shrubs; they belong to the family Onagraceae which is characterised by flowers with usually four sepals and petals.  Fuchsia flowers are very decorative and they have a pendulous “teardrop” shape.  They have four long, slender sepals and four shorter, broader petals; in many species the sepals and petals are in bright contrasting colours that attract the hummingbirds which pollinate them, but the colours can vary and hybrids have been raised in various combinations.  There are currently almost 110 recognised species of Fuchsia .  The vast majority are native to South America, but with a few occurring north through Central America, Mexico and the Caribbean.  The number of varieties that have been raised is in excess of 11,000.    The Fuchsia  ‘Gem of Ipswich’ was bred by F. Stokes in 1847 in Great Britain.  We can find no record of this breeder, but presume he must have been located in the vicinity of Ipswich, Suffolk.  The flower catalogues of the day describe it as “dark coral red tubes and sepals, purple coloured corolla”. Its seeds were still being offered for sale in 1881 (John Saul’s Catalogue of Plants , February 1881 USA).  Upright Fuchsia ‘Little Beauty’ – sepals bright red, corolla lavender blue.   The Fuchsia ‘Pride of Ipswich’ is an upright variety that has dark pink sepals and a lavender corolla (the central petals).  It was bred by Edwin Goulding in 2000, and was na med after the Ipswich in Suffolk, England, near to his home.  Edwin Goulding is a nurseryman and fuchsia hybridist, and has been, at various times, show manager and editor for the British Fuchsia Society and president of the East Anglian Fuchsia Fellowship.  He has written extensively for magazines and lives in East Anglia, England.  The Fuchsia  ‘Pride of Ipswich’ has been on the Royal Horticultural Society database since 2005. The same name ‘Pride of Ipswich’ has been applied to a hybrid cultivar of the genus Neoregelia , but the name here refers to the Ipswich in Queensland, Australia (see below)   Ipswich Beauty – A Variety of both Dalhia  & Gaillardia   The name ‘Ipswich Beauty’ (also named as the ‘Beauty of Ipswich’) was first used in 1835 for a variety of dahlia , a genus of the Compositae (Asteraceae) family.  It was described as “white with rosy pink edge” by the ‘ Floricultural Cabinet and Florist’s Magazine ’ (London, 1835), and was grown by John Harris of Upwey in Dorset who advertised it in the ‘ Annual Dahlia Register, 1836 ’.  It was exhibited at shows over the next few years, but then seems to have lost popularity.  It is no longer bred.     The largest family of flowering plants, the Compositae (Asteraceae), comprises about 1,100 genera and more than 20,000 species.  The second plant bearing the name ‘Ipswich Beauty’ also belongs to this family, and is a member of the Gaillardia  genus.  This is an annual and perennial wildflower, native to northern and western North America, where it grows in many habitats.  It is drought-tolerant and will grow under very harsh and dry conditions, forming mounds 8 to 18 inches high.  The single or double flowers resemble daisies and grow singly on wiry stems.  They are 2 to 3 inches across.  It is commonly called the blanket flower in reference to the resemblance of its rich and warm flower colours to the blankets woven by Native Americans.  The genus Gaillardia  was recorded in 1788 by French botanist Auguste de Bondaroy and was named after Antoine René Gaillard de Charentonneau, an 18th century French magistrate and patron of botany.  This plant was introduced into Britain in 1812 after it became better known to the English-speaking world from descriptions and collections made by Lewis and Clark during their famous expedition across North America from 1804 to 1806. Antique Print (pre-1900) showing Gaillardia  ‘Ipswich Beauty’ at bottom  All garden varieties originate from Gaillardia aristata , a beautiful daisy like flower with  an orange-red centre and petals that comprise a great range of colour from pale primrose, bright yellow to orange, and various shades of crimson-red to burgundy, all flowering from June to October.  Gaillardia x grandiflora  is the accepted name of a hybrid species in the genus Gaillardia  that was bred in 1857 by Louis van Houtte (1810-1876), the notable Belgian horticulturist, at his nurseries in Ghent.  Gaillardia aristata  with Gaillardia pulchella  is the parent of Gaillardia x grandiflora  from which several cultivars have been created.  One of these is ‘Ipswich Beauty’.  This variety grows up to 3 feet and has large crimson with deep yellow edged petals.  It is recognised as an “old English variety” that was well established before the turn of the 19th century.  It is not known whether its name is related to that of the dahlia variety mentioned beforehand, nor what relationship either flower had to the town of Ipswich.                                                                                                                                       Ipswich Gem – A Variety of both Rosa  & Kniphofia   The name ‘Ipswich Gem’ was first used for a rose bred by Robert Ward who lived at Ipswich, England.  It was advertised in ‘ Curtis’s Botanical Magazine ’ in 1867; this is the longest running botanical magazine dating from 1787.  It is described as a hybrid perpetual with a large double bloom: “brilliant rosy carmine; large and very double petals, smooth and beautifully disposed, with a fine outline; very distinct in growth and foliage”.  It was advertised widely for a few years, but the lineage has subsequently been lost. Kniphofia  ‘Ipswich Gem’ was bred in 1934 by Frances Perry of Perry’s Hardy Plant Farm, Enfield, England.  It is described as between 32 to 36 ins. tall, “a pretty shade of rich canary-yellow with bold spikes”.  Frances Mary Perry MBE VMH (1907–93) was a botanist, writer and broadcaster, born Frances Everett in Enfield, Middlesex, where she lived most of her life at Bulls Cross.  Her interest in plants took her to Swanley Horticultural College (now Wye College, part of the University of London), and in 1927 she was employed by Amos Perry, a local plant nurseryman.  She married Perry’s son Gerald (d.1964) an expert on ferns and water plants.  Frances Perry soon became a recognised expert on hardy perennials and is known for her writings about them.  Kniphofia  is a genus of flowering plants in the family Xanthorrhoeaceae, subfamily Asphodeloideae.  There are 70 species of Kniphofia  that are native to Africa of which 47 are found in the eastern areas of South Africa.  They are grown in temperate conditions around the world.  All plants produce dense, erect spikes of upright, brightly coloured flowers well above the foliage.  Kniphofia  are commonly called red-hot pokers, in reference to their upright silhouette and reddish colouring, which gets more intense towards the tip.  However, the small, tubular flowers are produced in shades that range from red, orange, yellow to lime green and cream, and are often bicoloured, depending on the  species; numerous cultivars and hybrids have been developed from species originating in South Africa.     Kniphofia  Tawny King  The Kniphofia  genus was named in 1794 by botanist Conrad Moench (1745–1805) after Johann Hieronymus Kniphof (d.1763), another German botanist.  In 1804, when introduced to Britain, it was known as Tritoma  (from the seed capsule splitting into three valves), and it was not until 1854 that ‘ Curtis’s Botanical Magazine ’ used the name Kniphofia .  It was also mistakenly thought to be a member of the Liliaceae or lily family, hence another alternative name for this plant is that of the torch lily.     Ipswich Town – Variety of Pelargonium   ‘Ipswich Town’ is a variety of the Pelargonium  genus, better known as geraniums.  It was bred as a miniature geranium by the late Ray Bidwell of Suffolk in 1976 who named many of his introductions after Suffolk villages; this one seems to have been named after his favourite football team.  (A miniature geranium is one that is very unlikely to exceed 13cm (5in) in height; their leaves may be tiny, but their flowers can be quite large and striking.) Pelargonium  is a genus of flowering plants which includes about 200 species of perennials, succulents, and shrubs, commonly known as geraniums (in the United States better known as storksbills because the seed head looks like a stork’s beak).  Pelargonium  species are evergreen perennials indigenous to Southern Africa, and are drought and heat tolerant, but can survive only minor frosts.  They are extremely popular garden plants, grown as bedding plants in temperate regions.  The first species of Pelargonium  known was a native of South Africa.  It was probably brought to the Netherlands before 1600 on ships which stopped at the Cap e of Good Hope.  In 1631 the plant was introduced to England.  It was named Pelargonium  by Johannes Burman in 1738 from the Greek word for “stork”.   Dwarf Pelargonium  'Claydon' Confusingly, Geranium  is the correct botanical name of a separate genus of related plants often called cranesbills or hardy geraniums.  Both genera belong to the family Geraniaceae.  The hardy geranium is found throughout the temperate regions of the world, but mostly in the eastern part of the Mediterranean hence the name is derived from the Greek word which means “crane” because it bears a fruit similar in shape to the bill of a crane.  Ipswich Gold, Pride of Ipswich & Little Ipswich - Neoregelia  Hybrids  ‘Ipswich Gold’, ‘Pride of Ipswich’ and ‘Little Ipswich’ are three hybrid cultivars of the genus Neoregelia, created in 2000 and 2001 by Alan Freeman, Queensland, and named after his home town.  The late Alan Freeman started hybridising and naming his plants in 1982.  He is said to have created over 10,000 hybrids.  It was not until he came to an arrangement with Keith Golinski of Palmwoods in Queensland that these became commercially available.  After some few years of pricking out the seedlings, Keith Golinski was eventually ready to release them under the name of ‘Alan Freeman’ from his company, the Bromeliads of Australia, better known as the “Bromagic Nursery”.  This is at Palmwoods on the Sunshine Coast, 90 km (55 miles) north of Brisbane and Ipswich, Queensland.   Neoregelia  is a genus of the family Bromeliaceae, subfamily Bromelioideae. The genus is named after Eduard August von Regel (1815-1892), who was director of St. Petersburg Botanic Gardens in Russia. There are 112 species of Neoregelia , with more than 5,000 registered cultivars (a variety of a plant that has been created intentionally through cultivation). Most species have broad, flat leaves, many of which are brightly coloured, & some show striping or banding.  The Bromeliaceae, commonly known as the bromeliads, is a family of flowering plants native mainly to the tropics & sub-tropics of the Americas. There are around 3,170 species. The bromeliads include such diverse species as Spanish moss, pineapple, & a large number of desert dwelling succulents.     Little Ipswich  Ipswich Gold Pride of Ipswich                                Ipswich Centenary – Variety of Hibiscus   Launched in 2004, to commemorate the centenary of Ipswich, Queensland becoming a city, the Ipswich Centenary is a hybrid variety of hibiscus . Grown & hybridized by Alfred T Westerman, & registered with the Australian Hibiscus Society Inc. in January 2007, the Ipswich Centenary is a dense bush that grows to a height of three to four feet, with a large flat orange/apricot flower, around eight inches in diameter, of the bloom type known as a ‘single cartwheel’. It is a hybrid of the Tarentella & Tamibon varieties.  There are around 300 species of hibiscus , which is a genus in the malvaceae or mallow family of flowering plants. They are native to warm-temperate, subtropical & tropical regions of the world. The genus includes both annual & perennial herbaceous plants, as well as woody shrubs & small trees. Ipswich – Variety of Hemerocallis   Hemerocallis  ‘Ipswich’ was registered by the Russell Gardens Nursery, Pennsylvania, in 1949.  It grows to a height of 36 ins (91 cm) and is a dark red flower with a violet centre. Daylily is the common name of a plant in the genus Hemerocallis .  The name Hemerocallis  comes from the Greek words ( hemera  = day) and ( kalos  = beautiful).  The scientific and common name both allude to the fact that the flowers typically last no more than 24 hours.  The flowers of most species open in early morning and wither during the following night, possibly replaced by another one on the same stalk the next day.  Hemerocallis  is now placed in the family Xanthorrhoeaceae, subfamily Hemerocallidoideae, when formerly it was part of the Liliaceae family which includes true lilies. The common Tawny Daylily ( h. fulva ) found along the roadsides around New Ipswich NH. Originally from the orient, daylilies have been cultivated for over 4,000 years.  They were originally introduced to Europe not as an ornamental plant but as a culinary and medicinal herb.  The flowers and buds of old-fashioned varieties are still used today to make a tasty and colourful addition to salads.  These bright, exotic flow ers are produced in such profusion that it is not a drawback that the flower only lasts a day since another plant will be in bloom.  It means the plants always retain a freshness, as the flowers never hang fading and waning on the plant.  They range in colour from white through yellows and orange to the deepest, richest reds.  They flower for such a long period of the summer that they remain a constant feature while other flowers appear and disappear around them. Daylily cultivar flowers are highly diverse in colour and form, as a result of hybridization efforts of gardening enthusiasts and professional horticulturalists. There are now over 60,000 registered cultivars.  Daylily breeding has been a specialty in the United States, where daylily heat- and drought-resistance has made them garden standbys since the 1950s. Ipswich – Variety of Dahlia   The background to the Dahlia genus is given in the Fauna & Flora section on the Suffolk Misc. page of www.planetsuffolk.com . The Dahlia ‘Ipswich’ is recorded in the World Directory of Dahlias as being introduced by 1961. It is noted as a medium cactus dahlia type, 6 to 8ins. in diameter, pink in colour.  No other information is provided.    City of Ipswich  – F-111C Tactical Strike Aircraft  Pictured left is the F-111C tactical strike jet named City of Ipswich  (ADF serial number A8-144), which was stationed at RAAF Base Amberley in Ipswich, Queensland from 1973 until 2010. (see also Amberley in the Ipswich Suburbs & Localities section of the Ipswich, Queensland page) The F-111 was a twin-engine swing-wing aircraft, which could take off and land at relatively low speeds with the wings swept forward, then fly at more than twice the speed of sound with its wings tucked back. It could fly close to the ground at supersonic speeds, as well as being capable of  reaching altitudes of over 60,000 ft. It was capable of carrying nuclear, as well as conventional weapons.  Developed in the 1960s by the US defence contractor General Dynamics, it first entered service in 1967 with the United States Air Force. In 1973 the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) ordered the F-111C, which was an export version for Australia, combining the initially produced F-111A with longer F-111B wings and strengthened FB-111A landing gear.  They were operated by No. 6 Squadron based at RAAF Amberley for nearly four decades until 2010, when they were replaced by the  Boeing F/A-18F Super Hornet on an interim basis, pending delivery of the Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II, initially scheduled for 2012 but since delayed due to problems with the F-35 program.  In December 2010, the RAAF decommissioned its F-111s, 23 of which had their fuselages buried at Swanbank landfill site near Ipswich in November 2011, including A8-144 City of Ipswich . City of Ipswich  – Boeing F/A-18F Super Hornet Aircraft  The Boeing F/A-18F Super Hornet is a twin-engine, carrier-based, multirole fighter aircraft. The tandem seat F/A-18F, together with its single seat variant, the F/A-18E, are larger & more advanced versions of the F/A-18 Hornet. The Super Hornet is equipped with General Electric F414 afterburning turbofan engines, has an internal 20 mm gun & can carry both air-to-air & air-to-surface missiles. Additional fuel can be carried in external tanks & the aircraft can be equipped with an aerial refueling system for the refueling of other aircraft. Designed and initially produced by McDonnell Douglas, the Super Hornet first flew in 1995, with full production commencing in September 1997 after the merger of McDonnell Douglas & Boeing. The Super Hornet entered service with the US Navy in 1999, replacing the Grumman F-14 Tomcat.  In 2007 the Australian government signed a contract for twenty four F/A-18Fs, as an interim replacement for their aging F-111s. On 26th March 2010, the RAAF’s first five Super Hornets arrived at their home base, RAAF Amberley in Ipswich, Queensland. The first plane to touch down on Australian soil has been named City of Ipswich  (A44-202), in honour of the relationship between the base & the city.  The first RAAF Super Hornets squadron became operational in December 2010. Australia is the only nation apart from the United States to operate the Super Hornet. The Ipewik River, Alaska, USA  We list this one because an alternative name sometimes given is the Ipswik River, (no doubt because of the similarity of spelling with Ipswich), and since the first ever descent of this river was made in the summer of 2013, some people may well associate it with “Ipswich”. The Ipewik River is located at 68° 21’ N 165° 44’ W in the county of North Slope, Alaska.  It is considered to be North America’s most northwestern river.  It is a major tributary flowing from the north into the Kukpuk River.  The latter flows into the Chukchi Sea between Alaska and Siberia at the Marryat Inlet, where the settlement of Point Hope is situated.  These two rivers drain the Lisburne Peninsula, a little known area of Alaska.    In the summer of 2013 an expedition was launched to descend the 135 mile long Ipewik River to collect data on the effects of climate change, and collate information on the wildlife and flora of the region.  The two canoeists, Tyler Williams and John Govi, were supported by a back-up team of two, and completed the journey in 10½ days over July and August 2013.  The total mileage travelled was 220 of which 185 were river miles, including tributaries of the Ipewik (see photograph).  Although there was plenty of evidence to indicate that indigenous peoples had used the river for hunting forays, this expedition was probably the first to travel from source to mouth.  Further photographs of the expedition can be seen on the expedition leader’s website: “ The Lisburne Traverse ”.  Sponsors were Kokatat, Osprey, Werner and Sazzi (drysuits, kayak and cold weather gear).    The name is first recorded in 1890 as Ippewik.  This is derived from the Inuit word “ipivik” meaning “drowning-place” from “ipi” = to drown, and “vik” = place.  It is just coincidence that this place-name ending in both Inuit and Norse is similar, since “wic” as found in Ipswich also means “place”.  The Ipewik Formation, Alaska, USA  The Ipewik River has also given its name to a stratigraphical unit found in the western part of the Brooks Range that runs west to east across northern Alaska.  It consists of about 100 metres of poorly exposed soft, dark, maroon and grey clay shale, mudstone, organic shale, coquinoid limestone and local elements of resistant fine-to medium-grained quartzose sandstone.  This Formation is made distinctive by the 2 metre thick reddish weathered “limestone coquinas containing highly compressed Buchia pelecypods”.  Coquinas are sedimentary rocks composed either wholly or almost entirely of the transported, abraded, and sorted fragments of the shells of molluscs, trilobites, brachiopods, or other  invertebrates, and the “Buchia pelecypods” are a genus of bivalve molluscs such as oysters, clams, mussels and scallops.  The Ipewik Formation is believed to have been deposited on a fairly inactive, shoaling marine shelf or lagoon in the Lower Cretaceous period, between 145 to 130 million years ago.  ( “Ipewik Formation”  article in the American Association of Petroleum Geologists Bulletin , 1976 by R. C. Crane & V. D. Wiggins).    Gipsvika, Svalbard, Norway  As you are probably aware, Gippeswick, or any one of its variant spellings, is the ancient name from which Ipswich is derived. As this section is devoted to places with names similar to Ipswich, we felt that a mention had to be made of Gipsvika, although the similarity of the names is nothing more than coincidence.  The name translates as “gypsum bay” from Norwegian “gips” = gypsum and “vik” = bay or inlet. Photo by Jacob van der Weele 2007 Gipsvika is a bay in Svalbard, the group of islands that make up the northernmost part of Norway within the Arctic Circle. Located at 78° 25’ 38.4” N 16° 32’ 20.5” E, Gipsvika is situated on the northern side of Sassenfjorden. To the north, the river Gipsdalselva fl ows down the 14 mile (22 km) long Gipsdalen (gypsum valley) & empties into Gipsvika. The bay is approximately 20 miles (30 km) from Longyearbyen, the capital of Svalbard. Gypsum was first mined in this valley in 1909, & sporadically since then, hence the names given to the area in 1927 by the Svalbard commissioner, Kristian Sindballe.  Gipsvika was the only entrance into the valley & the place where the ships moored offshore.  Gipsvika is included in the Sassen-Bünsow Land National Park, opened in 2003. Relics from the early mining industry at the site have now been defined as a cultural heritage, and the valley has now become a tourist attraction.                               I Put Some Water In Charlie's Hat  I P ut S ome W ater I n C harlie's H at: This mnemonic was used to teach children (& adults) how to spell Ipswich. I P ut (or P oured) S ome W ater I n C harlie’s H at Does anyone know who invented this & when it was first used? Is this a British thing, or is it used in Australia & America too?  Are there other acronyms or mnemonics that you know of that are used to spell Ipswich? If anyone knows anything, please let me know by emailing info@planetipswich.com Gyppeswick Historic House, Victoria, British Columbia, Canada  This is located at 1040 Rock Street, Rockland, Victoria, which also comprises the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria. Rockland is an historic neighbourhood in Victoria, located on an escarpment overlooking Juan de Fuca Strait and the Olympic Mountains.  The first Governor of the Colony of Vancouver Island received 1000 acres of land at Rockland known as the “Governor’s Reserve” and this was added to in later years.  The first subdivision plan for Rockland was registered in 1865, and lots were large, from five to seven acre estates.  Designed to be a prestigious neighbourhood, the Rockland area was developed in the early 1880s from a 500-acre estate called Fairfield Farm, and it became the home of wealthy entrepreneurs, bankers, and politicians.  The Gyppeswick House complex includes the Italianate home built in 1889 and designed by William Ridgway Wilson for A. A. Green, a wealthy local banker.  It was named Gyppeswick for Mrs. Green’s ancestral home, Ipswich, in England.  It had gardens, tennis courts, coach house and a stable.  The Greens abandoned it in 1894 when their bank, Garesche and Green, failed. It acted as a temporary Government House from 1899 to 1903, following a fire at the official residence.  David Spencer, owner of David Spencer’s Department Stores, bought it in 1903 and renamed it “Lan Dderwen”, Welsh for ‘under the oaks’.  His daughter, Sara Spencer, donated it to the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria in 1951, when the house reverted to its original name. The grounds house one of Canada’s finest art galleries with over 15,000 pieces in its collection, drawn from Asia, Europe and North America, although the primary emphasis is on Canada and Japan.  A Shinto shrine from the Meiji era (1886-1912) is located in the garden, and is the only Shinto shrine outside Japan.  It was found abandoned in Japan and brought to the gallery in 1987.  Once a year the gallery organises The Moss Street Paint-In where artists line the street and people can watch them at work. Ipswich Soil  The Ipswich series of soils are very deep, level, poorly drained non-sticky peat that occurs typically in the north eastern United States.  They are found in salt grass tidal marshes close to the Atlantic Ocean, extending inland along some rivers. Ipswich Soils are usually dark greyish-brown, getting darker with depth, & can range from strongly acid to slightly alkaline.  They can extend downwards from the surface to a depth of up to 65 inches. Some common vegetation found growing in Ipswich Soil includes marsh hay, cordgrass, saltgrass, sea-lavender, glasswort & sea-blite. Ipswich Soil is found in Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, New York, New Jersey & Maryland. Ipswich Time  Before the coming of the railways, travellers would adjust their timepieces slightly as they journeyed eastwards or westwards from the Greenwich meridian.  Most major towns in Britain, therefore, had their own local times, & Ipswich was no exception. From at least the late eighteenth century onwards, & probably much earlier, “Ipswich Time” was calculated as five minutes faster than Greenwich Mean Time (GMT). In 1840, Great Western Railways began the process of standardising their timetables by using only Greenwich Mean Time, or “London Time”, throughout the country, although it would be another forty years before the passing of the Statutes (Definition of Time) Bill in 1880, when Britain finally had a standard time imposed across the land; thus signalling the end of “Ipswich Time”. In the intervening years, however, the issue caused much debate. A few months prior to the opening of Ipswich’s new Town Hall in January 1868, local people had petitioned Ipswich Corporation to ask that the new building should have two clocks; one set at GMT, the other at Ipswich Time. On the day that the Town Hall was officially opened, one of the items on the agenda of a special meeting of the Corporation was that the new clock should show Greenwich Mean Time.  This was proposed by Deputy Mayor R C Ransome, but met with opposition from a Mr E Grimwade, who felt that the people of the town would be better served if the clock was to show the local time. The matter was referred to the Estates Committee, which eventually found in favour of the more standard time. Ipswich House, Rangiora, New Zealand (Hunnibell Building)  It is little known fact that one of the oldest buildings in New Zealand was known as “Ipswich House” for the first 30 years of its existence.  This building is located in Rangiora, a rural town in South Island, 25 km (16 miles) to the north of Christchurch.     Luke Hunnibell, with his wife Sarah and two young sons, arrived in New Zealand in 1864 on board the Bellissima .  They came from Ipswich in Suffolk, England.  Luke was born in 1838 at the village of Haughley, and Sarah Wenham in 1839 at the nearby market town of Stowmarket.  They were married at Ipswich in 1860 and in 1861 they were living at Foundry Road, St Margarets, in Ipswich.  His occupation was that of a shoemaker.   In New Zealand they made their way to Rangiora and Luke became the first bootmaker in the town, setting himself up in a little cottage where they lived at the corner of Direct Road (now Victoria Street) and Brook Street (now Northbrook Road).  The Hunnibells soon had a slate-roofed house built in King Street which they called “Ipswich House”.  This no longer exists.  In June 1870 Luke purchased a one acre piece of land for £140 on the corner of the Oxford and Rangiora Road (now High Street), and in about 1872 he built a two storey colonial style bootmaking shop and dwelling there with a brick chimney and cellar.  It was designed with five bedrooms upstairs to accommodate the apprentice bootmakers for the business.  Local newspapers of the time refer to it as the “Ipswich House Boot & Shoe Shop”, so it was evidently also given the name of the family’s home town in England. Luke was an enthusiastic cricketer, often turning out for the local tradesmen’s side.  He was also captain of the No. 2 engine room when the Rangiora Fire Brigade was formed.  Luke died in November 1913.  On his retirement in 1903, his youngest son, Alfred (Alf), took over the business.  He inscribed the name ‘A Hunnibell’ in wooden letters on the front of the building, and that was when it became known as the “Hunnibell Building”.  The Hunnibell family was very musical and took a large part in that aspect of life in the town.  Rangiora cinema-goers in the early 1900s would break into applause when local boot maker Alf Hunnibell arrived at the theatre with his candle tucked inside a boot box.  This was the era of silent movies, and the arrival of Alf, a talented pianist, would herald the start of the movie. He would light his candle and play the piano by ear, matching the mood of the music to the action on screen. Alf and his wife Ethel lived behind the boot shop and workroom.  During the Second World War, the front portion of the shop was used to pack and despatch food parcels to New Zealand soldiers on the front lines and prisoner of war camps.  Alf ran Hunnibell’s Bootmakers until he died, aged 70, in 1951.  Ethel remained in the High Street house for many years afterwards, renting the shop out to tenants.  After she died at the age of 90 in 1976, the building’s association with the Hunnibell family from Ipswich came to an end and it was finally sold.  Its large, often admired garden was also subdivided and sold off. Several businesses have since occupied the building including the ANZ bank, an accountant, hairdresser, second-hand store and cycle shop.  Capone’s Restaurant was operating out of the building (257 High Street) for about 14 years.  It has also had a few colourful tenants upstairs that led to police raids, with tenants jumping out onto the fire escape and stashing their drugs in the guttering.  And there is the mystery of the loaded Colt pistol found a few years ago when the cellar was being cleaned. One assumes that this had nothing to do with the restaurant’s name! In December 2012 a ceremony was held when the Hunnibell Building, as the oldest commercial building in the High Street, was given the New Zealand Landmarks Status (Historic Places Trust Category II registration); the plaque was unveiled by two of Luke Hunnibell’s great grandchildren.  In 2023 it is the Nom Nom Kitchen, a restaurant and take-away, which has been operating from the building since 2017, specialising in South-East Asian cuisine, mainly Thai and Vietnamese.  Ipswich Touch Test  Before this test was developed, diabetic patients when they were first being examined by junior doctors or nurses did not have their feet checked to see if there was a danger of possible heel ulceration.  Diabetes can lead to damage of the foot in up to 40% of patients.  The complications include damage to the peripheral nerves and to the large blood vessels that serve the limbs and, if undetected, can result in amputations. A simple method to screen patients with diabetes is officially known world-wide as the Ipswich Touch Test (IpTT).  Dr Gerry Rayman MD, FRCP, Head of Service at the Diabetes Centre and diabetes consultant with his team at the Ipswich Hospital in Suffolk, England, designed this test.  Hence its name.      It is a test for neuropathy (malfunction of one or more peripheral nerves typically causing numbness or weakness) to detect the sensitivity in the toes of diabetic patients.  With clearly written instructions, this simple test can be used by non-professionals to accurately assess for loss of protective sensation.  The test involves lightly touching the tips of the first, third and fifth toes of both feet with the index finger to detect a loss in sensation.  The patient, who is not looking, just indicates when they can feel something.   The IpTT proved as reliable as tests using other screening methods involving sophisticated medical equipment to evaluate reflexes and feeling.  At the Ipswich Hospital, the use of this test resulted in the development of severe heel ulcers dropping by 62% in two years.  A less experienced clinician could now quickly assess a patient on first admission, and this procedure was soon rolled out across the UK, and is now used world-wide.    ips-wichita.com   A seemingly unintentional rendition of the ‘Ipswich’ name.  This is the e-mail address of Integrated Plastics Solutions (IPS) based at El Dorado, near Wichita, Kansas, USA.   This is a plastics recycling company begun in August 2008 by two brothers Brian J and Sean M Riley.  The company calls itself a full-service recycler specialising in all types of plastics, X-ray film and non-ferrous metals, as well as asset disposal of equipment specifically related to the plastics industry.  The company is presently (in 2015-16) experiencing difficulties with the law enforcement authorities.  In a plea bargaining decision, the company admitted that from 2009 to 2013, it knowingly stored hazardous waste without a permit at its facility in El Dorado.  The waste included paints and solvents, many of which were highly flammable and subject to flash fire or explosion if not properly stored.  Integrated Plastics Solutions LLC has been ordered to pay $97,612 in restitution along with a $10,000 fine after pleading guilty to a charge of unlawful storage of a hazardous waste, and the owners were ordered to each pay restitution of $118,807 in the case. Sean Riley was sentenced to 18 months of probation and Brian Riley was sentenced to three years of probation.  As at 2016 the county commissioners are requesting suitable clean-up and fencing requirements to their property before allowing the continuance of their permit of use. It is reported that the company was dissolved on 15 July 2021. Ipswich Street in a Californian Ghost Town  Palisades del Rey was a 1921 neighborhood land development by Dickinson & Gillespie who purchased a three-mile stretch of prime property along the seashore on the outskirts of Los Angeles in California.  The location later became called Playa del Rey (Spanish for “Beach of the King”).  All of the houses in this area were beachfront properties, custom built for Hollywood actors and producers, among them Cecil B. DeMille, with panoramic views over the sand dunes to the Pacific Ocean.  It was developed in the 1930s as “an isolated playground for the wealthy”. A small airfield was opened to the east of the development in 1928.  This was at first an added attraction as it became a popular location for residents to see air shows.  The city purchased it to be the municipal airfield in 1937.  It became the Los Angeles International Airport in 1949.  The development lay immediately west of the perimeter of what was to become one of the busiest airports in the world.  Many residents learned to co-exist with the noise from propeller planes from the growing number of commercial flights into Los Angeles following World War II.  However, jet engines were impossible to ignore when they began using the airport in the late 1950s.  In the 1960s and early 1970s, the area was condemned and acquired by the City of Los Angeles in a series of “eminent domain purchases” (in the UK known as “compulsory purchases”) to facilitate airport expansion and to address concerns about noise from jet aeroplanes.  Home owners were forced to sell their property to the city.  Several homeowners sued the city and remained in their houses for several years after the majority of houses were vacated.  Eventually all 800 houses were either moved or demolished.  Today one can see only barbed-wire fences protecting vacant land and old streets where houses once sat.  Ipswich Street is the third one up from the bottom edge of the photograph, right (the other street names all seem to have had a French flavour to them, so how the name Ipswich came to be used is a bit of a mystery).  This clearly shows the complete abandonment and dereliction of the of the former luxury estate as it looks today.  Weeds are thriving through the cracks, streets are still lined with their palm trees (see below). What’s left of demolished property can be found hidden behind thick bushes and disconnected power lines lie in the sun, but no-one is allowed there. The reason why the area remains desolate is because it is an 80-acre habitat for the endangered El Segundo blue butterfly.  It was found that there were only three colonies of this tiny butterfly still in existence.  The largest of these is in the grounds of the former development.  Ultimately, concerns about the butterfly superseded all other options for the property.  In 1976 the butterfly became a federally designated endangered species and the El Segundo Blue Butterfly Habitat Preserve now exists behind barbed wire to protect the species.  From the insects’ point of view, this story has a happy ending.  From fewer than 500 butterflies in 1976, it is now numbered in tens of thousands. The Ipswichian Interglacial Period The Ipswichian Interglacial is the name used in Britain for the second to latest interglacial period of the last ice age. Although different sources disagree on the approximate dates, the most commonly held belief is that the Ipswichian started between 135,000 & 130,000, & finished about 110,000 years ago. (Other sources give a start date as far back as 150,000, or an end as recent as 73,000 years ago).  Bobbits Lane - Part of Belstead Brook Park The Ipswichian Interglacial falls within the Pleistocene geological epoch of the Quaternary period & is so named in Britain because some of the first deposits were found in 1953 during excavation work in the Bobbits Lane area of southwest Ipswich, England. The period is also known as the Eemian in Northern Europe, the Riss-Würm in the Alps, the Mikulino in Eastern Europe & Russia, the Valdivia in Chile & the Sangamonian Stage in North America. It is thought that the period was on average 2-3 degrees centigrade warmer than today, with sea levels up to 20 ft higher. These warmer interludes that occurred during the ice age are thought to be due to changes in the Earth’s orbital parameters around the sun (known as Milankovitch cycles) which produce greater obliquity and orbital eccentricity.               At the start of the Ipswichian Interglacial, birch & pine forests predominated, with oak, maple, hazel & elm later becoming common. Later in the period, hornbeam became dominant, before the deciduous forests gave way to pine & birch as the climate once again became colder. Animals that occurred during the Ipswichian include hippopotamus, woolly mammoth, straight-tusked elephant, Merck’s rhinoceros, narrow-nosed rhinoceros, brown bear, steppe bison, lion, spotted hyaena & auroch, together with some species still with us today such as horse, red deer & fallow deer. Archaeologically, the Ipswichian Interglacial corresponds with the later part of the Middle Palaeolithic or Old Stone Age, a period during which various stone tools have been discovered at various sites throughout Europe, North Africa & the Near East. Referred to by archaeologists as Mousterian (after Le Moustier, a rock shelter in the Dordogne region of France), these artifacts are associated primarily with Neanderthal man ( Homo neanderthalensis ), a now extinct species in the genus Homo , closely related to modern humans. These finds include axes, knives & scraping tools, some of which show evidence of what is known as the Levallois technique; a distinctive type of stone knapping involving the striking of flakes from a prepared core.

Order of contents on this page: (Click on the links below) Food & Drink: Beers Named ‘Ipswich’ Ipswich Soda Pop Old Ipswich Rum Almost Ipswich - Food with Names Similar to Ipswich Games: Monopoly - Ipswich Edition   Scrabble Ipswich  Ipswich Fives Darts Board (aka Wide Fives Dart Board) Products: Ipswich & Double Ipswich - Sailcloth       The Ipswich Window “Ipswich” Range of Agricultural Machinery Ipswich - Glass Pattern by A.H. Heisey & Company Ipswich - China Pattern by J & G Meakin Ltd  Ipswich Pine - Wood Stain Ipswich Fog - Evangeline Ghastly Doll Ipswich Shoewear Brand Names Ipswich Screw Removal System (formerly Ipswich Nail Extractor Kit) Ipswich Eye Shadow The Gippeswyk Engine The Gyppeswyk Fountain Pen Ipswich (Motorcycle) Ipswitch – Trademark Ipswich Cottage – A Model Train Building Ipswich Weekender & Ipswich Day Pack adidas Ipswich Watch Beers Named ‘Ipswich’  Probably the best known use of “Ipswich” in the name of beer products is in those brewed by the Ipswich Ale Brewery in Ipswich, Massachusetts.  “Ipswich” is a brand name owned by the Mercury Brewing and Distribution Company and it is an integral part of the name of the product.  The brewing company has other beer brands that do not contain the name “Ipswich”, such as Stone Cat and Celia Saison.   Ipswich Ale Brewery is one of the oldest craft brewers in New England and began life as a microbrewery.  A craft brewery typically applies to a relatively small, independently-owned, commercial brewery that employs traditional brewing methods with an emphasis on flavour and quality.  A brewery is considered a microbrewery if it produces less than 15,000 barrels per year, with 75% or more of its beer sold off-site.  This threshold was surpassed by 2008 and Ipswich Ale Brewery now produces 24,000 barrels per year (2016). Today ‘beer’ and ‘ale’ are really synonomous terms.  Historically, ‘ale’ was a drink brewed without hops, and this still holds true to some extent in Britain.  In North America the name ‘ale’ is commonly applied to beers, particularly those with a bitter flavour and a high alcoholic content.  Ipswich Ale Brewery produces a vast range of different types of beer.  The names given to brews are often self-evident, indicating the major contributing flavour used in its production, its colour or type of beer.  There are a number of cases where it is not apparent why a name has been given to a particular brew and we have given an explanation, where known.  Ipswich Ale is particularly keen on trying continental European brews and some of these will be unfamiliar to the English-speaking world, so we have given the background to such beverages.   A brief glossary is given below of the main styles (names) of beer used by brewers. GlossaryPale ale (Bitter) and Dark ale  – This not only refers to the colour of the drink, but also to its strength.   Pale ale is one of the world’s major beer styles.  Today Pale Ale and Bitter (British usage) are more or less synonomous, and they vary in strength from 3% to 5% ABV.  Dark ales are malty beers generally above 5% ABV.    Session ale   is a North American term applied to pale ales with a low ABV up to 4.1%.   IPA (India Pale Ale)   stems from the 19th century when beers from England were exported to India and this type of pale ale proved the must palatable after the duration of a long journey.  Porter   was first used in 1722 to describe a dark brown beer that had been made with roasted malts and was extremely popular with street and river porters in London, hence its name. Stout   was first used in England in 1677 to describe a strong beer, not a dark beer.   “Stout Porter” was the strongest of this kind of beer, typically 7% or 8% ABV.   The term was later shortened to just ‘Stout’. Old ale and Stock ale   are used interchangeably today to describe high-alcohol dark ales.  Previously, such beers would have been kept for about a year. Barley wine   is a style of strong ale usually containing more than 6% ABV and traditionally reaches double figures, such as 11%. Imperial or Double  - The term "imperial" was used in the late 17th century for beer that was brewed in England but then shipped to the imperial court of Russia.  Brewers later started using the term more generally to indicate their top-of-the-line beer.  “Imperial" is an indication that the beer is going to be very strong regardless of the style.  The hops and malts used during brewing are doubled (hence the use of this term) and the resulting beer ranges from 8% to 12% ABV. Bock (Witzelsucht)  was originally a dark, malty ale brewed in the town of Einbeck since the 14th century and later became associated with a strong pale lager when that drink was invented in the 17th century.  In the Bavarian dialect, “Einbeck” was pronounced as “ein Bock” (“a billy goat”), and thus the beer became known as “bock”.  A goat often appears on bock labels as a visual pun, hence the alternative name of Witzelsucht, which in German means ‘an addiction to making wisecracks or puns’.   (ABV stands for Alcohol by Volume.  This is a standard formula, containing the difference between the original specific gravity and the final specific gravity, used by brewers to measure how much alcohol is contained in a given volume of an alcoholic beverage.  It is a key measure by which comparisons are made between the strengths of different beers.  We show this figure in brackets for each of the following brews.)     Ipswich Ale made its first brew in 1991, when the Ipswich Brewing Company, founded by Paul Sylva and Jim Beauvais, began producing Ipswich Original Ale (5.4% ABV) and Ipswich Dark Ale (6.3% ABV); both on draft and in bottles.  Over the next few years several new lines were added: in 1995  Ipswich IPA (6.3% ABV) and Ipswich Oatmeal Stout (7.0% ABV) - this is a stout with a high proportion of oats, up to a maximum of 30%, added during the brewing process ; in 1997 Ipswich 1084 Barley Wine (13.0% ABV) - the 1084 refers to the beer’s starting specific gravity; in 1998 Ipswich Nut Brown Ale (5.5% ABV) and Ipswich 1722 Commemorative Porter (5.9% ABV) - although usually referred to as Ipswich Porter, the full name is still retained on the label, 1722 being the traditional date when porter was first produced; in 1999 Ipswich E.S.B. (about 5.6% ABV) - E.S.B. stands for Extra Special Bitter.   Seasonal beers were introduced in 1997 with Ipswich Winter Ale (6.2% ABV), followed by Ipswich Summer Ale (4.9% ABV) in 2003 and, for the autumn/fall, Ipswich Harvest Ale (6.9%) in 2005.   All these early bottles of Ipswich Ale sport variations of the distinctive sailing ship label, indicative of the sea-going traditions of Ipswich; labels that are a far cry from the more colourful and distinctive ones of later years, particularly with the “limited edition” ales, as seen in some of them displayed here.  The beer was then produced by the company at its brewery, named the Ipswich Brewery, on an industrial estate in  Hayward Street, off Topsfield Road. In January 1999 the Ipswich Ale brand was purchased by United States Beverage, but the brewery remained separately owned and operated.  Later that same year, Rob Martin, then Director of Operations, who had been an employee of the company since 1995, purchased the Ipswich Brewing Company.  It was renamed the Mercury Brewing and Distribution Company in allusion to the ‘heavenly effect’ of a brew being likened to the “messenger to the gods” in ancient Roman mythology.  However, the new company was unable to purchase the name “Ipswich Ale”, so it had to contract out its services to other companies.  It did continue production of cask ales at Ipswich for United States Beverage on a contract basis, but the main bottle production centre of the brand was now at Baltimore.  Rob Martin had very little choice but to expand the company with other brands such as Stone Cat Ales and its own line of soda pop (see Ipswich Soda Pop ,below).  Four years later, in April 2003, Mercury (Rob Martin) purchased the Ipswich Ale brand from United States Beverage, and production of this brand name moved back to Ipswich and has remained with the brewery ever since.  Ipswich Ale is without doubt the flagship brand and, having purchased the name, the brewery now rightfully called itself the Ipswich Ale Brewery.  Two lines were discontinued: Ipswich 1084 Barley Wine in 2000 and Ipswich E.S.B. in 2003.  Otherwise the all-year-round and seasonal ales continued to keep the brewery in business.  In 2007 Mercury brought out its first limited edition ales with its three “Whiskey Barrel-aged” strong ales: Ipswich Whiskey Barrel-aged Dark Ale (6.3% ABV), Ipswich Whiskey Barrel-aged Oatmeal Stout (7.0% ABV), and Ipswich Whiskey Barrel-aged Scotch Ale (7.5% ABV).  For the most part, a barrel-aged beer is going to be a fuller flavoured version of the base beer, thanks to the flavours imparted by the barrel itself and, of course, whatever residue of the beverage that lived in that barrel beforehand.  Each individual barrel has its own distinct character and is thus difficult to replicate in future brews, and when the barrel is empty that is the end of that particular brew.  In 2009 Mercury brou ght out another limited edition series of ales starting with Ipswich Choate Bridge Imperial Stout (8.0% ABV) to celebrate the 375th anniversary of the founding of the town of Ipswich.  The aim was to release a series of four strong ales in limited quantity.  In each series, only 800 bottles of beer were brewed.  This was followed throughout 2009 by Ipswich Castle Hill Summer Barley Wine (10.0% ABV), Ipswich Hosiery Mill Double IPA (9.2% ABV), and Ipswich Whipple House Old Ale (9.3% ABV), this last-named also being whiskey barrel-aged.  All ales commemorated a distinctive, long established feature of the town.  Other limited edition ales produced include Ipswich 20th Anniversary Imperial Pale Ale (8.0% ABV) in 2011 and Ipswich 21st Anniversary Imperial Dark Ale (8.2% ABV) in 2012 to celebrate the 20th and 21st anniversaries of the Ipswich Ale Brewery.  In 2013 an Ipswich Red Ale (5.2% ABV) was brewed exclusively for all sporting and concert events at the TD Garden arena in Boston.  In 2011 Mercury returned to the series concept when they established the ‘Local Harvest Five Mile’ limited edition with the sole purpose of creating beers using local ingredients.  The aim was to use at least 50% ingredients from Massachusetts while always having at least one ingredient from within five Miles of the brewery.  The first of the series that year was Ipswich Local Harvest Five Mile Stock Ale (6.4% ABV).  This was followed in 2012 by Ipswich Local Harvest Five Mile Pumpernickel Rye Porter (8.0% ABV), Ipswich Local Harvest Five Mile Corn Bock (6.8% ABV), Ipswich Local Harvest Five Mile Rye Saison (6.4% ABV) and Ipswich Local Harvest Five Mile Hop Harvest India Pale Ale (6.4% ABV).  In 2013 the last of the six was produced - Ipswich Local Harvest Five Mile Equinox Ale (4.8% ABV) – the name ‘Equinox’ was chosen to indicate an equal 50-50% split between the use of local State and non-State ingredients.  These six were brewed only once, and they used a common label design (see above).  This was the first time that the Ipswich name was not displayed prominently, although it appears in smaller print at the bottom.  Nevertheless, all are listed by the brewery with “Ipswich” as the brand name first. With 40% of its business now in contract brewing and its own brands selling well, Mercury Brewing needed to find larger premises.  In 2008 it bought the downtown location of the former Soffron Brothers clam-processing plant at Brown Square (see Ipswitch - Trademark , below).  Unfortunately, the recession delayed plans to transfer the brewery, and it was not until 2012 that construction work began.  In September 2013, the Ipswich Ale Brewery opened at its new location.  The building lies off Brown Square on what used to be called Soffron Lane, but has been renamed Brewery Place.  The new brewing facility is about 3½ times the size of the original brewery, and the company has been able to double its production.  It also includes the Ipswich Ale Brewer’s Table restaurant and bar on the first floor (see Ipswich in the Names of Public Houses, Bars & Inns etc. , above). With the move to a new brewery having been settled, Mercury focused on releasing new additions to the regular brews with Ipswich Rye Porter (6.3% ABV) in 2012 and, two years later, two more appeared: Ipswich Route 101 IPA (6.0% ABV) - this was named for the 1,550 mile U.S. Route 101 that spans the Pacific coastline to acknowledge that this was a west coast style IPA; and Ipswich S.I.P.A. (3.9% ABV) - the initials stand for ‘Session India Pale Ale’.  The seasonal beers were also added to in January 2015 with a new departure into European continental beers and lagers with the introduction of Ipswich Revival (6.5% ABV).  It is advertised as: “Our interpretation of a golden hued Belgian-style saison imbued with fruity yeast esters and hop aroma”.  It is generally considered to be a standard Belgian blond rather than a traditional saison: originating from the farmhouses in Wallonia, the French-speaking region of Belgium, traditionally brewed during the winter months then later released in the spring for the seasonal workers.  Hence the name: ‘saison’ is French for ‘season’.  This was followed by Ipswich Blueberry Shandy (5.4% ABV) appearing as a summer drink – ‘shandy’ is beer mixed with a soft drink, sometimes called a ‘fruit beer’.  Ipswich Pumpkin Porter (5.4% ABV), although released earlier in 2015, is considered a seasonal beer for autumn (fall), along with Ipswich Hop Harvest Ale (7.0% ABv), and finally in November 2015 Ipswich Ruby Red IPA (5.5% ABV) was released as the seasonal beer for winter. To celebrate the opening of its restaurant the Brewer’s Table series was created.  As with earlier series, these were all brewed in small batches with limited release.  These beers were available for consumption at the on site restaurant and were only provided to selected speciality retailers.  The first was Ipswich Route 1A Double IPA (8% ABV) released in December 2015 exclusively for the opening of the Ipswich Ale Brewer’s Table.  Route 1A is the local north-south highway in Massachusetts.  This was followed over the next three months by Ipswich Dry Irish Stout (4.4% ABV) and Ipswich Barley Wine (10.5% ABV). In June 2016 Ipswich Cranberry Beret (5.0% ABV) was produced to celebrate the opening of the outdoor patio, and it was included with the other summer seasonal beers of Ipswich Ale.  It is technically a ‘kettle soured  ale’.  Sour ale has an intentionally acidic, tart or sour taste.  Making sour beer is a risky and specialised form of beer brewing that the Belgians are traditionally best at, but the time (can take over a year to brew properly), costliness, and potential for error put off a lot of breweries from emulating the Belgians.  ‘Kettle souring’ is a relatively new method of brewing that cuts down the cost and time by boiling the brew in a temperature controlled kettle to bring the beer down to a low acidity level in a matter of days and wit hout the risk of cross contamination.  In this brew the kettle soured ale is fermented on top of pureed cranberries.   The name ‘Beret’ has been borrowed from a cocktail (the Raspberry Beret), only invented in 2008, at the Waldorf Astoria, New York, and named after the 1985 hit single by Prince and the Revolution. This name is now given to drinks with a sharp contrast between a white head in a red or pinkish body, like the red beret headwear that has a large white pompom in its centre.  A photo of the Ipswich Cranberry Beret is shown above, whilst the label (see right) shows a cartoon image of Prince (Prince Rogers Nelson, 1958-2016).   In March 2016, in celebration of Ipswich Ale’s 25th Anniversary, Ipswich Riverbend Pils (4.4% ABV), was released.  This Pilsner uses proper German malt, traditional Czech Saaz hops and a touch of Lemondrop hops for a bright aroma.  The world’s first-ever blond lager was the Pilsner Urquell, first produced in 1842 in the town of Plzeň, Czech Republic.  This is the inspiration for more than two-thirds of the beer produced in the world today (which are still called pils, pilsner and pilsener).  This brew also had limited availability and was given its name because a portion of the sales of the beer was donated to the Ipswich River Watershed Association, who work to protect the river system that is the source of the area’s drinking water. The European beers theme continued throughout 2016 with continued limited releases of Ipswich iBelge (4.8% ABV), a Belgian farmhouse pale ale, the name combining a small ‘i’ for ‘inspiration’ with the French for ‘Belgian’.  It should be noted that Rob Martin is a well-known enthusiast of Belgian beers.  Then came Ipswich Smoked Helles (Witzelsucht) (4.3% ABV).  This is a lightly smoked pale lager traditionally based on Bamberg in Germany.  Helles  is German for ‘light’ or ‘pale’ referring to the colour of the lager.  Smoked beer is a type of beer with a distinctive smoke flavour imparted by using malted barley dried over an open flame.  Witzelsucht is an alternative name for Bock, as mentioned in the Glossary to this article.  Then there is Ipswich Hefeweizen (4.9% ABV), a German yeast ( hefe ) beer with 50% malted wheat to the same amount of malted barley, the high yeast content giving it a cloudy appearance.  It has a low hop bitterness and a high carbonation causing a fizzy head to the beer.  Finally, Ipswich Chucktoberfest (6.1% ABV) was the seasonal offering.  A German style amber lager known as a Märzenbier (March beer), traditionally drunk in the fall (O ktoberfest) apparently “with your best friend Chuck”.  This lager originated in Bavaria before the 16th century.  At that era beer was only allowed to be brewed between September and April, so the Märzen was brewed in March to a special recipe that would allow the beer to last during the months when brewing was forbidden. The beer was kept in the cellar until late summer, and came out to be served at the Oktoberfest.  In 2017 Ipswich Farm House (4.8% ABV) was made available (see image, right).  This is described as a “dry hopped Belgian style saison” and would appear to be the same brew as the earlier Ipswich iBelge.  It can only be sampled in the brewery tap-room and Ipswich Ale Brewer’s Table restaurant.  The popularity of pilsner led to the brewery producing Ipswich Pilsner (4.6% ABV) in early 2016.  This is an “American pilsner”.  This type of beer, derived from the traditional European pilsner, was developed in the late 19th century to provide a lighter lager better suited to the hotter summers in America.  Different combinations of corn and rice were added to the malt and a recognisable American ‘standard’ emerged.  In September 2016 Ipswich Radler (2.7% ABV) appeared.  The name is German for ‘cyclist’ and this type of brew originated in Bavaria.  It is a shandy made from a blend of Ipswich (American) Pilsner and in-house lemonade.    As mentioned above, by the early 20th century, US brewers had adopted corn and rice as suitable adjuncts to traditional barley malt.  Corn and rice could smooth out the flavour and reduce the haze without adding body; it also enabled beers to be produced more cheaply.  This resulted in a distinctive American type of lager that was not full of additives as found in many of today’s mainstream factory-made lagers.  Prohibition (1920 to 1933) resulted in the loss of these distinctive lagers.  In the late 20th century, a move began among home-brewers to attempt to reproduce lagers that they considered to have greater character and a more distinct flavour as in “Pre-Prohibition” days.  It was not long before the craft breweries followed suit and named their products accordingly.  Hence, in October 2005 there appeared the Mercury Pre-Prohibition Lager (6.3% ABV) described as an “Imperial Pils” or “Strong Pale Lager”.  In 2015 this type of brew was recognised as an “Historic Beer and a Pre-Prohibition Lager”.  Ipswich Ale thus revived the earlier brew as Ipswich Ale Pre-Prohibition Commemorative Lager (see image, right). In July 2016 a new regular brew named Ipswich Cream Ale was released.  It is described as being “slightly maltier than a pilsner”. Ipswich Zumatra Stout (22 oz bottle), the brewery’s first “coffee beer” was released in November 2016.  A hint of coffee is  common for stouts and porters, particularly those produced by dark malts.  However, “coffee stouts” or “coffee beers” are brewed with actual coffee.  The first commercial brew was produced in 1994, but it was not until after 2010 that this type of beer gained in popularity.  It is now essential for American breweries to have at least one “coffee beer” in its product range.  Ipswich Ale teamed up with a notable Ipswich coffeehouse, Zumi’s Expresso, to create this blend of the classic Oatmeal Stout with a rich, earthy cold brew made from Sumatran coffee beans.  The name indicates its origins and “hints of dark chocolate, coffee and roasty goodness”.  The label (left) reflects Nepal, the homeland of Zumi, with its prayer flags stretching from rock pinnacles against a background of the Himalayas.  In December 2016 a limited edition Double IPA (DIPA) was released named Melon Collie (7.5% ABV).  It is dry-hopped with melon, lemon drop, and Mandarina Bavarian hops which result in a fruity aroma and melon-like taste.  In February 2017, Ipswich Jax Stout (9.1% ABV), an English-style Imperial Stout Aged on Oak Chips, had a very limited release.  Oak was commonly used to barrel beer and this gave the brew a distinct flavour.  Oak chips, held like wood shavings in a bag, try to emulate this flavour.  The small chips have a large surface area which delivers the oak flavour to the beer quickly.  This seems to have been a promotional brew done in liaison with Jax Games, the board game manufacturer, since the advertisement for the day of release states that “ Jax games will be available to play; nothing brings a family together like a great board game ”.   In April 2017 a new all year round brew came out, Ipswich Trailblazer (4.5% ABV), an amber hued American pale ale, well balanced with a touch of Mandarina and Lemon Drop dry hops.   In July 2017 Ipswich Bramble-On Kettle Sour Ale (5% ABV) was released in limited quantities in kegs as well as four packs of 16 ounce cans.  It is made with blackberry puree and is kettle soured with a special lactobacillus yeast blend; it is described as a fusion of fruity, sweet, and tart.  The name is a pun on the source of the blackberries (brambles) and  “ramble-on” in the sense of to talk or walk in a leisurely, but aimless manner. It seems that Ipswich Ale has begun a themed line of beers centred on the historic events a round the town of Ipswich and New England.  Ipswich 1620 (6.3% ABV) came out in August 2017 as an all-year round brew.  It is described as “ Hazy with a rainbow of hop aromas and flavours, this New England IPA features Mosaic, Citra, Amarillo, and Idaho 7 hops, with a full body that is sure to please ”.  We can only speculate that the skeleton of the Pilgrim Father can endorse this beer on the basis that he needs “a new body”.  The name of the beer, of course, refers to the year when the Pilgrim Fathers arrived in America. ‘New England IPA’ was originally considered a variety of an American IPA, but since 2015 has become a recognised style in its own right.  The New England IPA can be traced back to the release of a Vermont beer called “Heady Hopper” in 2011 that soon had a cult following.  The original IPA was a brew developed in Britain that was heavily-hopped and had a higher ABV to survive the six month voyage to India.  Over time there was less need to continue this process as journey times improved, and the English IPA became a weaker version of its original.  The Americans then introduced complex flavours using American hops to develop their own IPA with higher ABVs.  The New England IPA is basically an American IPA that is characterised by juicy, tropical, citrus, and floral flavours, and has a less piney hop taste than typical IPAs.  They are heavily dry hopped using high-protein grains that gives this New England IPA a hazy appearance that ranges from slightly cloudy to opaque or muddy. They have less perceived bitterness than other popular American IPAs. In January 20 18 a new barley wine was released, Ipswich Hellbound (11.8% ABV), with another historic theme .  The promotional blurb and graphical depiction on the can says it all: “ In the midst of the uneasy peace in 1740, a religious revival swept across New England, it was known as the Great Awakening.  Legend says that preacher George Whitfield’s powerful sermon filled the congregation of Ipswich’s First Church with a horrible sense of their sin.  The devil, lurking among the pews, was so pained by the preacher’s words he charged up the steeple stairs and leapt to the Town Green below.  A footprint left by the prince of darkness can still be found burned into the rocky ledge to this day… Our take on an American barley wine goes down smooth, but packs a devilishly bold punch.  It’s slightly sweet with lingering hints of raisins and caramel. ”             Launched in January 2018 as their seasonal winter beer, Ipswich Knit Wit (4.8% ABV) was a wheat beer described as “dry-hopped blood orange wit”, a deplorable pun for “wheat” beer on a knitted orange background.Also released in January 2018 was Ipswich Sauvin Blanc (5.0%) described as “Our dreamy new kettle sour ale, drinks like a tart New Zealand white wine with notes of peach and pear from the Nelson Sauvin and Hallertau Blanc dry hops”.    In April 2018 a new year-round German Pilsner was released called Ipswich Pesky Pils (4.6% ABV).  German malt with traditional Czech Saaz hops have a touch of lemondrop hops added to give a clean, golden yellow lager.  It is described as having a light to medium body, with a sweet toasted biscuit and corn bread taste that has a mild, bitter end. There is a Pink Boots Society for female brewers, founded in 2007 by Teri Fahrendorf and inspired by the footwear she was wearing at that time.  Since its inception, the organisation has flourished with chapters all over the country and overseas.  Arguably its largest campaign is its annual “Pink Boots Collaboration Brew Day®” which celebrates International Women’s Day which is on 8 March each year.  Chapters and members of the Pink Boots Society get together along with supporting breweries, put on their pink boots and brew their chosen beer style.  Proceeds from sales of this collaboration brew are applied to educational scholarships and the raising of women’s roles in the beer industry.  In 2018  the Ipswich Pink Boots Brew (6.3% ABV) was released.  This New England style IPA featured the Pink Boots Society hop blend chosen for 2018: Palisade, Simcoe, Mosaic, Citra and Loral. In 2019 the Ipswich Route 101 West Coast Style IPA with Hibiscus (6% ABV) had this honour.  Naturally, pink is the prominent colour in these two labels.    Ipswich Norm’s IPA (6.3% ABV) - a full-bodied New England IPA and Ipswich Norm’s Pilsner (no ABV) are two beers brewed by Ipswich Ale especially for the Cheers Bar, Beacon Hill neighbourhood, in Boston, and can only be drunk at that location.  They have been available from June and August 2018 respectively.  Originally founded in 1969 as the Bull and Finch pub, it is best remembered internationally as the exterior of the bar seen in the hit NBC show Cheers , which ran from 1982 to 1993 and remains one of America’s best loved situation comedies of all time.  In 2002, the Bull and Finch pub was officially renamed “Cheers Beacon Hill”.   “Norm” Peterson was a fictional character in Cheers .  The character was portrayed by George Wendt.  Norm was one of only three characters to appear in every episode of Cheers .  Norm is the most loyal customer Cheers  has had since anyone can remember and always sits on the same stool at the bar every day.  Norm’s entrance into the bar and the enormous size of his tab at Cheers  are running gags.  His mannerisms and sayings have entered folklore, hence the use of his name as a promotional aid. In August 2018 there were two more releases.  An Ipswich Rustic Farmhouse (4.8% ABV) had the same image as the 2017 Ipswich Farm House (see above) but in a brown colouring instead of blue, presumably because brown is more readily associated with farming and the soil.  The second release was Ipswich Passion Pils (4.4% ABV).  A pilsner described as loaded with passion fruit puree, this hazy unfiltered pilsner starts with a malty, tart wallop followed by a clean, crisp finish.   Ipswich Doubletake IPA (7.5% ABV), released in September 2018 is a Double India Pale Ale “with a rich palate of pineapple & mango”.  That’s what the label says (see below right).    Also released in September 2018 was the latest kettle sour ale: Ipswich Bohemian Raspberry (5% ABV).  This is described as “a delightfully tart kettle soured ale fermented atop puréed raspberries.  Ipswich Bohemian Raspberry is a killer beer, a new brew elevated to rock star status.  Be a champion of the world and drink a crazy little beer called Bohemian Raspberry.”  The iconic image of the back of Freddie Mercury working the audience should be enough to make this a collector’s item!          Two seasonal ales followed in November 2018.   Ipswich Spruce (6.1% ABV) is an IPA brew of hops and spruce tips, the latter providing “a hint of fruity sweetness and mint”.   Ipswich Sled Dog (5.2% ABV) is a Winter Ale with a “balance of bready malt and English-style hop bitterness”.  The latter is a limited release that can only be sampled in the brewery tap-room.     In January 2019 another winter special became available. Ipswich Defrost (7.7% ABV) is a Weizenbock style ale.  Weizenbocks are essentially winter wheat beers, originally brewed in Bavaria.  The colour can be pale gold to brown.  They are of a higher alcoholic strength which provides a warming personality, though they should still have a significant head when poured.  “Defrost” is described as “iconic German yeast flavours of clove and banana against a rich, complex malt base with notes of chocolate and dark fruit”.    In February 2019 a special edition of a Vienna-style lager was swiftly on sale called Ipswich Brady’s Revenge! (4.7% ABV).  Below the image of Tom Brady holding up the Lombardi Trophy were the words “The sweet taste of victory”.  The lager was just described as “Light, golden, and crisp with just a hint of malty sweetness. Victory never tasted so good.” Americans need no e xplanation for this image and these words, but the rest of the world will want to know what it is all about. Tom Brady is an American football quarterback who spent his first 20 seasons with the New England Patriots, the professional American football team based in the Greater Boston area.  Brady is widely considered to be the greatest quarterback of all time.  The Vince Lombardi Trophy is the trophy awarded each year to the winning team of the National Football League’s championship game, the Super Bowl.  The trophy is named in honour of NFL coach Vince Lombardi (1913-1970) who coached the Green Bay Packers to victories in the first two Super Bowl games and five NFL Championships in seven years. In the 2018 season the New England Patriots  defeated the Los Angeles Rams in the Super Bowl championship on 3 February 2019.  With this victory, the Patriots became the second NFL team to win six Super Bowls, tying the Pittsburgh Steelers for the most in NFL history.  In addition, Brady became the oldest quarterback at 41 years of age to win a Super Bowl, as well as the first player ever to win six Super Bowls (he subsequently won a seventh).  His “revenge” was that in the previous 2017 season he had been on the losing side in the Super Bowl.  Ipswich Ch-Ch-Ch Cherry Bomb (5.0% ABV) was launched in March 2019.  It is a tart kettle sour ale fermented on top of 250 lbs of sweet dark cherry puree. Some reports say it is a “fruit punch in beer form” and it “smells greatly of cherry but more of straight sour than cherry flavor”.    The second 1620 Pilgrimage Series (see Ipswich 1620, above) released in June 2019 is named Ipswich Southern Cross (6.3% ABV) and introduces New Zealand hop variants, including Crosby Hop Farm’s New Zealand Kiwi Blend, to the 1620 New England Style IPA as the base beer.  The New Zealand hops are said “to bring a piney, citrusy brightness to this brew”.  The Southern Cross constellation in the southern hemisphere was used for navigation by the early explorers of the South Pacific.  We are not sure whether the explorers should be considered “pilgrims”, but nonetheless accept that they are in need of some body from this brew. Ipswich Night Watch Black IPA (6.3% ABV) released in November 2019 is the third release in the 1620 Pilgrimage Series that celebrates longer nights and cooler days (see Ipswich 1620 and Ipswich Southern Cross above). It is described as a “Cascadian Dark Ale (CDA)”.  With the revival and world-wide popularity of the India Pale Ale style, it only seemed a matter of time before a dark version of the same style would emerge.  This happened in the late 2000s with a brew that had roasted malt with coffee or chocolate overtones and citrusy hop flavours, often from Cascade hops.  In January 2010, a group of Pacific North West brewers coined this CDA term where the brew uses the hops that come from the area known as Cascadia, i.e. Oregon, Washington, British Columbia and Idaho. It is said to have a fresh, piney hop aroma with a bitter, roasty coffee flavour that pours a smooth, inky black hue that is as “dark as the northwoods night sky”. The image (right) continues the skeletal theme of the 1620 series and is supposed to be “a dreamer who can only find his way by moonlight”.      Ipswich Ale 1920 Dry Hopped Lager (4.6% ABV) was released in August 2020 to coincide with the 1ooth anniversary of women getting the right to vote after the 19th Amendment to the Constitution was ratified on 18 August 1920.        Ipswich Celia Saison (ABV 6.5%) has a somewhat different derivation.  It is a gluten-free saison ale that was first introduced in July 2009 by The Alchemist, a microbrewery in Waterbury, Vermont.  It was specifically aimed at those drinkers who suffer from Celiac disease, hence its chosen brand name.  (In British English it is spelt as Coeliac disease.)  Celiac disease (or ‘gluten-sensitive enteropathy’) is an immune reaction to eating gluten, a protein found in wheat, barley and rye.  If somebody has celiac disease, eating gluten triggers an immune response that can damage the small intestine and leads to anaemia and skin problems.  In August 2011 Hurricane Irene hit Vermont and The Alchemist brewery was devastated by floods and had to close down.  The brewery sold its recipe and all rights to Ipswich Ale Brewery.  Ipswich Ale continued the brand in its familiar bottle, using the same image of “Celia”, a reclining nude holding a bunch of grapes on top of oranges and grapes, all beside a large wine vase.  This label was retained without the normal “Ipswich” prefix to preserve brand loyalty.  However, as sufficient time elapsed, it began to be advertised as Ipswich Celia Saison from 2014.  From 2017 a canned version of the brew has been introduced and this has the normal “Ipswich” format.  Nevertheless, the bottled version still continues as it was when The Alchemist produced the beer (See images left and right). This gluten-free saison-style ale is made with sorghum and brewed with orange peel.  It has a thick, cloudy light orange colour and the consistency of a thick juice.    ***Since 2020 Ipswich Ale has changed its distinctive style of labelling for its beers.  Before 2020 the name ‘Ipswich’ was usually shown as part of the title for a particular brew and was therefore considered part of the name of the beer.  Hence, it was always shown under the letter ‘I’ in beer lists.  From 2020 Ipswich Ale has followed the practice of other breweries and now places its full name “Ipswich Ale Brewery” as a separate feature from the brand name on its labels.  The difference can be seen in the image next to “Ipswich Ale 1920 Dry Hopped Lager” released in August 2020.  Furthermore, recent beer lists have placed the products in their normal alphabetical order with the brewery name shown in a separate column.  We are recognising this change by not including further beer releases of Ipswich Ale Brewery on this page, unless ‘Ipswich’ is obviously an integral part of the brand name.***    Also available since 1998 is Ipswich Ale Stone Ground Mustard, made with Ipswich Oatmeal Stout.We must not forget what is on offer in the Ipswich Ale Brewer’s Table restaurant: the Ipswich Ale Oatmeal Stout Ice Cream Float, described by one food critic as a “unique dessert that looks yummy”.  A scoop of vanilla or chocolate ice cream in a big mug with the oatmeal stout beer poured over it.  (See also Ipswich Soda Pop , below)   Wine Spectator Magazine has named Ipswich Original Ale as one of the ‘World’s Ten Best Beers’ Unfortunately, Ipswich Ale is only available in the New England/North Eastern USA region.  However, if anyone would like to send over some free samples........?!! ****  On the other side of the Atlantic, in Ipswich, England, Dove Street Brewery produce a wide variety of ales, two of which have “Ipswich” in the name:  Old Ipswich Liquor is a 5.5% ABV ale with chocolate and liquorice notes & a well rounded finish. Ipswich Pale Ale is described as a traditional strong IPA with an ABV of 6.6% Also worthy of mention is their 4% ABV Incredible Taste Fantastic Clarity beer, the initials spelling out ITFC as a tribute to Ipswich Town Football Club. This ale is described as a golden hoppy beer which is clean, clear & crisp. Established in 2011, as the name suggests, the Dove Street Brewery is situated on Dove Street (off St Helens Street close to the centre of Ipswich).  Opposite is the Dove Street Inn, which is currently the only outlet for the brewery’s ales. Also in Ipswi ch, England is the Briarbank Brewing Company, situated in a former bank premises in Fore Street, adjacent to the Isaacs-on-the-Quay complex on the Waterfront. Amongst a wide variety of ales brewed here is their IPA, which in this case stands for Ipswich Pale Ale (3.6% ABV). It is described as a hoppy chestnut ale with a citrus aroma. This same brew also goes under the name of Briarbank SPA. SPA stands for Suffolk Pale Ale. (See Beers & Cyders Named ‘Suffolk’ section on www.planetsuffolk.com ) Other beers produced include Briar Bitter, Briar Lager, Cardin‘ale’ Wolsey, Old Spiteful & Suffolk Pride.They also produce Gippeswyk Cider at 6.0 ABV, which is a  sweet cider produced from a blend of seven types of apples.    Another play on the IPA name and Ipswich was a brew produced by Bartrams Brewery.  This was a micro-brewery started by Marc Bartram in 1999, located at Rougham Airfield, Bury St Edmunds. (For more information, see www.planetsuffolk.com , Misc. page - Beers  & Cyders Named ‘Suffolk’.)  The postcode (ZIP code) of the brewery was IP30, the initials standing for ‘Ipswich’.  Kevin McHenry, a brewing colleague of Marc Bartram, came up with the idea that, since the postcode is IP30, why not brew an IPA with ingredients sourced from within a 30 mile radius?  Thus, IP(30)A (6.8% ABV) was born.  It was originally brewed as a ‘one-off’ for the inaugural Yaxley Beer Festival, Cambridgeshire, in 2014 with a sack of hops from the Glemham Hall estate, near Woodbridge, Suffolk.  However, next year when some surpus barley from another estate nearby to the brewery became available, Marc went back to the Glemhall Hall estate for hops, and the rest as they say “is history”. Unfortunately, so is Bartrams Brewery as Marc Bartram decided that “the market for real ales is ‘saturated’” and closed his business in March 2018.    Ipswich Bright (3.8% ABV) and Ipswich Pride (3.7% ABV) were two real ale brews produced by St Jude’s Brewery in Ipswich, England.  A third brew used the old name for Ipswich and was called Gypeswic Bitter (4.4% ABV)  (see label, left).  St Jude’s was a micro-brewery started in 2006 by Frank and Colleen Walsh from their home in Cardigan Street, Ipswich.  It opened its first pub in Ipswich in February 2011 (St Jude’s Brewery Tavern on St Matthew’s Street), and another outlet was opened in Felixstowe in December 2011.  Unfortunately the economic downturn hit micro-breweries hard and this venture was closed in May 2012 and these beers were retired.  However, popular demand was such that the brewery and the St Jude’s Brewery Tavern re-opened in September 2012 and they are still going in 2018.  Unfortunately, the beers named above were not revived.   Another Ipswich Pride (4.2% ABV) and Ipswich Special Bitter (original gravity 1042) were two brews produced by the celebrated Ipswich brewery Tolly Cobbold. The Tolly Cobbold brewery on Cliff Quay in Ipswich was taken over by Brent Walker, a property, gambling and brewing conglomerate in 1988.  This organisation closed down the brewery in 1989, after 256 years of brewing at the site.  However, a management buyout in 1990 saved the brewery and to celebrate its first anniversary and return to brewing as an independent regional brewer, it launched a cask beer, Ipswich Pride, for the Ipswich Beer Festival 1991, followed later by Ipswich Special Bitter.  Unfortunately, this ‘second coming’ was not to last and the brewery finally closed in 2002. On the other side of the world, in Ipswich, Queensland, the Four Hearts Brewing Company launched  Ipswich Challenger in 2012, a light strength at 2.9% ABV, but full-bodied pale ale using the English hop variety Challenger and an English yeast.Founded by Wade Curtis in December 2008, the Four Hearts Brewing Company produce their ales in small batches with no preservatives or chemicals. The brewery was based at Peak Crossing, a rural community 12 miles south of Central Ipswich, which was part of Ipswich until 2008 (for details see City of Ipswich, Queensland - Land Lost to Other Jurisdictions  section on The Ones That Got Away page).  In March 2015 Wade Curtis moved to Ipswich and opened a brewery and restaurant (the Pumpyard Bar & Brewery) at 88 Limestone Street.  This is the first working brewery in Ipswich since 1903 when the Booval Brewery closed (1898-1903).  The Pumpyard takes its name from the natural spring that was located on the site back in 1862, when residents of Ipswich were allowed to fill four buckets of water per day for free. Townsville Ipswich Challenger has just appeared on the scene in early 2017.  It is described as a pale lager (2.9% ABV) whereas the Four Hearts Ipswich Challenger above is definitely a pale ale.  It is brewed by the Townsville Brewing Company in the city of that name in north-eastern Queensland.  This release is too early to have much information about it, so we do not know if there is a direct link between the two brewing companies or whether this name is being used under a special licensing agreement.  The Townsville Brewing Company has been brewing six regular beers plus various seasonal releases since opening in 2001.  It occupies the old Townsville Post Office built in 1886 (on the Queensland Heritage Register from 2003).  In 2001 it was redeveloped by the Townsville Brewing Company as a brewery, restaurant and function centre.  Bremer Brewing is a Brisbane company mainly into the production of home brewing kits.  Unlike most ot her beer kits which only use hop extract, Bremer Brewing boils in fresh hops, resulting in a real hop bitterness, flavour and aroma that is found in the finest beers around the world.  It also has on tap a selection of their brews that they have numbered in order.  Since 2019 there has been number 2 Ipswich Australian Pale Ale (5.2% ABV), seen in photo, left.   An Ipswich Rail Trip (7.9%) by the Evil Dad’s Brewery is a Belgian strong golden ale recorded in January 2016.  This home brewery is in Wellington, New Zealand, and is still producing beers in 2021.  Other than this, we can tell you nothing more.  The Smiling Toad Brewery is a micro-brewery founded in 2015 at Colorado Springs, Colorado, USA.  In June 2017 it released a brew named Ipswich (6.4% ABV), an American pale ale.  Ipswitch Ale (6.9% ABV) is an English IPA brewed by Smooth Sail Ales, a home brewery in the USA.  It seems that only one brew was ever made in 2016 as the brewer states “Last of these, a few changes next time I make it”.  The location is probably in New Hampshire since the venues where the beers of this brewery are drunk are all in that state.  If so, it is presumed that New Ipswich was in mind.  We have not seen a label so cannot say whether the name was really spelt with a ‘t’; it seems that not much else was right about this one, so best forgotten. The next three are recorded on lists of beer names, but we have been unable to corroborate the brew or the breweries concerned. Duke of Ipswich Porter (5% ABV) by Fowler’s Fine Ales.  An English porter released in June 2015.  This is said to be by an American home brewery, but we have been unable to identify it or its whereabouts.  Since most of the beers produced by this home brewery are consumed at Duke’s Pub & Grill which is at Tyngsborough, Massachusetts, we assume that this brewery must be in that state.  Ipswich and Tyngsborough are only 30 miles apart, and it could be that the name of the beer is related to the name of the pub and the nearby town of Ipswich. Ipswitch ESB (4.6% ABV), an Extra Strong Bitter released in July 2017 by Old Colonel’s Brewery.  Another American home brewery for which we have no clues.  The name is spelt with a ‘t’ in all the beer lists. Ipswitch IPA (6.1% ABC) brewed by Marcs Home Brew Hop Factory of Happiness.  Four beers are credited to this American home brewery in January 2014.  The place name has a ‘t’ in it.  This may be deliberate to distinguish this IPA from the other American IPA brewed by Ipswich Ales.  Despite the evocative name of this home brewery, we have been unable to pinpoint its location. Another Ipswich IPA (5.25% ABV) is recorded by drinkers at the Whale’s Tail Brewery from 2013 to 2018.  We cannot envisage why this name has been given to a home brew by this small craft brewery considering it is in Uvita, Costa Rica, and was established by an Italian and his business partner who was of Hungarian-German parentage.  Gian Michele Pace came from the mountains of Abruzzo in Italy.  His passions are craft beer and Blues music.  He had been running his own brewery in Italy for years, then he discovered Uvita’s beautiful environment on the Pacific coast of Costa Rica.  He decided to stay and put his experience and passion for handcrafted beer into action.  He met up with Peter Marschall (who unfortunately died in 2020).  Peter was a movie producer from Budapest who considered that the jungle and the quality of its water would make excellent constituents in the brewing process.  Together both men founded the Whale Tail Brewery in 2017, bringing European beer styles to this part of the world. We should mention that this brewery has nothing to do with the Whale’s Tale beers (note the different spelling of the second word) of Cisco Brewers on Nantucket Island whose Whale’s Tale Pale Ale is their flagship English style pale ale. IP1 (Ipswich Pilsner One) (4.2% ABV) is an imported Belgian pilsner and the house beer for the Arcade Street Tavern in Ipswich, England since August 2015.  It is a brew of the Brewery Huyghe in the town of Melle in Belgium.  The site of the brewery has been in operation since 1654.  In 1906 Léon Huyghe purchased the existing brewery.  In 1925 he was joined by his son Albert and son-in-law Louis Droesbeque and the brewery was officially re-named.  While the company initially brewed a regular pilsner, it soon began brewing the kinds of beers now typically known as “Belgian”, including a series of beers under the ‘Delirium’ tag, with pink elephants on the label.  Its flagship beer is Delirium Tremens, a golden Belgian ale, 8.5% ABV, named as “Best Beer in the World” in 2008 at the World Beer Championships in Chicago.    Ипсвическая сила (Ipswich Power or Ipswich Strength) (5.7% ABV) was brewed between 2016 and 2018 by 4Brewers, a Russian micro-brewery in Vladimir.  For those of you who like to see the name transliterated in the Latin alphabet it is “Ipsvicheskaya sila”.  It is classified as an ESB (Extra Strong Bitter) and is described as “formally British, in fact half-Belgian, half-Russian”.  Those who know better state that it is “not an ESB, rather an English style IPA”.  Those who tasted it likened it to cold tea.  This beer is no longer produced by the brewery.  For those who want to go there, Vladimir is one of Russia’s oldest cities on the main trans Siberian railway, so you had better get off whilst the going is good.  The 4Brewers is also a pocket-sized pub offering 20 beers on tap and over a dozen more in bottles either from its own vats or from other Russian micro-breweries.  It goes without saying that nobody knows why they decided that Ipswich was a good name for something that tasted like ‘cold tea’. It all started in 2010 when four young men stumbled on a homebrewing forum and decided to brew their own beer.  They followed a recipe and found that what they had produced was strikingly different from everything else that anybody had tasted before.  So they generously added malt, hops and whatever was around, and a hobby became a business.  Since they had nowhere to hang out, they opened a pub as a joke in 2014.  Two years later they had made enough money to launch a fully-fledged micro-brewery.  Now, they not only develop their own products but also brew on contract for other keen enthusiasts. Homebrew Recipes In addition to the beers and ciders that are produced for sale to the public or sold as home brewing kits, there is a web-based community known as the “ Brewers Friend ” where brewers can share, critique and discuss recipes.  The senders of the recipe can remain anonymous or use a pseudonym.  The team behind this website is a group of highly dedicated and experienced brewers and technologists who disseminate the detailed information of how to make their own individual brews, each of which is given a specific name.  Those with “Ipswich” in the name are given below. Ipswich Oatmeal Stout  (6.4% ABV).  The recipe was posted by an anonymous brewer in May 2017.  Other than that it is a typical strong stout made from American hops, nothing more is known about this beer. New Ipswich Old Ale  (5.8% ABV).  An American Brown Ale, the recipe for which was posted in July 2020 by Kellycomma Chris who hails from Ipswich, Queensland.   West of Ipswich II  (6.5% ABV).  An American IPA, the recipe for which was posted in July 2022 by Jonathan Pettit from North Looe, Surrey, England.  Ipswich Soda Pop  Mercury Brewing Company, the parent company of Ipswich Ale Brewing (See Beers Named ‘Ipswich’ , above), first introduced soda in 2000 under the name “Mercury Soda Pop”.  In 2015 the soda was renamed “Ipswich Soda Pop” because the Ipswich name has better brand recognition.  As for the soda, Ipswich has, at present, ten flavours with plans for more.  All Ipswich Soda is caffeine-free, gluten-free, and made with pure cane sugar.  Root beer and orange cream are the top-sellers.  It ought to be pointed out that these are all strictly non-alcoholic drinks.  The name “root beer” only came into use in 1876 as a marketing tool to sell the product to Pennsylvania coal miners.  Before that year this medicinal and nutritional drink made from various roots was known as “root tea”.  Most root beer has a thick foamy head when poured, so it gave the appearance of a good brew.   As with Ipswich Ale above, there is an Ipswich Soda Pop Ice Cream Float comprising vanilla ice cream in a big mug with your choice of one of the sodas. Old Ipswich Rum  “In Colonial days, New Englanders discovered the joys of barrel-aged rums almost by mistake, since those rums that spent time in American oak barrels took on a whole new character.” says Mathew Perry, President of Turkey Shore Distilleries LLC.  This company was formed in 2010 in Ipswich, Massachusetts, by two childhood friends, Mat Perry and Evan Parker.  The idea of starting a distillery first came to Mat in 2007.  As a history teacher and avid rum drinker, further research revealed a distillery had operated in Ipswich during the colonial days.  Moreover, that distillery owned by John Heard, which operated from 1770-1836, was located on the street that both Mat and Evan grew up on (Turkey Shore Road).  Furthermore, the manager of the distillery, Nathaniel Heard (John’s brother) lived in Mat’s house.  Upon this discovery of a personal connection, the lost tradition of New England rum production made the friends think of a possible revival.  Turkey Shore Distilleries was thus reborn in 2010, located once again on the banks of the Ipswich River. Using table-grade sweet molasses from the sugarcane fields of Louisiana and a custom-built 250-gallon copper pot still, built in Kentucky, the Turkey Shore Distilleries obtains an authentic flavour for its liquor through handcrafting in small batches and ageing in oak barrels.  Currently, the Old Ipswich Rum line consists of five rums: one white, two aged and two spiced.  The flagship brand is Old Ipswich Tavern Style Rum, followed by Old Ipswich White Cap Rum, Old Ipswich Greenhead Spiced Rum, Old Ipswich Golden Marsh Spiced Rum and Old Ipswich Lab & Cask Reserve.  Their names have been chosen in relation to the distillery’s location.  The “Tavern Style” deliberately set out to replicate the old New England-style dark rum found in their taverns. These local rums were drier than the Caribbean imports and closer to whiskey in style, especially after barrel aging.  The “White Cap” is a white rum that is said to evoke the white tops of the turbulent sea adjoining the town of Ipswich.  “Greenhead” is named after the greenhead horse fly, commonly found in the Ipswich coastal marshes at the beginning of summer, and the rum has a ‘bite’ reminiscent of this biting fly.  Turkey Shore’s other seasonal spiced rum is named for the local tidal marshes in Fall once they have turned from green to gold.  The last of the five is named after the distillery’s logo: a rum cask and the owners’ Black Labrador Retrievers (see left).  This special release is not available on shelves but only by the barrel.  Individuals, bars and restaurants can select a single barrel that yields the equivalent of about 30 bottles that can be supplied with the barrel.     In February 2012 Turkey Shore Distilleries introduced the Old Ipswich Rum Patriot Cocktail for cheering on the New England Patriots at the Super Bowl game.  Super Bowl XLVI (46) was the American football game between the National Football Conference (NFC) champions New York Giants and the American Football Conference (AFC) champions New England Patriots to decide the National Football League (NFL) championship for the 2011 season.  The game was played on 5 February 2012 at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis, Indiana.  The Giants defeated the Patriots by the score of 21–17.  Nevertheless, the cocktail may have eased the pain.  The cocktail comprised: 1/2 oz. grenadine drizzled down the inside of the glass to the bottom 1-1/2 oz. Old Ipswich White Cap Rum Fill the glass almost to the top with ginger ale 1/4 oz. of blue curacao floated over the top Finish with 1/2 oz. of Peachtree schnapps Garnish with a lime. It has red, white and blue layers.  The team colours of the Patriots are navy blue, red and silver/white.  Stir cocktail prior to drinking to mix flavours.    Turkey Shore Distilleries, located at 23 Hayward St, Ipswich, is open from 9 a.m. - 5 p.m. for tours and tastings.  Monopoly - Ipswich Edition  In 2006, an Ipswich (England) edition of the famous property trading board game Monopoly hit the shops. Instead of the traditional (in Britain) Mayfair, Trafalgar Square, Old Kent Road & Liverpool Street Station etc, the Ipswich edition boasts such locations as Christchurch Mansion, Wolsey Theatre, Sir Bobby Robson Statue, The Waterfront & University Campus Suffolk.  Named after the economic concept of the domination of a market by a single entity, Monopoly first came out in 1934, after inventor Charles Darrow (1889 – 1967) started selling his board game at stores in his hometown of Philadelphia, USA . Soon the game was being made & distributed by Parker Brothers. The game was brought over to Britain in the following year, where a London version was produced & marketed by John Waddington Ltd. The game is now produced by Hasbro.  Nowadays there are numerous editions of the game available throughout the world, representing cities, towns, counties, states, sports teams & various other things such as Bible Monopoly, Beatles Monopoly, Lord of the Rings Monopoly etc. In Britain, almost every town & city of any size has its own version of the game, as do many football clubs. Scrabble Ipswich  Scrabble Ipswich is a board game first published by Selchow & Righter in 1983. Not to be confused with the more famous game of Scrabble, Scrabble Ipswich is a word game for two to four players. Each set consists of 153 lettered tiles, 4 boards & score sheets. Each player has their own board, on which is marked a crossword grid (see photo, left). After drawing fourteen letters, the players have ten minutes to make up interconnecting words on their boards, taking advantage of letter usage bonus points. For the first minute there is the option of discarding tiles for new ones, although this incurs a penalty for each tile changed. After the ten minutes have elapsed, scores are recorded & players retain any four letters of their choice, whilst passing their board & the remaining tiles on to the player to their left. Each player then draws two more tiles & the process resumes; thus in each round the number of letters per player increases by two. This is repeated for a total of five rounds.  It is unclear exactly why the name Scrabble Ipswich was chosen for this game, although as the box states “The Crossword Game with a Real Switch”, part of the reason may be a play on the word “switch”.  If anyone can shed any further light on this, please email info@planetipswich.com  with details. Ipswich Fives Darts Board (aka Wide Fives Dart Board)  There are two Fives Darts Boards, the Ipswich and the East London.  The Ipswich is the classic Fives dart board.  This version has the standard width doubles and trebles, as found on a normal regular (clock) darts board.  It is also called the Wide Fives Darts Board.  This distinguishes it from its cousin from the East of London which has narrower double and treble scoring segments.  The boards are also called ‘Narrow Fives’ and ‘Wide Fives’.  The boards differ from the regular board by having twelve segments made up in sequences of 5,10, 15 and 20, plus an inner (50) and outer bullseye (25).  The game is usually played down from 505 instead of 501, although games starting at 705 or 305 are also sometimes played. It seems obvious that this was named the Ipswich Fives Board because this particular darts board and game was peculiar to Ipswich and the surrounding area in Suffolk.  This could possibly be the same as the otherwise unknown Suffolk Darts Board  (see www.planetsuffolk.com )  If anyone has any information, please send to info@planetipswich.com Ipswich & Double Ipswich - Sailcloth  During the late sixteenth century, a sail making industry flourished in Ipswich; dying out during the late seventeenth century.  At this time two types of sailcloth are known to have been exported bearing the names “Ipswich” & “Double Ipswich” (there was also a type called “Suffolk”). Whether any of these is synonymous with the “Mildernex” sailcloth known to have been made in Ipswich from Suffolk hemp around this period is unknown, as today no records survive to tell us what features or qualities made these different from the many other types of sail being produced at the time.  One of the first sailcloth makers in Ipswich was John Collins who, in 1574, was granted a licence by the Crown to supply the Navy. Until this time, much of the sailcloth used in England had been imported from France. The Ipswich Window  Based on the seventeenth century windows of the Ancient House in Ipswich, England, the Ipswich Window became fashionable with Victorian architects & was used in other buildings around the town; eventually spreading to other towns & cities around Britain. The Ipswich Window is an upper-storey, bow-fronted oriel or bay window which sits on supporting blocks known as corbels. “Ipswich” Range of Agricultural Machinery  From the 1870s onwards, the agricultural engineering firm of Ransomes, Sims & Jefferies in Ipswich, England, began to manufacture a range of agricultural machinery bearing the name “Ipswich” at their Orwell Works on the docks. (See also Ransomes  section on the Ipswich, England page).  One such machine, made from 1890, was known as the Ipswich Potato Planter, which was capable of planting on previously ridged soil (see left).       There was also the Ipswich Potato Digger whose task is self-evident in the name (see  below).   An illustration dating from 1892 shows the horse drawn, double-action Ipswich Haymaker, also made by Ransome Sims and Jefferies.  At the same time in 1892 a similar model was exhibited at agricultural shows and reported in ‘The Engineer’ magazine on 24 June 1892 as the improved Ipswich Hay Kicker (see pictures, right).  Ransome, Sims and Jefferies manufactured these farming implements from 1883 to 1916. Haymaking used to be very labour-intensive.  After the grass had been cut it had to be dried; when it was partly dried it had to be turned over to dry the other side.  This used to be done with a hand rake by labourers advancing across the field, turning the hay by regular strokes.  This part of the work was the “haymaking”.  The first mechanised ‘haymaker’ was designed in 1814 and this was gradually developed and improved by manufacturers throughout the century.  The machines were known va riously by that name, or ‘tedders’ or ‘kickers’, the latter referring to the hay being ‘kicked over’. Each manufacturer patented their own machine which would have slight differences from other models in their mode of operation, in each case claimed to be “an improvement”.  The Ipswich Hay Kicker was advertised as being very suitable for uneven ground because its fork tines were mounted so as to be capable of springing either way.   An Ipswich Solid Axle Rake  made by Ransome Sims and Jefferies with the number BBL9 is preserved in perfect working order by  Don Hobbs, who runs a Working Historic Farm in the Mudgee District of central New South Wales (photograph by courtesy of Don, left).  This is a stubble rake, a horse-drawn agricultural implement with long teeth (or tines) for gathering (raking) stubble together in order to smooth the surface of the ground.  Stubble is the short stalks of hay or corn left sticking up from the ground after the harvest.      The Ipswich Steel Cultivator is recorded from 1897 (see right).  This is the farm implement for stirring and pulverising the soil before planting or to remove weeds and to aerate and loosen the soil after the crop has begun to grow. The cultivator is sometimes called a mini tiller or a tiller/cultivator, although its primary purpose is to prepare the soil for the plants that will grow there.   Ipswich - Glass Pattern by A.H. Heisey & Company  Between 1931 & 1946, A. H. Heisey & Company of Newark, Ohio produced a pattern of glassware known as ‘Ipswich’.  Founded in 1895 by Augustus H. Heisey, the firm began trading in the following year. In the early days the company produced colourless pressed glass tableware, although by the 1920s they were experimenting with many different exotic colours such as Moongleam (green), Sahara (yellow), Alexandrite (cobalt), Flamingo (pink) & Dawn (purple). From the 1930s onwards, Heisey’s produced dozens of different designs including Charter Oak, Chintz, Orchid, Plantation, Kalonyal, Ridgeleigh & Yeoman, as well as Ipswich. Heisey’s pieces can normally be recognized by their distinctive logo, an H inside a diamond, although some genuine pieces are known to exist without this mark. From the 1940s, the company also began producing glass art & were especially noted for their glass animal figurines in a variety of colours. In 1922 the company acquired some patterns from Boston & Sandwich  Glass Company of  Massachusetts. One of these patterns, which had been known as the ‘Comet’, was the inspiration for Heisey’s design that was at first produced as ‘Early American Sandwich’ but soon underwent a change of name to ‘Ipswich’. The design is a swirling wave effect around a circle (see photos, above & right). Pieces produced include various styles of vases, bowls, goblets, jugs, tumblers, plates, candy jars & urns, both in clear glass & a range of colours. The pieces can have either a round or a square base. Apart from the fact that the design had its origins in Massachusetts, no other information is available at present as to why the name ‘Ipswich’ was chosen for this pattern.  A. H. Heisey & Co. closed down in 1957, but The Imperial Glass Corporation of Bellaire, Ohio bought the existing molds from Heisey in the following year & continued to use a small number of these for several years. Imperial Glass went out of business in 1984.  Since 1974, the Heisey Collectors of America, Inc. have operated the National Heisey Glass Museum in Newark. Heisey glassware is now highly collectible, especially in the USA.  Ipswich - China Pattern by J & G Meakin Ltd  Around the year 1912, J & G Meakin Ltd began producing china tableware with a pattern called ‘Ipswich’. This had blue & white arches & medallions around the rim, with the rest of the item being plain white (see photos).  J & G Meakin was founded in 1851 when James and George Meakin succeeded their father in his pottery business based in Hanley, Staffordshire; one of the six major towns that joined together to form the city of Stoke-on-Trent in 1910. Based at Eagle Pottery, close to the Caldon canal, they became the largest pottery manufacturers in Britain during the late nineteenth century.  During that period they became renowned for their white granite (undecorated ironstone) products, which were in imitation of contemporary French porcelain. Up until 1945 they were predominantly involved in producing inexpensive tableware, particularly for the American market.   It seems that the two brothers were quick to realise the potential of the American market, and George Meakin went to Boston in the 1850s and established their marketing centre in that city.  Living in Boston he would have been aware of the “cultural and artistic” significance of Ipswich, Massachusetts in late 19th century America.  Since the company’s main pitch was towards the American market rather than the domestic British market, it made commercial sense to go with an American theme, and this is probably why the name Ipswich was chosen for this particular design.     During the twentieth century the firm became known for the “Sol” wares, which were produced between 1912 and 1963. The company was taken over by the Wedgwood Group in 1970, although production under the Meakin name continued until 2000, at which time the Eagle Pottery was used for the production of Johnson Bros pottery; a firm with which J & G  Meakin had long standing affiliations. The Eagle Pottery finally shut in 2004 & was demolished the following year.  Ipswich Pine – Wood Stain  Two companies in the USA advertise a wood stain colour named ‘Ipswich Pine’: Rust-Oleum Corp. of Vernon Hills, Illinois have a product in their Varathane range described as a  Premium Gel Stain (see photo, left).  Minwax of New York also have a wood finish called ‘Ipswich Pine’ (catalogue no. 221), which is described as “an oil-based wood stain that provides long-lasting wood tone color”, & is recommended for use on furniture, woodwork, doors, floors, cabinets & accessories.  No definite details are currently available as to why the name Ipswich has been chosen, although Gordon Harris, on his ipswich.wordpress.com  blog has the following theory concerning the origins of the name: “Most of the pine trees in colonial America (Northeast U.S.) are Eastern white pine (Pinus Strobus), a quick-growing and easily workable lumber that was used in much early construction, along with American Chestnut. Freshly cut white pine is creamy white but aged lumber can acquire a golden or reddish tone and is sometimes called “pumpkin pine.”Other genus of pine are rare in the Northeast, but Pitch pine (Pinus Rigida) dominates the pine barrens found in southeastern Massachusetts and New Jersey. Castle Neck in Ipswich MA has one of the largest stands of pitch pine on the Massachusetts North Shore. The coarse knotty wood of these trees contains a large amount of resin (pine tar) that was used for pitch. The wood was used primarily for ship building and railroad ties because the high resin content preserves it from decay.”  Ipswich Fog - Evangeline Ghastly Doll  Now this is a strange one. E vangeline Ghastly is a collectable gothic doll inspired by Tim Burton’s The Corpse Bride, The Addams Family, & even, apparently, Barbra Streisand. The dolls, together with a large selection of outfits & accessories are marketed by Wilde Imagination Inc., who are based in Mullica Hill, New Jersey, USA. Her creator is Joe Petrollese & the dolls are sculpted by renowned fashion doll artist and designer Robert Tonner. But the really strange thing about Evangeline Ghastly is that the tale woven by her American creators around her has it that she was born & lives in Ipswich, England. The story is that she was born on 24th April 1924 in the attic of the ancestral home of the Ghastly family; the fictional Barkley Manor, located near the cemetery, where she still lives, alone, to this day. Evangeline is a mortician’s assistant at Mort’s Mortuary. She collects rocks & has a pet skunk named Mouette, a bat named Bella & a cat called Valentine.  The original Evangeline Ghastly doll is 19 inches tall, ball jointed & made from luminescent pale resin, individually hand-poured, strung, and hand painted. Later versions are also now manufactured from high quality vinyl.  There are many different outfits available for Evangeline Ghastly, with names such as Cemetery Stroll Skirt, Shrouded in Darkness Blouse & the Graveside Picnic Outfit. Accessories include Raining Bats & Skunks (umbrella), Rest in Peace Carry-all, & a host of wigs, shoes & boots.  Also available her models of her pets Mouette, Bella & Valentine. Many of the pieces, & the outfits, are limited editions only. The dolls & all the accessories can be purchased from Wilde Imagination’s website, where visitors can also read about Evangeline’s ‘life’, see her family tree & view her diary entries.  One of the vinyl versions of Evangeline on the market is a 17 inch tall doll named Ipswich Fog (see picture, above). A limited edition of only 350, Ipswich Fog’s outfit consists of layers of deep grey chiffon, matching lamé underlay, and a delicate lace overlay, together with a matching high-collared cape, stockings, matching shoes, and designer jewellery. She also comes with a changeable red wig.  One of the accessories also available for the resin dolls, are a pair of boots called the Ipswich Lace-ups (see picture, right).   So why was  Ipswich chosen as the location for Evangeline's hometown?  Creator Joe Petrollese explained to the Ipswich Evening Star newspaper on 14th August 2007:  “I thought that the small towns depicted in English murder mystery shows seemed to have a lot of history as well as mystery and might be an interesting place to set her story.“I then went online and did a little research and came up with Ipswich. I read that it was one of the oldest places in England and that made it seem even more interesting. I pictured it with large manor houses and that the town could possibly be haunted.“Being from Ipswich made it very easy to give her a very old family history. “Since the town is extremely old she could have a family tree in Ipswich that went back to the 1500s” He also added: “Myself and Evangeline feel honoured to be part of Ipswich.”  Ipswich Shoewear Brand Names  Two shoe manufacturers in the USA have adopted Ipswich as a name for one of their range of shoewear styles.  These are the Bostonian Ipswich Oxford Shoe and the Florsheim Ipswich Kiltie Loafer. In the 19th century there was a shift in industrial development to textiles, lace production and shoe making in Ipswich, Massachusetts.  However, the latter two were very much cottage industries and Ipswich was not particularly renowned for its shoe industry.  Nevertheless, the name of Ipswich had become known for its cultural, artistic and generally “up-market” image.  This is reflected in the use of “Ipswich” as a brand name for other quality products sold in North America (see Ipswich – Glass Pattern and Ipswich- China Pattern , above).  The name “Ipswich” would not have the same resonance of quality in either Britain or Australia! The Bostonian Ipswich Oxford Shoe  (see photo, right) is recognised as a quality men’s dress shoe.  It has a smooth, full grain leather upper with a gently squared toe, and is appropriate for office use and as a dress shoe for special occasions.  The same shoe is sometimes advertised as the Bostonian Ipswich Blücher Shoe.  The meanings of the terms Oxford  and Blücher  vary geographically; in North America the “ Oxford ” is used to refer to any “dressy” style of lace-up shoe, including the “ Blücher ”.  Elsewhere outside North America, especially in Britain, the “ Oxford ” and “ Blücher ” (sometimes called the “ Derby ”) describe different types of shoe.    In Britain, the Oxford  style was popularised at Oxford University in 1800.  An Oxford  is a style of laced shoe characterised by the bottom part of the  shoelace eyelet side pieces  being  stitched down to the upper part of the shoe so that the bottom parts cannot flap up, a construction method that is also sometimes referred to as “closed lacing”.  This is considered to be the most formal class of dress shoe.  A Blücher  (or Derby ) is a style of shoe characterised by the bottom part of the shoelace eyelet side pieces being able to flap up from the shoe.  This construction method is known as “open lacing”.  It was named after the 18th century Prussian general who introduced this improved style of footwear for his soldiers and it became popular in Europe.  It also became popular in Britain in the 1850s where it became known as the Derby , and was considered more appropriate for casual wear or working day use.  The Bostonian Shoe Manufacturing & Retail Co was founded as the Commonwealth Shoe & Leather Co. in 1884 by Charles H Jones in Weston, Mass., a suburb in the west of Boston.  Its Bostonian range of shoes soon gained recognition for their quality, comfort and durability that this name was adopted for the company.  Bostonian Shoes were made in the 1930s to the mid 1960s at Whitman, Massachusetts, and then moved to Newton Upper Falls in Boston.  In 1979 the company was taken over by C&J Clark, a British shoe manufacturing company.  As part of Clarks Companies North America, which is based in Massachusetts, the Bostonian brand name continues today.  We have not been able to find out when the “Ipswich” style was first introduced by the company.  In 2020 Clarks entered a company voluntary arrangement (CVA), a form of insolvency, in which the Clark family lost overall control of the company.  A 51% share is now held by Viva China Holdings, an investment holding company principally engaged in the operation of multi-brand clothing and footwear businesses.  This company was founded in 1989 by Li Ning, a former Chinese Olympic gymnastic gold medal winner. The Ipswich Kiltie Loafer  (see photo, left) is manufactured by The Florsheim Shoe Company.  This company has been going since 1892 when Milton Florsheim began producing shoes in a small factory located in Chicago, Illinois.  As far as we can tell, this company has no connection with any Ipswich, so we assume that the name has been selected by association with the reputation of the Bostonian Ipswich as a dress shoe.  The terminology for this type of footwear will generally be unfamiliar to those on the European side of the Atlantic, so a brief explanation follows. The Norwegians were producing leisure slippers of the moccasin style in the 1930s and began exporting them to the rest of Europe, where they were taken up by visiting Americans.  A shoe manufacturer in New Hampshire started making shoes based on this design in the 1930s and gave them the trade name of loafers .  This soon became the general term used in North America for a step-in leather shoe with a broad flat heel and an upper resembling a moccasin.  In Britain and Europe these are referred to as slip-on  shoes. The Kiltie  is a casual Oxford  shoe with a fringed tongue that flaps over the laces and eyelets on the upper part of the shoe.  It originated in Scotland as an adaptation of the ghillie  shoe which is a shoe without a tongue and the laces are wrapped round the ankle or around the bottom of the leg.  Both shoes were designed to be worn in the wet and muddy environment of the Scottish countryside.  The advantage of both styles was to prevent water and mud getting trapped between the tongue and lacing, thereby weighing down the shoe.  The shoes were often worn with kilts (hence the name), or plus fours, and the kiltie  became very popular as a golf shoe.  It is said to have been introduced to the USA by the Duke of Windsor when he was the Prince of Wales.  The name has since been transferred to slip-on  shoes in North America that have a tongue or tassel on the upper part of the shoe. The reputation of the brand name Ipswich has led to it being used in other footwear.  The Ipswich Kiltie Wedge Heel was introduced by the fashion designer Rachel Comey in her Spring collection of 2010 (see photo, right).  This is a peep-toe, with a lace-up tie and sling-back strap above a raised, wooden wedge heel; the upper has cut-outs, tassels and fringe at the tongue. Rachel Comey was born in Manchester, Connecticut, and moved to New York in 1998 to pursue life as an artist.  She soon gained a reputation for her designs and launched her namesake brand in 2001 with a limited run of menswear, and expanded into womenswear in 2003 when she found women buying her menswear in smaller sizes.  Today, Rachel Comey clothing has gained high status in the contemporary scene, and her main focus is now on women’s collection of clothing, shoes and accessories. It appears that  the brand name has reached world-wide proportions since a New Zealand company launched the Ziera Ipswich Tan Leather Women’s Sandal in 2013 followed by a Ziera Ipswich Black version in 2015.  Ziera is the company brand name.  The Ziera Ipswich is a casual women’s lace-up sandal (see photo, left).  It has generous widths, roomy toe area, and padded toplines.  The Ipswich name may conjure up style and beauty, but comfort is at the heart of the company’s reputation in Australasia, since it is the most recommended footwear brand by podiatrists and other medical professionals.  Ziera orthotic shoes have extra depth and a removable insert to accommodate individual orthotics. A few words of explanation are now needed.  “Podiatrists” is the modern terminology for “chiropodists”.  “Orthotics” is a specialty within the medical field concerned with the design, manufacture and application of “orthoses”.  An orthosis  (plural: orthoses ) is “an externally applied device used to modify the structural and functional characteristics of the neuromuscular and skeletal system”.   Foot orthoses comprise a custom made insert fitted into a shoe.  These are commonly referred to as “orthotics” and provide support for the foot by redistributing reaction forces as well as realigning foot joints while standing, walking or running. Ziera is a family-owned New Zealand company, now headed by its third generation.  Formerly known as Kumfs, they are inspired by fashion but driven by comfort; which guarantees that their shoes always incorporate the latest in orthopedic comfort technology.  In 1933 New Zealand born brothers-in-law Mervyn Adams (1899-1982) and David Robertson (1910-2004) went into partnership as podiatrists.  Frustrated by treating foot problems caused by ill-fitting shoes led them to create unique ‘lasts’ (shoe moulds) based on anatomical need.  In 1946 a local manufacturer was found to develop their range and in 1950 they opened a store in Hamilton, New Zealand, and began supplying shoes to other podiatrists.  In 1961 they established their own factory and in the 1970s they broke into the Australian and American markets.  In 1996 they began marketing their shoes under the name Kumfs.  In 2009 all manufacturing was shifted to a factory in Guangdong, China.  In 2010 they wanted to make a change that reflected a new direction for the company, hence the Ziera brand name.  Pronounced ‘zee-air-rah’, the name is supposed to conjure up “a wonderful walk-on-air-and-sea” feeling.   Rising rents and staff costs, combined with falling in-store sales because Ziera was slow to consider an on-line facility (only launched in December 2016), and a weaker New Zealand dollar affecting their overseas profits, led to the closure of the Ziera stores in 2019.  The administrator sold the brand to the Munro Footwear Group.  This is an Australian family business started as a small footwear store in Melbourne in 1962 by Kerrie and Graham Munro, and it has grown to be one of Australia’s leading retailers and wholesalers of footwear. The Ipswitch Chambray Boat Shoe (see photo, right) has the name spelt with a ‘t’.  It is a children’s shoe designed by Ralph Lauren.  Fashion designer Ralph Lauren is one of the most famous figures in the fashion world.  Born in 1939 in the Bronx, New York, as Ralph Lifshitz to Ashkenazi Jewish immigrants, he later changed his name to Ralph Lauren.  In 1967, with the financial backing of Manhattan clothing manufacturer Norman Hilton, Lauren founded the Ralph Lauren Corporation and opened a necktie  store where he sold ties of his own design under the label “Polo”.  From 1971 he expanded his clothing and fashion interests worldwide, and has diversified into other areas of luxury goods and accessories.   Boat shoes (better known as deck shoes) are typically canvas or leather with non-marking rubber soles originally designed for use on a boat.  Thin slits are cut across the rubber soles to provide grip on a wet deck.  Modern boat shoes were invented in 1935 by American Paul A. Sperry of New Haven, Connecticut.  Since the 1970s they have become casual footwear, and are found world-wide.  Chambray is a lightweight clothing fabric with coloured warp and white filling yarns.  Ralph Lauren also sell Ipswich vacchetta leather sandals (Ipswich without the ‘t’) made in Italy (see photo, right).  Vacchetta is untreated Italian leather generally used on luggage, luxury handbags and footwear.  The word is Italian for “cowhide”.     The Ipswich S3 SRC Safety Ankle Boot (see photo, below left) is yet another product using the locality name but has no apparent links with Ipswich.  This footwear is sold by an Italian company, COFRA S.r.L., based in Barletta, a city in Apulia in south eastern Italy.  Most of its products are now manufactured in Albania.  The company was established in 1938 by Ruggiero Cortellino as Cortelgomma, a small workshop where shoes were manufactured using the tyres of military trucks for the soles and milita ry uniforms for the uppers. The shoes were distributed all over Italy.  In 1983 the company became COFRA which is now managed by Giuseppe Cortellino, the founder’s son, under whom it soon expanded into the international markets.  In 2004 the safety workwear division was established, and COFRA is now a world leader in this particular segment.     The COFRA ‘Ipswich’ S3 SRC Safety Boot has a water repellent full grain leather upper and slip resistant sole.  The breathable internal anti-bacterial lining absorbs and releases moisture.  It has a metal free composite toe cap with 200 joules protection and puncture resistant fabric midsole.  This Protective Footwear conforms to European safety standards.  This footwear has been produced to European standards since 2007, but it is not clear when the product name ‘Ipswich’ was adopted.  It may have been soon after June 2013 when manufacture began to the new European standard (introduced in 2011).  We do not know why ‘Ipswich’ was chosen as a brand name by an Italian company, but it may have been because Ipswich had already become a highly regarded, quality product name in footwear, and as a locality the name cannot be given trade protection.  The A.S.98 Ipswich Women’s Motorcycle Boot (see photo, right) is yet another product from Italy that has jumped on the “Ipswich footwear” bandwagon.  This brand was released in late 2017 and is described as “a mid calf boot with roguish flair, A.S.98 Ipswich features a full grain Italian leather upper with wrap style gaiter with two buckled straps accented with spiked studs, with a burnished toe, side zipper for easy off/on, leather lining, cushioned footbed and durable rubber outsole”. It comes in colours brown, green and smoke. The manufacturer is Olip Italia SpA, based near Verona in Italy.  Most of its products are made in Bosnia.  The company was founded in 1972 by Piero Oliosi.  He and his sons continue the business which produces shoes, bags and accessories made of high quality handmade Italian leather.  The A.S.98 is one of their brand names. This was originally the Airstep brand created in 1998 for footwear.  In January 2o14 the brand name was changed to A.S.98 from the initials of ‘Air Step’ and the founding year of that label.  We have no idea why an Italian company should name a product after a foreign locality such as Ipswich.  Ipswich Screw Removal System (formerly Ipswich Nail Extractor Kit)  The Coremus ® IM Nail Extractor System (also known as the Ipswich Nail Extractor) includes a screwdriver set for all types of screws.  However, it is not your normal mechanic’s tool kit, nor is it an instrument of torture.  It is a far more serious piece of equipment used by orthopaedic surgeons.   We need to explain some technical terms first.  “IM” stands for “intramedullary”.  This is the medical term meaning the inside of a bone.  An “intramedullary rod”, also known as an “intramedullary nail” (IM Nail) or a “Küntscher nail” (after its inventor), is a metal rod forced into the medullary cavity of a bone to treat bone fractures in orthopedic surgery.  IM nails have been used since 1939 to treat fractures of long bones of the body.  Prior to that, treatment of such fractures was limited to traction or plaster, both of which required long periods of inactivity.  IM nails allowed earlier return to activity, often within weeks, especially useful for soldiers and athletes, since the nails share the load with the bone, rather than entirely supporting the bone. The problem and reason for the name Ipswich Nail Extractor are best explained by Jeffrey Hallett, who was then consultant orthopaedic surgeon at Ipswich Hospital in Suffolk, England, in an interview given in December 2001:  “The Ipswich Extractor Kit is used to remove the metal ‘nails’ that are inserted inside fractured bones temporarily, the size of which can change depending on which hospital a patient is treated at.”  Mr Hallett said: “It is not too difficult to put the nails in - you just hammer them - but when you try to get them out it is not so easy.  Quite often we would hear about patients having an operation to remove a nail that has been put in by surgeons in a different part of the country or overseas, and the operation has had to stop because they had not got the right equipment.  There may be 20 different sizes of thread used in different hospitals around the world and in Britain, and what we have done is to make a set of sockets that can screw any of the nails out.” Jeffrey Hallett, who has since retired, had been at Ipswich Hospital since 1983, and said that he had the idea for the kit in 1989 when he began working as a technical committee chairman for the British Standards Institute (BSI) and realised the effect using different sizes of nails sometimes had on patients.  He designed what has been described as “a revolutionary toolkit” to help orthopaedic surgeons, and convinced the orthopaedic implant manufacturer, Newsplint plc, to market it as the Ipswich Nail Extractor, named after his place of work.  Jeffrey Hallett has been recognised as a “pioneer in patient care” by the British Medical Association for his invention. In 2012 Newsplint plc renamed this instrument kit as the Coremus ® IM Nail Extractor System, although it is usually referred to by its old name.  It consists of 34 re-usable dedicated extractor bolts.  These extractor bolts will remove in excess of 80 nails of various manufacturers’ designs, both old and new.  In addition there is a comprehensive range of other instruments associated with the safe removal of IM nails whose origins are not known.  Newsplint changed its name to Aquilant Orthopaedics in 2013 and, soon after, it seems the rights to the manufacture of the instrument kit were acquired by a new company called Echo Orthopaedics (established in November 2014).  In February 2022 Echo advised its customers that, because most of them still referred to the kit as “the Ipswich System”, Echo was reinstating the brand as the “Ipswich Screw Removal System”.  The new ‘Ipswich’ not only contains all the same instruments as the Coremus® IM Nail Extractor System, but has been upgraded and it now incorporates smaller driver sizes for foot, ankle and hand surgeries and additional damaged screw removal options.  Ipswich Eye Shadow  The brand name “Ipswich” for this cosmetic product, marketed by the company Youngevity, seems to be another case where North Americans associate “quality” and “artistic” with Ipswich, Massachusetts, as there does not seem to be any other link with the communities so named.  The company specialises in products made from mineral pigments and other natural ingredients, free from chemicals, dyes, preservatives and irritants. Dr Joel Wallach established his practice in 1991 with the intention to help people “Live Younger Longer!”  In May 1997 he founded ‘American Longevity’, a network marketing company providing “unique products to health conscious customers”.  In 2006 this company changed its name to ‘Youngevity’.  The company “is known for its comprehensive ‘Anti-Ageing’ product line and emphasis on quality products and company integrity” (according to the ‘credits’ it gets). At this point we have to warn our readers that the founder of this company is controversial and has been challenged in the claims that he has made.  In 1982, he obtained a Doctorate in Naturopathic Medicine from the National College of Naturopathic Medicine (now the National University of Natural Medicine) in Portland, Oregon.  “Alternative medicine” websites like to claim that Dr Wallach was a Nobel Prize nominee.  What they do not mention is that he was nominated by the “Association of Eclectic Physicians”, a non-scientific naturopathic group not recognised as an accredited organisation by the Nobel Prize committee.  “Naturopathy is a form of alternative medicine.  A wide array of pseudo-scientific practices branded as ‘natural’, ‘non-invasive’, or promoting ‘self-healing’ are employed by its practitioners.  Naturopathy is considered by the mainstream medical profession to be ineffective and harmful, raising ethical issues about its practice.  Naturopaths have repeatedly been denounced and accused of being charlatans and practising quackery.  Their practices are illegal in two US states and tightly regulated in many others.  Some states allow naturopaths to perform minor surgery or even prescribe drugs, and some jurisdictions allow such practitioners to call themselves doctors.  The lack of accreditation and scientific medical training means they lack the competency of true medical doctors.  Wallach believes that people can live more than one hundred years if they take colloidal mineral supplements, including colloidal silver.  His ideas have been described by medical experts as false, misleading and dangerous to the public” (extract from article on “Naturopathy” in Wikipedia).   The Gippeswyk Engine  In 1876 E. R. and F. Turner, an engineering company in Ipswich, Suffolk, introduced a vertical steam engine called the Gippeswyk (after the early name for Ipswich) at the Royal Agricultural Show, Birmingham, available in sizes from 2 to 8 NHP, the smallest having a cylinder of 4½” bore x 7½” stroke.  By setting it on its side in 1878 it became a horizontal engine available in sizes from 2 to 16 NHP, the largest hav ing a 13” bore x 15” stroke (NHP = nominal horse power).  By the turn of the century the Gippeswyk engine was superseded by the John Bull series.  Illustrations taken from promotional brochures are shown right and left.  The business was founded in 1837 by Mr Walton Turner and two partners under the name of Bond, Turner & Hurwood.  Walton Turner died in 1847 and his son, Edward Rush Turner, took over his father’s interest, renaming the firm Edward Turner, Rush & Co.  He was joined later by his brother, Frederick Turner, and when the other partners dropped out, the firm’s name was changed again to E. R. & F. Turner.  It became a limited company in 1897.  The site of the original works was in Foundry Lane off College Street in Ipswich.  The company had built its first steam engine by 1842 which was used to power machinery in its factory.  At the turn of the 20th century, E. R. & F. Turner began producing flour mills before diversifying into flaking mills, particularly for the breakfast cereal industry from the early 1920s.  After 1912 no further engines were made and the Company concentrated on machinery for the flour milling industry.  Still active in Ipswich to this day, after various acquisitions the business is now known as Christy Turner Ltd, and is located at Miracle Mill along Knightsdale Road in Ipswich.   The Gyppeswyk Fountain Pen  Writing instruments designed to carry their own supply of ink had existed in principle since the 17th century.  The oldest surviving fountain pen was designed by a Frenchmen named M. Bion and dated 1702.  However, progress in developing a reliable pen was slow until the mid-19th century.  The modern metal pen nib was invented in 1828, but it was not until 1884 that the American Lewis Waterman patented the first practical fountain pen that could be mass-produced. Frank Jarvis and Thomas Garner worked for the De La Rue Company, the leading British fountain pen manufacturer at the turn of the 19th century.  Drawing on the experience they had gained at De La Rue, the two started their own business in 1905 at 13 Paternoster Row, London EC1, next to St Paul’s Cathedral.  They called the company “Conway Stewart”.  It is believed that the name derives from a popular vaudeville act of the day.  “Conway and Stewart” were a comedy double act who appeared at Collins Music Hall in Islington. Jarvis and Garner had identified a market niche for attractive and reliable writing instruments at an affordable price.  They had a single aim to produce elegant, beautiful, yet functional writing instruments.  Each Conway Stewart fountain pen was made in England by hand, using traditional techniques, combining British craftsmanship and using only the highest quality materials, including hallmarked solid 18ct gold and sterling silver.  The 1920s saw a rapid development of the Conway Stewart product line.  Pens of several different types of filling mechanisms, materials and sizes were offered for sale.  In addition, the company sought out a market where a product line was made especially for a specific company.  The Gyppeswyk Fountain Pen was made for W.S. Cowell Ltd of Ipswich, England, between 1932 and 1942.  The length of this pen was 12.8 cm; the clip and thin lollipop lever were nickel and both had the intertwined CS logo.  The nib was guaranteed 14ct.  The barrel was marked “GYPPESWYK” with the name of the company below. The business model proved successful for Conway Stewart and its market share increased at the expense of other established manufacturers.  The years after World War II proved difficult because of shortages of materials, but the company managed to survive by continuing to offer good reliable pens at reasonable prices.  However, by the 1960s, refinements in ballpoint pen production gradually ensured its dominance over the fountain pen for casual use.  Nibs, which had been 14ct gold until this time, were generally replaced by stainless steel.  The company tried to compete by introducing ball point pens to its range, but its financial health continued to deteriorate and the original company was wound-up in 1975.  The name was revived in 1998 and it caters for the high-end of the writing instrument market, with a range characterised by the use of precious metals, and the production of limited edition fountain pens. Today the fountain pen is seen as a collectible item or a status symbol, rather than an everyday writing tool.  A Gyppeswyk fountain pen in good condition can fetch a high price at auctions because of its rarity value. Ipswich (Motorcycle)  This is a Belgian historical brand of motorcycle.  These machines were produced around 1904 by Eric Béranger on Rue Botanique in Brussels.  A group of enthusiasts found this brand in the “ Livre d'Or de l'Automobile et de la Motocyclette ” which was published in 1951 by the Royal Motor Union.  The brand name was then given as “Swipsch” with a date of manufacture 1900.  It was later discovered that this was a typographical error.  The Australian connoisseur of classic motorcycles, Howard Burrows, provided an image of an advertisement from E. Béranger, where the brand “Ipswich” was mentioned.  This was an advertisement in a British magazine in 1906, written in English and aimed at finding dealers.  It had the then conventional motorcycle 2½ and 3½ stroke single-cylinder engines of unknown origin.  The engine was mounted in a bicycle frame that was open at the bottom where the motor was placed.  Advertising in the UK was not uncommon for Belgian and French brands since the British motorcycle industry had yet to develop.  We acknowledge Dutch Wikipedia as the source of this information. If anyone can provide further details please email info@planetipswich.com . Ipswitch – Trademark  Ipswich spelt with a ‘t’ is the registered trademark owned by Atlantic Capes Fisheries, Inc. of Cape May, New Jersey.  This company is a leading harvester and supplier of scallops and other seafoods from the North and Mid-Atlantic. In addition to the harvesting, processing and marketing of scallops, the company also harvests clams, squid, mackerel and other Mid-Atlantic species.  As can be seen by the trademark (left), it is a play on the pronunciation of Ipswich in that a witch is seen escaping from a clam.  It was first used by the Soffron Brothers Clam Co of Ipswich, Massachusetts, in 1969.  Thomas Soffron (1907–2004) was an immigrant from Greece who, with his three younger brothers, originally worked in the mills of the town.  In 1932 they started digging clams along the shoreline for the local market.  They later ventured further offshore where they were able to dredge the hard-shelled clams from the ocean bottom since these could be harvested in larger quantities, and they travelled better when frozen than did the soft- shelled coastal variety (See Ipswich Clams  above). The family also operated a farm and a restaurant.  Thomas Soffron disliked the taste of the clam’s belly and, as a consequence, he created the “fried clam strip” or “tendersweet clam” which was a battered and fried sliced clam strip made from the ‘foot’ of hard-shelled sea clams, and excludes the clam’s belly.  This soon caught on and in 1938 the brothers established the Soffron Brothers Clam Company, acquiring their Brown Square property in 1940 where they built a seafood processing factory.  They arranged an exclusive deal to provide their clam strips to the Howard Johnson’s restaurant chain which were sold under the trade name ‘Tender-sweet Fried Clams’.  Eventually, Soffron Brothers operated seven processing plants from Maryland to Nova Scotia.  In 1971 the Atlantic Capes Fisheries, Inc. bought the firm and continues to use the Ipswitch trademark. Soffron Brothers continued in business as a separate company to 1998 when it closed down and its plant in Brown Square became vacant.  In 2008 the building and land were sold to Mercury Brewing, and that company’s new Ipswich Ale Brewery was constructed on the site (see Beers Named ‘Ipswich’ , above). Ipswich Cottage – A Model Train Building  This is the name given to what is described as a “miner worker’s house” in Australia (see photograph, left).  It is one of the artifacts that enthusiasts can place by a model railway to make it look realistic.  The model is made from wood weatherboard and is pre-painted.  The building is 72mm long and 80mm wide.  It comes in a building kit and has to be assembled.  The kits come with step by step building instructions.  The manufacturer states that these are scale model replicas for real Australian buildings affiliated with the train industry or buildings found in the nearby township.  Given its name, we presume that there is (or was) such a building in close proximity to the railway at Ipswich, Queensland.  The manufacturer is Walker Models (previously known as “Model Train Buildings” or “MTB”, but this used to be confused with the accepted acronym for “mountain bike”).  This seems to be an individual who describes himself as a graphic designer based in Rosemount, Queensland, on the Sunshine Coast just north of Brisbane and Ipswich. Ipswich Weekender & Ipswich Day Pack  The name was inspired by fishing trips on leaving Ipswich Bay in Massachusetts with a bag packed for a long weekend on the water, and enough supplies to last from Nantucket Sound up to Maine and back.  The Ipswich Weekender (see right) is built with heavy-duty waxed canvas and sturdy bridle leather.  With an abrasion resistant body and rustproof antique brass hardware, this travelling bag is durable and long-lasting.  It has an adjustable leather shoulder strap and comes in two colours, navy and grey.  Its signature feature is the “Sailor Block stripe” at one end.     In 2016 the Ipswich Day Pack was launched.  A versatile backpack (with the “Sailor Block stripe”) which complements the Weekender by being able to fit in a laptop, camera, water bottle, snacks and other necessities for the ramble in the woods or a shopping expedition in the town after you have arrived with the Weekender (see left). These products come from Long Wharf Supply Co. located in Back Bay, Boston.  The company was founded in 2015 by Mike Lamagna of Andover, Ma. specialising in maritime-related accessories. adidas Ipswich Watch  Adidas AG is a German multinational corporation, based in Herzogenaurach, Bavaria, that designs and manufactures sports shoes, clothing and accessories.  It is the largest sportswear manufacturer in Europe, and the second largest in the world.  Adidas and sports go hand in hand, even though the brand has a st ronger lifestyle presence today, and produces goods that are now only loosely connected with sports.  In 2015 it launched its “Ipswich Watch” which comes in five major colours.  The ‘adidas Men’s Black Ipswich Watch’ (left) is the brand leader but the multi-coloured dials of the others are also very popular, such as the ‘adidas Men’s Grey Ipswich Watch’ (also called the ‘adidas Unisex Ipswich Watch’) - see right.  All the watches have in the centre the famous adidas logo of a trefoil and three parallel bars.  The brand name is always uncapitalised and is stylised with a lower case ‘a’. So why does a German company name its product Ipswich?  Quite simply because of its long association with Ipswich Town Football Club.  From 1978 to 1989 the football club had a deal with Adidas AG to supply its football kit.  This coincided with the most successful period of the club’s history when it won the 1978 FA Cup and 1981 UEFA Cup.  In April 2014 Ipswich Town entered a four-year kit deal again with the sportswear giant.  Their famous three white stripes always adorn the Ipswich Town kit in one place or another: on the shoulders or at the top of the socks. Adolf “Adi” Dassler began producing his own sports shoes for track and field in his mother’s kitchen in Herzogenaurach after his return from World War I, and with his older brother, Rudolph, in 1924 founded the Gebrüder Dassler Schuhfabrik which became one of the leading athletic shoe manufacturers.  The firm successfully marketed its sports shoes to athletes at the Berlin 1936 Summer Olympics, which helped cement their good reputation. Following a family feud the brothers became estranged in 1948, and Rudolf set up his own company in the same town.  Rudolf Dassler originally registered the newly established company as Ruda  from “Ru” in Rudolf and “Da” in Dassler.  A few months later that year, he changed  its name to Puma.  After this happened, ‘Adi’ Dassler formed Adidas, the name being derived the same way from the first three letters of his first name and surname, registered in August 1949.  The two firms became rivals, both based in Herzogenaurach.  When Adidas started to expand its business in the 1960s, it needed a logo and the trefoil, representing ‘diversity’ was adopted.  The three stripes were originally put on their sneakers to add stability, not for style (American English “sneakers” are known as “trainers” in British English or by the older name of “plimsolls”).  The stripes or bars were soon added to the logo, and this was first displayed at the 1972 Munich Olympics (left). In June 2022 Ipswich Town ended their association with Adidas and it is presumed that this will eventually mean the end of the ‘Ipswich Watch’.

Order of contents on this page: (Click on the links below) Music:    Hotels & Hostelries: Ipswich in the Names of Public Houses, Bars & Inns etc Companies: Ipswitch Inc.       Ipswich Networks Ltd (IPswiTch Group)  Candis Tyson Ipswitch, Inc. (formerly Tyson & Ipswitch), California, USA   Ipswich Bay Company, Texas, USA Literature: William Johnson - "Ipswichus"       Descendant: Chronicles of the Ipswich Witch -  A Novel by Miranda Bachman Ipswich in The Fourth Protocol  -  A Novel by Frederick Forsyth Scott Was Here  - Book by Elaine Ipswitch  Ipswich as a Surname in Three Little Girls Dressed in Blue  - A Trilogy of Novels by Marcia Lynn McClure  The Postmaster of Ipswich. William Stevenson Fitch Antiquary and Thief   - Janet Ing Freeman Gippovicensis as part of a literary title Ipswitch, Pennsylvania, in Pie  - A Children’s Book by Sarah Weeks Tilly Ipswitch in Tilly Witch - A Children’s Book by Don Freeman The Good Green Witch from Ipswitch  by Garnett Tremain Bond The Ipswich Witch  by David L Jones   Last Voyage from Ipswich  – A Novel by Peter Foster       The Artisan of Ipswich  by Robert Tarule The House on Ipswich Marsh  by William Sargent Names & Titles:   Ipswitch & Ipswich as Surnames       Viscount Ipswich TV & Film: East of Ipswich  - TV drama by Michael Palin  Ipswich Man  - BBC Documentary The Ipswich Cuckoos - Film The ‘Sons of Ipswich’ in the film The Covenant “Lord Clive Montdrako of Ipswich” and references to Ipswich in an episode of Bewitched "Ichabod Ipswich" – Character in Goober and the Ghost Chasers Fictional town of Ipswich, Oregon, USA in the film Summer of '84 Food & Drink: Ipswich Almond Pudding & Ipswich Lemon Pie  Ipswich Super Blue Pork Sausages Ipswich Clams Almost Ipswich - Food with Names Similar to Ipswich No longer existing (USA): As you can see, several of the English pubs were situated in Ipswich, & no reason for their naming is therefore required. The reasons for the naming of many of those elsewhere, however, has been slightly more difficult to ascertain. The most likely explanation, it seems, is that they were established by someone originally from Ipswich; the actual name of the person in question having long been forgotten. Much of what follows is, therefore, speculation. Seven of the pubs outside Ipswich were in East Anglia (all within a 50 mile radius of Ipswich); one in Suffolk, one in Norfolk & five in Essex.  Of those in Essex, only the Ipswich Arms at Chelmsford, on the main route from Ipswich to London, could be classed as a coaching inn. Coaching inns were usually large hostelries that had to have stables as well as accommodation, & as such none of the other four in Essex, at Halstead, East Donyland, Ingatestone & Colchester, fit this description, as all were smaller establishments & none were on the main coaching routes. The Ipswich Arms in Bury St Edmunds, first recorded in 1857, is also unlikely to have been a coaching inn, as by this date the railway had superseded the horse, & the days of coach travel were in decline. The Ipswich Arms/Tavern in Norwich was tucked away down a back courtyard off Westlegate near to St Stephens Plain, which also makes it an unlikely coaching inn. Whether there was any connection with the Suffolk Arms, close by on Market Place, is also unknown. The Ipswich Arms was originally called the City of Norwich, & it may be that the name change of 1864 came about to avoid confusion with another, newer tavern called the Norwich Arms, close at hand on the corner of Hewitt’s Yard on Ber Street. The Ipswich Road is, of course, just south of St Stephens Plain, so this may have some bearing on the matter. Of the five Ipswich Arms pubs in Greater London, the one in Cullum Street, EC3 is the only one for which a reason can be found for the name; as mentioned above, this was the terminus for the Ipswich Carrier, the postal service to Ipswich.  Another Ipswich Arms for which we are forced to speculate regarding the derivation of the name is the one on Mann Island in Liverpool. Mann Island was an artificial island between George’s Dock and Canning Dock. Formed in 1771 with the opening of George’s Dock, it was originally known as Mersey Island.  It is first recorded as “Mann Island” in Gore’s Directory of Liverpool  in 1774, named after an oilstone dealer called John Mann (died there in 1784) who is believed to have been instrumental in the building of five houses in a row along this stretch of road.  The sale of these properties was advertised in 1757 and in 1765 the directory shows that all five were occupied by “victuallers” (publicans).  This gives some indication of the major leisure preoccupation of the sailors and dock workers at that time.  John Mann was listed as a “victualler” at 3 Mann Island, which became known as The Odd Fellow’s Arms.   The address of the Ipswich Arms was 2 Mann Island, and the earliest reference by this name is in an 1819 Trades Directory of Liverpool when it was being run by an Elizabeth Hind. From 1800 to 1815 the “victualler” was John Hind (or Hinde) whom we can assume to be the deceased husband of Elizabeth Hind, so it is likely that she continued the existing name of the public house.  We can trace 2 Mann Island as a public house back to the 1765 directory.  Unfortunately, the names of the public houses are not given in the early directories so we do not know when it was given the name Ipswich Arms.  The last reference to the name Ipswich Arms is in a directory dating from 1829 when a William Wilkinson was the publican.  We know that Edward Davis took over the establishment that year and named it ‘The Tuns’.  He used the building as “vaults” since he was more of a beer and spirits retailer with another public house elsewhere in Liverpool; “vaults” being the industry term for a liquor warehouse.  In 1864 it passed to another “victualler” who operated it mainly as a public house again.  It is not known what name it had until the 1900 directory gives it as ‘The Old House’, run by a Francis Gore.   In 1903 concern was expressed over the sanitation and poor state of repair of the licensed premises that were still operating on Mann Island.  After a visitation by the Justices, it was concluded in 1907 that the “dilapidated and insanitary conditions were such that the premises were unsuitable for their present purposes and that their licences to operate as public houses should not be renewed”, except for nos. 1 and 3 Mann Island.  Thus, No.2 ceased to be a public house in 1907.  George’s Dock was too shallow for the larger vessels of the later 19th century, so it was sold off and infilled in 1899; the famous Liverpool landmark, the Liver Building, being built on the site.  Thus the island no longer exists, but the name has been retained. The buildings where the Ipswich Arms was located are still shown on maps in 1908, but had gone by 1927. The name Mann is fairly common, & although there was a prominent family by that name in Ipswich, it has so far been impossible to make any connection between them & John Mann in Liverpool.  It would be nice to think that the whaler Ipswich , which operated out of Liverpool from 1802 to 1823 (see Ipswich  (Whaler) 1786  section on Ships Named Ipswich page), may have had something to do with the naming of this hostelry. Although the dates roughly coincide with the existence of the pub, the whaler operated out of Queens Dock, which is further to the south of Mann Island, & no direct connection between the two can be made.  However, it should be noted that Mann Island was called Nova Scotia in the 18th century and a road by this name continued to exist in Mann Island until 1920.  The Whaling Station that existed from 1786 to 1793 at the town of Ipswich was also at a location known as Nova Scotia.  Is this similarity of names just a coincidence, or was the Ipswich Arms deliberately named by a mariner connected with the whaling ship? The Duke Ipswich has a long history but this present name is very recent.  It is first recorded when a freemason’s meeting was held at its present location at 212 Woodbridge Road, Ipswich, in 1805 and it was then known as the Duke of York.  The best known Duke of York in previous centuries was Frederick Augustus (1763-1827), the second son of George III and brother to the Prince Regent, who was commander-in-chief of the British Army during the Napoleonic Wars.  It was this Duke of York after whom the nursery rhyme was supposed to have originated and also, legend has it, that this pub was named after him because he would frequent it on his way up the hill to inspect his troops and again on his way back down the hill.  There are other locations and pubs named the Duke of York which also lay claim to be the source of this nursery rhyme, but this Ipswich pub probably has a better claim than most.   Horatio Nelson had advised that Suffolk would be the most likely place that the French would choose to land an invading army.  Thus, the Duke of York arrived in Ipswich in November 1797 with the British army units.  Soon there was a very large army camp at the top of Woodbridge Road near to Rushmere Heath where military exercises took place.  The headquarter barracks where the senior officers would stay was in Ipswich itself.  Woodbridge Road is one of the steepest hills in Ipswich.  Half way up (or down) where the pub is situated is a flat piece of land where the troops can rest.  This could easily have given rise to the lyrics in the rhyme, particularly as there would always be a large contingent accompanying the senior officers, they would be “halfway up the hill, neither up nor down”.  The Duke of York is recorded staying in Ipswich to inspect the troops in 1803, 1805, 1806 and 1807.  In October 1811 the Duke of York with the Prince Regent and the other two royal brothers came to Ipswich to review about ten thousand troops on Rushmere Heath.  There was a great military procession that marched out from Ipswich up the Woodbridge Road hill, followed by thousands of spectators.  Afterwards they marched back to Ipswich down Woodbridge Road to the headquarter barracks. The pub remained the Duke of York up until 1995 when the owner, Adnams Brewery, changed it to The Grand Old Duke of York, emphasising its legendary link with the nursery rhyme.  Adnams sold the pub in 2008 and in 2012 it reverted to its original name of Duke of York.  By now both names were in use although colloquially this popular pub was simply known as “The Duke”.  It experienced two periods of closure on exchange of ownership from July to September 2017 and May to November 2019.  In November 2019 the present manager took over and stated that he “wanted a complete change from the past so it will be called The Duke Ipswich, but since it was still the same pub and he loved the way it looks, the pub can also be known as both The Grand Old Duke of York, which is the name over its door, and the Duke of York, which is on the sign at its side” (see photographs below). Ipswich Custom in the USA falls into a different category from the others in that it was what is known in America as a “pop-up”.  “Pop-up” restaurants are temporary restaurants.  These restaurants often operate from a former factory or similar space that is vacant, waiting for a retail occupier.  Another side to this concept is to have “roving pop-ups” where an established kitchen will allow chefs or different cuisines to operate on part of their premises for six-month periods in rotation.  The idea is to test public reaction and interest in a new culinary theme or type of cuisine before launching out on a permanent basis.  This allows new, little-known chefs to utilise underused kitchen facilities and “experiment without the risk of bankruptcy”.  Pop-up restaurants have become known in Britain and Australia since the 2000s, but have never really caught on in the same way as in the USA. The corner location of 1 Appleton Street and Tremont Street in Boston has been used for this purpose.  After the previous restaurant and bar closed in June 2015, having operated for just over a year, butcher Jake Elmets opened Ipswich Custom in October 2015 as a “meat-focussed” restaurant.  He said that the name was “in homage to Ipswich, the home of Appleton Farms”.  This is America’s oldest continuously operating farm (see Ipswich, Massachusetts  page).  The street on which the restaurant was located is named after Samuel Appleton.  Unfortunately, the concept of Jake Elmets was not successful and the restaurant closed after one month.  The site has continued to be used by pop-ups, so still exists as a food outlet.   Ipswich Ale Brewer’s Table in Ipswich, Massachusetts, is the restaurant and bar of the Ipswich Ale Brewery.  This opened in January 2016 and is located inside the brewery.  It is a 120 seat restaurant and has 15 of its brews on tap, including several beers that are only available at the brewery.  It is what is known as a “brewpub”.  This combines the words brewery and public house, and is a pub or restaurant that brews beer on the premises.  The antecedents of the bar go back to an earlier licensed bar attached to the Mercury Brewing Company and the Ipswich Ale Brewery at 23 Hayward Street, Ipswich.  This was known as The Ipswich Ale House and continued to exist until a new brewery was built, and all operations were finally re-located to the new site in January 2016.  A bar was opened at the new brewery in February 2015 and this became the Ipswich Ale Brewer’s Table when the restaurant facilities opened.  Further history and a list of the brews produced by Ipswich Ale Brewery are given below in the Beers Named ‘Ipswich’  section.    The Ipswitch, San Francisco (more often referred to as The Ipswich) a genuine speakeasy in San Francisco.  While Prohibition was lifted in 1933, the city of San Francisco is still littered with secret basements, some of which are still in operation. For those not familiar with some American expressions, a “speakeasy” was an illicit establishment that sold alcohol during the Prohibition era in the USA (1920 - 1933).  Speakeasies were so called because rowdy customers were urged to “speak easy” so as not to alert the police or neighbours who could bring the place to the attention of the authorities.  The port city of San Francisco enjoyed alcohol smuggled in from all over the world and it was full of secret bars.  The very fabric of the city embraced this concept of secret bars, and from about 2000 there was a revival in the way alcohol was consumed during Prohibition.  As very few of the originals still existed, many establishments were converted into reproductions of the 1920s speakeasies.   While working in New York City, Doug Dalton from Virginia discovered an interest for the New York nightlife.  He took this newfound interest to San Francisco and improved upon it by developing a different type of nightlife culture that revolved around “concept bars” and really good drinks.  Doug teamed up with Brian Sheehy and Dahi Donnelly to create Futurebars, a parent company for many of these establishments.  They secured a space at 501 Jones St, the former site of the 501 Club.  The previous tenant warned the Future Bars crew not to go into the basement, saying it was haunted.  They went down through a trapdoor in the floor to investigate and found a wood-panelled room with a marble staircase, a Tuscan-style canvas painting and a bar.   This turned out to be a bona fide speakeasy, the Frank Ipswitch Beverage Parlor, still intact from the 1920s.  Frank Ipswitch actually spelt his surname with a ‘t’ and that is the proper name for the bar, but the familiarity of the spelling of the place-name is such that it does not matter. (See Ipswitch & Ipswich as Surnames  below.) The Ipswitch, a tiny, two-seat bar beneath a private room (Russell’s Room) within another exclusive bar (Bourbon & Branch) is the ultimate secret hideaway.  A reservation has to be made above and, with luck, they will grant you access to the secret hideout below.  It is difficult to get into, even with a reservation.  The entry way is a trap door in the floor.  The decor has been left largely the same as it was in the 1920s.   The main bar, Bourbon & Branch at 501 Jones St, opened in August 2006.  It was a return to the 1920s speakeasy…..but with a different concept.  All visitors have to know a password which is given when making a reservation.  There is a no reservations bar known as The Library (but you still have to know the password which is “books”).   “House rules” forbid the use of cell phones and loud voices, a nod in the direction of Prohibition.  For the reservations-only main bar, the party has to show up at a specified time at an unmarked door on Jones Street and give the password.  A private room (Russell’s Room) can be reserved where the drinks are served in teapots, again a nod to Prohibition.  And if you ask really nicely, they might let you into The Ipswich through the trap door in the floor.    Ipswich Hotel & Ipswich Tavern - In Ipswich, Australia, there are a number of hotels, motels and guest houses that contain the place-name in their title (see the section below showing those that are “all still in existence”).  As should be expected, the place-name Ipswich Hotel was used early by a house of refreshment in that city.  As was customary at the time (and still is today), these watering-holes were also places where a decent meal could be found and a place to rest one’s head overnight, hence the “hotel” tag.   This establishment was on the corner of Waghorn Street and Brisbane Street.  The first reference we can find to the Ipswich Hotel is on 15 January 1863 when Pierce Goold ( sic ) Copley applied to transfer his licence for the Ipswich Hotel to his relative, James Real (reported in the Ipswich Herald ).  It is recorded in February 1860 (in the Ipswich & General Advertiser ) that Pierce Gould Copley was an innkeeper. Although it does not say what the name of the inn was, we may assume it to be the Ipswich Hotel.  An article written in 1914 implies that the hotel was built between 1856 and 1860.  The article headed “Old Identities” was in the Queensland Times  on 1 August 1914 and was recorded by Stephen Marsh, who arrived as a young boy with his family as one of the earliest inhabitants of Ipswich: “His father’s first milking-yards (Thomas Marsh at Ipswich in 1856) were situated in Brisbane Street, on property then occupied by the late Mr. ‘Red Joe’ Gibson, and subsequently becoming the site of the Ipswich Hotel, under the proprietary of the late Mr. James Real, the brick building being still in existence to the west of Mr. B. Duggan’s fruit and vegetable mart, on the corner of Waghorn and Brisbane Streets.”  The last reference we have found to the Ipswich Hotel is on 17 June 1910 when it was sold to a Mrs Ellen Quinn ( Queensland Times ).   The first licensed hotel in Ipswich from 1849 was the Queen’s Arms on the northwest corner of East Street and Brisbane Street, owned by the prominent Ipswich merchant and pioneer George Thorn, known as “the Father of Ipswich” (see his biography on the Ipswich, Queensland  page).  On the opposite southwest corner, the Thorn family’s own elaborate private residence was built in 1859.  Following George Thorn’s death in 1876 the residence was sold in 1879 and converted into a licensed hotel under the name Palais Royal Hotel.  It was destroyed by fire in the early 1970s and was then demolished to make room for the Ipswich Tavern which continued the use of the site as licensed premises.  However, the old name was too familiar to discard and by 1978 it was known as the Palais Royal Tavern.  It is recorded under that name in 2013, although the owners (Ceridale Pty Ltd) still had it trading under its legal name of “Ipswich Tavern”.  It was the subject of a test case in the Australian courts as to whether it could employ performers without paying for usage of copyright material (in Australian Performing Rights Association Ltd v Ceridale Pty Ltd  (1990)).  The site was subsequently sold for development and now comprises shops and stores.  Commissioned by George Thorn in 1864, a small terrace was built which housed three two storey shops on the northeast corner of East and Brisbane Streets.  After the death of George Thorn, the shops were sold and in 1910 they were converted to a hotel named The Grand Hotel.  Further improvements were made between 1925 and 1927 and the hotel was renamed “Hotel Grande” and became very popular amongst the Ipswich community with functions being held in its large dining and lounge rooms.  In 1984 the Hotel Grande was sold and demolished to make way for a new shopping plaza to be built.  It was named in honour of the old Hotel: the Ipswich Grande Plaza (see photograph, right).  The Ipswich Grande Plaza retail and commercial complex was sold at auction in September 1992 for A$1.08 million.  It still exists in 2020 under this name. Hotels, Motels, Guest Houses etc (all still in existence):       Ipswich Hotel   (see photo, above)      Old London Road, Copdock, Suffolk, England  Situated in the village of Copdock, three miles south west of Ipswich. Over the years this hotel has been operated by several different hotel chains, and had many names, including The Copdock International, Moat House, Hotel Elizabeth Copdock and Cameo Hotel. As of 2016 it has been renamed Ipswich Hotel.              The Ipswich Inn    32 Canning Street, North Ipswich, QLD, Australia This is a 22 bedroom student hostel. Ipswich City Motel 86 Warwick Road,  Ipswich, QLD, Australia A motel near to the city centre.   Best Western Ipswich Heritage Motor Inn  51/55 Warwick Road,  Ipswich, QLD, Australia A motel. Quest Ipswich 57/63 Warwick Road,  Ipswich, QLD, Australia Serviced apartments. Central Motel Ipswich Limestone Street,  Ipswich, QLD, Australia A motel. Metro Hotel Ipswich International South Street, Ipswich, QLD, Australia A four -star hotel. Ipswich Country Motel   South Station Road, Raceview, Ipswich, QLD, Australia A motel with bar and restaurant The Ipswich Inn East Street, Ipswich,  Massachusetts, USA This is a bed & breakfast in an historic building Ipswich View Homestead Toodyay, Western Australia A bed & breakfast ( see above ) No longer in existence: Ipswich Inn  Grand Junction, Colorado, USA A motel ( see above )   Ipswitch Inc.  Founded in 1991 by Roger Greene, Ipswitch Inc. is a rapidly growing company that develops & markets software for small & medium sized businesses throughout the world. It is estimated that more than 100 million people worldwide use Ipswitch software. Products include: The network management & monitoring software Ipswitch WhatsUp®Gold. The file transfer software Ipswitch WS_FTP® & Ipswitch MOVEit®. The messaging & collaboration service Ipswitch IMail. Roger Greene is a native of Massachusetts and his work locations have remained in that state.  He was born at Somerville in Greater Boston, and started work with FTP Software at Cambridge, leaving it in 1991 when he was vice president to establish his own company from his home in Reading.  The operation subsequently moved to Wakefield, then to Lexington in 1998 where it remains today.  Roger Greene recalls the derivation of the company name as coming from one of his programmers who saw a road sign for Ipswich and said that would be “a nice pun”, using the IP of the town name to stand for Internet Protocol, which was the business of the company, and by adding a ‘t’ to the ending it would become “switch” to indicate the transfer of communication, the whole providing the name of a town in the state of Massachusetts where the company was located.   Since 2008 much of its growth has been by acquisitions of complementary businesses: In 2008, Ipswitch acquired the Wisconsin-based software producer, Standard Networks Inc. and its product, MOVEit; in 2009 the Hourglass Technologies company in Utah; in 2010 the compliance system and system log analysis software producer, Dorian Software, and in December 2012, Ipswitch acquired the German-based performance testing company iOpus, known for its product, iMacros, a web-browser extension. With its head office located in Lexington, Massachusetts, Ipswitch Inc. also has U.S. offices in Alpharetta, Georgia; Augusta, Georgia; Madison, Wisconsin; Livonia, Michigan & Lehi, Utah; together with their European operation in Amsterdam under the name Ipswitch BV.  In March 2016 Ipswitch opened a support and operations centre in Galway, Ireland.  In 2010, Ipswitch Inc was placed in the top five ‘Best Places to Work’ in Massachusetts, in a survey carried out by the Boston Business Journal. Ipswitch has been recognised repeatedly for its commitment to give five percent of profits to charity through its iCare program.  It does this partly by matching employees’ own donations and by giving each employee $500 for charitable gifts.  On 1 May 2019 it was announced that the Progress Software Corporation had completed its acquisition of Ipswitch, Inc., for $225 million.  As part of Progress, Ipswitch will bolster the core base of Progress with regard to small and medium-sized businesses and enterprises, enabling those businesses to respond faster to business-critical demands and to improve productivity. Progress Software Corporation is an American publicly held company with its headquarters in Bedford, Massachusetts.  It was co-founded by several MIT graduates, including Joseph W. Alsop, in 1981.  Initially called Data Language Corporation (DLC), the company changed its name in 1987 to match that of its flagship product, Progress.  It grew to become the leading provider of application development and digital experience by a number of acquisitions over the years (see Wikipedia  for article on the company).  Progress posted revenues of $397.6 million (USD) in the fiscal year 2017.  The company employs approximately 1500 employees, and maintains offices in 16 countries.    Ipswitch Networks Limited (IPswiTch Group)  Not to be confused with the company in the section above, Ipswitch Networks Limited was originally based in Ipswich, Suffolk, and also uses a ‘t’ in the name as an allusion to ‘switching’.  It uses as a logo IPswiTch Group, emphasising the IPT.  This abbreviation stands for ‘Internet Protocol Telephony’, a general term for the technologies that use the Internet to transfer information that has traditionally been carried over the connections of the public telephone network.  The company was founded by Charles Lamb as Progressive Networks Ltd in August 1996, based in Norwich Road, Ipswich.  This was dissolved voluntarily in 2011 after Ipswitch Networks Ltd was incorporated in December 2010.  The company moved to Abbeygate Street in Bury St Edmunds in March 2014 where it is still active.  The company has its roots in network design, which has led it to launch a series of IT design and infrastructure related services.  Its owner Charles Lamb also offers consultancy & management services.  Candis Tyson Ipswitch, Inc. (formerly Tyson & Ipswitch), California, USA  Tyson & Ipswitch were a law firm based at 301 East Colorado Blvd, Suite 526, Pasadena, CA 91101 USA.  The name came from the father and daughter attorneys Richard Tyson & Candis Tyson Ipswitch.  Sadly, Richard died in 2016.  His daughter continues the firm at the same address as Candis Tyson Ipswitch, Inc. (See also  Ipswitch & Ipswich as Surnames , below) Ipswich Bay Company  Ipswich Bay Company was a private “closed company” (an American term where there are less than five shareholders and more than 50% is owned by one person or family).  It was based in Houston Texas.  It provided financial and investment advice to middle market companies in the Southwest of the USA from 1989.  The founder was Donald E. Gilbert Jr (1942-2015).  Born in Ipswich, Massachusetts, he attended Boston University School of Law and the Harvard University Business School Executive Seminar.  After embarking on a corporate banking career in New York City, where he became an executive vice president at Chemical Bank (now JPMorgan Chase), he moved to Texas.  He held a similar position with the Republic Bank in Texas before establishing the Ipswich Bay Company in 1989.  In his own words: “I’m a values driven kind of guy and I think those values that were so important to a “historic” 20th Century New England, are more prevalent in Texas today than they are where I have come from. When I left the corporate life, respectful of that very heritage and the special place Ipswich, the bay, the salt marshes and Cape Ann mean in my life, I chartered my IB firm using the name.” Following the death of its founder, the Ipswich Bay Company became an associate business of Robinson Brown Investments LLC.  William Johnson - "Ipswichus"  Although born in London around the year 1610, William Johnson’s parents were originally from Suffolk. He became a fellow of Queens’ College, Cambridge & was ordained in 1640. Around 1635 he wrote the play Valetudinarium ; a Latin comedy in five acts, which was performed at Emmanuel College, Cambridge in 1637 & at Queens’ College the following year. The play is anti-Puritan & paints satiric portraits of the two central Puritan characters ‘Ipswichus’ & his wife ‘Lynna’ ; the names being taken from Ipswich & King’s Lynn, which were both staunchly Puritan towns at the time. During the English Civil War (1642-51) Johnson went into exile, returning after the Restoration. He died in 1667 & was buried in Westminster Abbey. Descendant: Chronicles of the Ipswich Witch - A Novel by Miranda Bachman Published in June 2010, Descendant  is the first novel in the Chronicle of the Ipswich Witch  series by author Miranda Bachman who lives in Northern California. Miranda’s great grandmother grew up in Ipswich, Massachusetts. Here is Miranda’s synopsis of her first novel: “Some people love life so much that they refuse to leave it even in death. Cleona Conant (The Ipswich Witch), who died in 1721, has refused to give up the ghost. She has been body swapping ever since her death to remain here in the mortal realm. In 1780, she devised an elaborate plan to cross the paths of her future granddaughter Raven (twenty generations down her line), with an ancient vampire named Alasdair. Aided by the use of spells, incantations and Uber-shadowing, her plan moved into motion in 1983, when Alasdair discovered Raven and set his heart on making her his companion. Through a span of nearly seventy years, he guarded her, all throughout her mortal life. However, once he gave her his eternal kiss he ultimately, and without his knowing, led their lives down a path which neither of them had the ability or knowledge to escape from what lay ahead. Does good always conquer evil, or does evil win once in awhile?  \ Find out in DESCENDANT: Chronicles of the Ipswich Witch.” According to Miranda’s website, book 2 in the Chronicles of the Ipswich Witch  series was to be called Retribution , whilst the third in the series was to be named Demise . As at 2013, however, these books do not seem to have been published. For more details, including where to buy this book, visit Miranda’s website through the Links  page. Scott Was Here - Book by Elaine Ipswitch  Scott Was Here  is the title of a book, published in 1979, by Elaine Ipswitch. The Scott in question is Elaine & Ronnie Ipswitch’s son Scott Douglas Ipswitch (13/1/61 – 16/4/76) who passed away from advanced Hodgkin’s Disease. The Ipswitch family are from the city of Fillmore, California. The book is described as “ a ‘tear-jerker’ as a mother movingly recounts her son’s long fight against Hodgkin’s Disease along with the trials of perseverance the family had to push through ”.  The book has also been translated into Spanish ( Scott Estuvo Aqui ) & German ( Scott. Aber Die Hoffnung Bleibt ). A Memorial to Scott Ipswitch can be found in front of Fillmore High School.  (See also Ipswitch & Ipswich as Surnames  section, below) Ipswich in The Fourth Protocol - A Novel by Frederick Forsyth  Ipswich, England is featured heavily in Frederick Forsyth’s spy thriller novel The Fourth Protocol .  Forsyth (born 1938) is an English author whose other books include The Day of the Jackal  (1971), The Odessa File  (1972), The Dogs of War  (1974) & The Cobra  (2010).  The book’s title derives from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty of 1968, signed by the three nuclear powers of that time, Great Britain, USA & USSR. In signing the treaty, these nations pledged to refrain from passing on nuclear technology or materials to any other nation. According to the novel, as well as this main agreement, four other secret protocols were also included, each of which was concerned with specific threats from future developments of nuclear capabilities. By signing, each nation agreed not to contravene these protocols. The first three were, by the 1980s, considered as either impossible to achieve or obsolete due to the hazard having been nullified. The Fourth Protocol banned the use of any simplified or miniature, & therefore easily transported or assembled, nuclear weapons that might be developed in the future.   Although the novel was published in 1984, the story takes place three years in the future, 1987, in the run up to a British general election.  This was during the Cold War era, & at a time when US Air Force bases with nuclear missiles were still spread widely throughout Britain, with the threat of nuclear war still a strong possibility. The eighties were, however, a period which had seen the rise of a sizeable anti-nuclear campaign dedicated to unilateral disarmament.  The story revolves around a plot hatched at the very highest level in the Kremlin, codenamed Plan Aurora, in which the Soviet leader (who is never named) & an elite group including spy & defector Kim Philby, send an undercover agent, named Valeri Petrofsky, into Britain. Once there he will receive various items, including uranium & plastic explosives, smuggled into the country by couriers for the purposes of creating a small, compact nuclear weapon, which would be detonated outside a US Air Force base. In other words, Plan Aurora was in direct contravention of the Fourth Protocol. The Soviet Union had, for some time, been infiltrating the Hard Left of the British Labour Party, & the time was now thought of as right for this extreme wing to take over the party.  With the election imminent, the thinking went, any nuclear explosion close to a base where missiles were known to have been housed, would, in the minds of the British public, appear to be an accident caused by the US Air Force, & sway a significant number of people to vote for a Labour, & therefore unilateralist, government. Once in power, the Hard Left had plans to take over the party, creating a state run along the lines favoured by the Communist Party in Moscow. The base chosen for the ‘accident’ is RAF Bentwaters, near Woodbridge, Suffolk & around 15 miles by road from Ipswich. Petrofsky, who is living in Britain under the assumed name of James Duncan Ross, hires a house in Ipswich as his base, in which he stores all the component parts for the bomb as they are delivered to him by the couriers, where it is then assembled & made ready for detonation by another Soviet agent.  The plan is discovered, however, by MI5 agent John Preston, who manages to track down the Russian. The trail leads to a house in Chesterfield, Derbyshire, where Petrofsky has gone to send an encoded message back to Moscow informing his masters that Plan Aurora is all set to be put into action. Preston & his team follow Petrofsky back to Ipswich &, with a troop from the SAS, the house is stormed & the tragedy averted. Petrofsky is killed in the process. When Petrofsky/Ross first arrives in Ipswich, he stays at first at the Great White Horse Hotel in Tavern Street.  The following day he goes in to Oxborrow’s estate agents to rent a house. The house he chooses is described as “a small, neat brick house in a small, neat brick road in a small, neat brick private-sector housing estate off the Belstead Road.”  This is the estate known as ‘The Hayes’, which lies between Belstead Road & Prince of Wales Drive. Brackenhayes, Gorsehayes, Heatherhayes & Almondhayes  are all named in the book & all exist. The location of the house that Petrofsky rents however, in Cherryhayes Close, is fictitious. The garden of 12 Cherryhayes Close, we learn later in the book, backs onto a garden in Brackenhayes (in reality, the properties in Brackenhayes border Gorsehayes, Heatherhayes, Laurelhayes or Belstead Road).   Preston trails Petrofsky, at a distance, back from Chesterfield via Thetford into Suffolk.  The Soviet agent, unaware that he is being followed, takes the A1088 through Ixworth, then heads onto what was then the A45 (now the A14) back to Ipswich.  When he arrives back in town, Whitton, Chevalier Street, Handford Bridge, the River Orwell & Ranelagh Road are all mentioned on his route back to Belstead Road & his house in Cherryhayes Close. A film adaption of The Fourth Protocol  was released in 1987, although this is only loosely based on the book. Starring Michael Caine as John Preston & Pierce Brosnan as Valeri Petrofsky, it also features Ned Beatty, Joanna Cassidy, Michael Gough & Julian Glover. It was directed by John Mackenzie & produced by Timothy Burrill. Much of the film was shot in Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire, with the car chase that is supposed to take place in Ipswich actually being filmed in Chelmsford, Essex.  RAF Bentwaters is changed in the film to the fictional RAF Bayswater; the scenes of this being shot at RAF Upper Heyford in Oxfordshire. The Orwell Bridge, however, does appear in the film, in a scene where two helicopters fly beneath it. Ipswich as a Surname in Three Little Girls Dressed in Blue - A Trilogy of Novels by Marcia Lynn McClure  The Bewitching of Amoretta Ipswich  is the title of a novel by Marcia Lynn McClure. Described as a Western Historical Romance, it was published in September 2012 & is the first part of a three book series collectively entitled Three Little Girls Dressed in Blue ; the girls in question being Amoretta, Calliope & Evangeline Ipswich.  The second book in the series is The Secret Bliss of Calliope Ipswich , with the third & final book in the trilogy entitled The Romancing of Evangeline Ipswich, both published in 2014.  Marcia Lynn McClure was born in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Her novels have been described as “weaving captivating stories of western, medieval, regency, and contemporary amour void of brusque intimacy” .  Her writing has earned her the title “The Queen of Kissing”. Her first novel was The Heavenly Surrender , which appeared in 2001. She has since become a prolific writer, averaging more than four books annually since 2007. Other titles include Shackles of Honor  (2002), The Highwayman of Tanglewood  (2008), A Crimson Frost  (2009), The Haunting of Autumn Lake (2011) & Untethered (2012). She is also the author of the non-fiction book How to Determine a Good One: An Essay on Kissing (2011). She now lives in Rio Rancho, New Mexico. In exclusive correspondence with Planet Ipswich, Marcia revealed that her paternal family line can be traced back to Ipswich, Massachusetts...& possibly back to Ipswich in England. In Marcia’s own words: “The word/name Ipswich has always intrigued me - from the moment I first heard it many years and years and years ago.  I just love it!  I always tell people that for some reason, “Ipswich” is one of my top 5 favorite words!  In fact, it holds the #1 spot of my favorite words to actually say!  Not sure why, I just love it!  I find it phonetically pleasing - not to mention just plain intriguing to hear. Therefore, being that I've always loved the word/name Ipswich, and that I have family history stretching back to at least Ipswich, Mass - well, if you know many author ’ s - that's usually all it takes to spark an entire story line!”  Regarding the characters with the surname Ipswich, Marcia revealed that: “The Bewitching of Amoretta Ipswich , takes place in the old west.  Judge Lawson Ipswich has moved his daughters, Amoretta, Calliope and Evangeline, west, wanting to escape the hustle and bustle of Boston.  Judge Ipswich was born in Massachusetts, though his parents were immigrants from Ipswich, Suffolk, England.  Though the story is about Amoretta, Judge Ipswich does end up marrying a young woman with a daughter - therefore Kizzy and her daughter, Shay - also have the surname Ipswich by the end of the book.” The Postmaster of Ipswich. William Stevenson Fitch Antiquary and Thief - Janet Ing Freeman  This book published by The Book Collector, 1997, is the true story of this notable antiquary, who has been revealed as a persistent thief by the detailed study made by the author. William Stevenson Fitch was by profession a chemist in Ipswich who in 1837 became the town’s postmaster, a position he held for 21 years until his death in 1859.  He devoted his leisure time to studying the antiquities of Suffolk and amassed a collection of original manuscripts relating to the history of the county.  When he fell on hard times he sold his collection in four auctions between 1853 and 1859. The West Suffolk Archaeological Association, of which he was a founder, purchased many of the drawings and engravings which were deposited in the museum of the society at Bury St. Edmunds.  Among his collection were 156 charters bound together relating to Dodnash Priory, known as the “ Dodnash Cartulary ”, that he undoubtedly obtained by dubious means from the library of the Tollemache family at Helmingham Hall. Drawing on a wide range of archival sources the author shows that Fitch was a persistent thief of books, pamphlets and manuscripts, principally from the libraries of the Tollemache family at Ham House and Helmingham Hall, and also from the Corporation chest of Ipswich itself from which came the manuscript of John Bale’s play “ Kynge Johan ”.  Not only that, Fitch also stole many of the finest manuscripts that ended up in the collection of his friend and fellow antiquary Dawson Turner of Norfolk, who could not have been unaware of the original source of the material. In his own right, Fitch did publish “ A Catalogue of Suffolk Memorial Registers, Royal Grants, &c ”, 1843, and “ Ipswich and its Early Mints ” 1848.  He was also a regular contributor to the “ Journal of the British Archaeological Association ” and the “ Proceedings of the East Suffolk Archaeological Society ”.  He also has an entry in the Dictionary of National Biography. Gippovicensis as part of a literary title  Well into the 20th century, it was normal for learned books to put their title in Latin as this was considered to be the language known by the better educated person.  The fact that the contents of the book itself would be written in English was, of course, immaterial, the fiction of a certain superiority had already been established by the title.  The old name for Ipswich was used in the title of two such books as “ Gippovicensis ”, the Latin for “of Gippeswick”. ‘ Hortus Botanicus Gippovicensis, or a systematical enumeration of the Plants cultivated in Dr Coyte’s Botanic Garden at Ipswich ’ by William Beeston Coyte, was first published in 1796 at Ipswich.  The title just means “Botanic Garden of Ipswich”.  A facsimile edition was published in 1984.  This is a list of the plants in the botanical garden at Ipswich maintained by Dr Coyte (1740-1810), who practised medicine in the town, and had an interest in botany.  He was Ipswich born, and graduated at Queens’ College, Cambridge, in 1763.  He was a fellow of the Linnean Society, the world’s premier organisation for the study and dissemination of natural history.    His name is remembered today in Coytes Gardens, a short ‘L’ shaped street connecting Princes Street with Friars Street. It is the only street in Ipswich to retain its cobblestone surface  & central guttering.  A memorial to Dr Coyte can be found in St Nicholas’ church. ‘ Pharmacopoeia Valetudinarii Gippovicensis, medicamenta simplicia et composita exhibens, in usum aegrorum servanda ’ by William Henry Williams, was published by the Ipswich Public Dispensary, 1814.  The title means “A Pharmacopoeia of Ipswich Hospital, showing simple and compound drugs, observed in the use of patients.”  A pharmacopoeia (literally ‘drug-making’) is a reference work containing directions for the identification of compound medicines.  William Henry Williams (1771-1841) was born in Gloucestershire.  He received his medical education at the Bristol Infirmary and at St. Thomas’s and Guy’s hospitals.  He became a surgeon to the East Norfolk militia.  About 1797 he designed a tourniquet of such simplicity and efficiency, that it was at once adopted by the authorities, and named “Williams’ Field Tourniquet” by the Army Medical Board.  It was ordered to be employed in every regiment both at home and abroad, and enabled non-commissioned officers to apply a tourniquet to stem loss of blood from sword, bayonet or gun-shot wounds.  Before this, only the surgeon and assistant-surgeons were competent to apply a tourniquet.  Some years before 1803 Dr Williams had settled at Ipswich, and in 1810 was appointed in charge of the South Military hospital close by the town.  Dr Williams was admitted to the College of Physicians in 1816.  He continued to reside at Ipswich until shortly before his death in 1841.  He was the author of several medical treatises including the above.  Ipswitch, Pennsylvania, in Pie - A Children’s Book by Sarah Weeks  Ipswitch, with a ‘t’, is a very small town in Pennsylvania in this children’s book by the award-winning author, Sarah Weeks.  Pie  is a story about family, friendship and, naturally, pies.  It was published in October 2011 by Scholastic Press.  In 1941 Polly Portman opened a shop called “Pie”, located in downtown Ipswitch, Pa., which has a population of 162, on the corner of Windham and Main.  Polly has a gift for making pies and as soon as she opened up, she was almost instantly famous.  It was well known that Polly had a secret recipe for her crust, a recipe so good that her pies won the national pie award 13 years running.  Her pies were so popular that people from all over the world came to try them, which brought tourist revenue to the small town.   In 1945 her niece Alice Anderson was born.  Alice helped Polly bake pies, and spent a lot of time with her in the pie shop.  Alice loved her aunt very much.  So in 1955 when Aunt Polly, the Pie Queen of Ipswitch, died unexpectedly, Alice was devastated.  Even more so after she hears that her Aunt Polly has left her world-famous pie crust recipe to her enormously fat and disagreeable cat, Lardo, who was to be left in the care of Alice.  Then Lardo disappeared, and Alice feared he had been catnapped.  The little tourist industry that had grown up around Polly’s famous pies was losing business since Polly had passed away.  Now just about everyone wanted to be the next big pie-contest winner, and it makes the women of Ipswitch pie-crazy. This mystery moves along fairly quickly, and the book is filled with interesting characters like the bodybuilding spinster principal of Alice’s school, the publicity-driven mayor, and Charlie, Alice’s inquisitive friend who wants to help her find Aunt Polly’s secret pie crust recipe.  Each of the fourteen chapters starts with a pie recipe, everything from fruit and custard pies to a green tomato pie, a low-fat buttermilk pie, and even a peanut butter raspberry cream pie!  But be advised that the pie crust recipe is NOT included. Sarah Weeks is a singer, songwriter, and children’s book author. She has been writing and performing in New York for more than twenty years and has numerous theatre and recording credits, as well as writing more than thirty books and novels.  Sarah enjoys visiting schools and libraries throughout the country, where she reads from her books, sings her songs, and talks to children about writing.  She currently lives in New York City with her two sons. Tilly Ipswitch in Tilly Witch - A Children’s Book by Don Freeman   Tilly Witch  is a children’s picture book by author and illustrator Don Freeman, first published in 1969 by Viking Press.  It was republished in 1978 by Puffin Books.   The story is about Tilly Ipswitch (spelt with a “t”), an evil witch and Queen of Halloween.  Like children play at being evil witches on Halloween, Tilly Ipswitch decides to try playing at being happy and good.  Unfortunately, she forgot how to be mean.  So she hops on a surfboard and flies to the island of Wahoo where a witch doctor, Dr Weegee, advises her to return to her old finishing school for witches to re learn the trickery of the trade.  The lessons fail to address her problem and she remains cheerful until she is sent to a corner to wear a dunce’s hat.  This makes Tilly angry and she leaps from her stool and stomps on the dunce’s cap.  Her anger makes Tilly return to her old self.  She flies back home and takes joy in frightening her cat, and then sets out on her broomstick to scare children the world over. A follow up entitled Space Witch  was published by Picture Puffin books in 1979.Don Freeman was born in San Diego, California, in 1908.  He came to New York to study art and gradually earned a living sketching impressions of Broadway shows for The New York Times  and The Herald Tribune .  He was introduced to the world of children’s literature when he was asked to illustrate several books.  Soon after, he began to write and illustrate his own books, a career he settled into comfortably and happily.  Don Freeman died in 1978, after a long and successful career as the author and illustrator of many popular books for children. The Good Green Witch from Ipswitch by Garnett Tremain Bond  Another book about a witch using the place-name with a ‘t’.  We cannot tell you much about the plot, other than it is a story of a good witch who safeguards the planet from pollution.  The environmental angle is obvious.  It is only 16 pages aimed at the pre-school  market, published by Dageford Publishing, USA in 1997 (no longer in business since 2004).  The American author seems to specialise in children’s books, among his other titles are “ Tickley Tiger ” and “ The Inventions of Mr Tinkers-A-Lot ”.    The Ipswich Witch by David L Jones   This book tells the horrifying tale of cruelty and injustice in 17th Century East Anglia.  The book focuses on witchcraft in Ipswich and the most extreme punishment ever given to an English witch.  This is the case of Mary Lackland, the so-called Ipswich Witch.  Her case is unusual in that it was one of the few instances in England of a witch being burned alive, as opposed to the more usual method of hanging.   She was put to death on Rushmere Heath in September 1645. In this book David L Jones explores the case against Mary Lackland, and provides a thorough investigation into this miscarriage of justice. He provides a new look at the social causes of the Suffolk witch-hunts through his own research of contemporary 17th Century sources.  (This topic is briefly covered under Matthew Hopkins – Witchfinder General  on the Suffolk, England page of www.planetsuffolk.com ). The author, who lives in Ipswich, is a writer and researcher who works for the Ipswich Museum. The Ipswich Witch: Mary Lackland and the Suffolk Witch Hunts  by David L Jones, is published by The History Press (2015). Last Voyage from Ipswich – A Novel by Peter Foster  Published in 1996, Last Voyage from Ipswich  is a novel by Peter Foster. The book is basically a series of modern seafarers’ tales and adventures, interwoven into a novel about a group of Merchant Navy seamen who are hired by the owner of the Marie-Claire  to take on her final voyage across the Atlantic from Ipswich in England, across to Jamaica.  Both the first and last chapters are entitled ‘Ipswich’ and take place in the town. The other chapters are named after stages of the journey across the Atlantic (Azores, Mid-Atlantic, Bahama Atolls etc.). The book was published privately by the author.            The Artisan of Ipswich by Robert Tarule  Published in 2004 by The John Hopkins University Press, the sub-title is ‘ Craftsmanship and Community in Colonial New England ’ because the book entails more than the story of one man, and the re-creation of a chest to his design by using the tools that existed when the original chest was made. Thomas Dennis emigrated to America from England in 1663, settling in Ipswich, Massachusetts.  He was a joiner who, during his lifetime, won wide renown as an artisan.  Today, connoisseurs judge his elaborately carved furniture as among the best produced in 17th century America.  Robert Tarule, historian and accomplished woodworker himself, vividly portrays Thomas Dennis building a chest for a client in his Ipswich shop. What you quickly learn is that one of the most important things in 17th century America was access to wood for fuel, tanning, fences, construction, barrels and wheels as well as joinery.  Wood becomes a sort of currency among the artisans, and the right to cut wood was the source of lawsuits, fines and feuds. Tarule not only deals with how Thomas Dennis selected the right trees and how he made the wood into an elegant carved oak chest, he shows how the economic wealth of the town of Ipswich depended on its access to wood.  Tarule also covers the foundation and early settlement of Ipswich.  He depicts the natural and social landscape in which Dennis operated, from the sights, sounds, and smells of colonial Ipswich and its surrounding countryside.  In addition, there is an entire chapter devoted to the other artisans in the town like coopers, carpenters, and wheelwrights and the types of wood they needed, and how they impacted on the resources available to the people of Ipswich. The House on Ipswich Marsh by William Sargent  The sub-title is ‘ Exploring the Natural History of New England ’, published by the University Press of New England, 2005.  William Sargent was formerly director of the Baltimore Aquarium and a research assistant at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.  He is a consultant for science series on television and a writer about science and the environment.   In 2003, William Sargent bought a big, pink house in Ipswich, Massachusetts.  This is located on the Great Marsh, a patch of wetland shared by Massachusetts and New Hampshire.  Sargent received a grant to study some of the rare and endangered ground-nesting birds that inhabit the public land adjacent to his property.  ‘The House on Ipswich Marsh’ is primarily about the birdlife throughout a typical year, organised by the seasons.  However, there is much else as well in the book, delving into the natural world, ecology, and cultural history: plate tectonics and glaciers; sea level rise and glacial rebound; the 19th century New England ice trade; what a mastodon hunt must have looked like, and much more. Ipswitch & Ipswich as Surnames  Ipswitch (with a ‘t’) is a surname in use today in the USA.  The earliest records that we can find on the US Federal Census, date from 1880, where there seem to be two separate families; one in California, the other in Maryland.  John Ipswitch was born in Austria c 1841. He is listed as living in San Francisco, California in 1880 & his occupation is shown as saloon keeper. His wife, Elizabeth was born c 1852 in California, although her parents are listed as being from England. They have six children, all born in California: Eugenia  -  born c 1869 George  -  born c 1871 Ada  -  born c 1873 Alexander  -  born c 1875 John  -  born c 1877 & an unnamed son born c 1879 There is also a record for John dating from 16th November 1870 from the US Naturalization records for the northern district of California, although this gives very little detail. James Ipswitch, born in Poland c 1829, is listed as residing in Baltimore, Maryland in 1880. His occupation is given as a labourer & he is married to Margaret, also born in Poland c 1832. They are listed as having seven children, all born in Poland: May   -   born c 1851 John  -  born c 1853 James  Jr  -  born c 1855 William  -  born c 1856 Rabie  -  born c 1862 Mary  -  born c 1863 Ann  -  born c 1866 The more recent records show the name Ipswitch as occurring predominantly in California, with just a few scattered across other states, such as Oregon, Colorado & North Dakota. The surname Ipswich (without the ‘t’) is much rarer, although one or two records for this spelling also occur.  One erroneous record appears on the US Federal Census for 1920. Here is recorded a Frank Ipswich & his family (wife Cora & their three children; Dorothy, Robert & Lennard), at that time resident in San Francisco. Frank is listed as being born in California c 1886 & his occupation is stated as automobile salesman. Most telling about this entry, though, is that his father is listed as being born in Austria, which suggests a link with John Ipswitch & family listed above. These entries seem to simply be a misspelling, however, as in the 1930 census the name is given as the more common Ipswitch. (The recorder did seem to have a bit of a problem with the letters in this hand written document; spelling at least one member of the family ‘Ispwich’) (See also The Ipswich, San Francisco in the Ipswich in the Names of Public Houses, Bars & Inns etc. )  I can find only two other records for the surname Ipswich in the USA. One is in the California Divorce Index, where one Toni L Ipswich is listed as getting divorced from Ronald G Berndt in May 1977 at Los Angeles. The other is for a June Ipswich, who is recorded in the California Birth Index as being born on 25th June 1914 in San Francisco. The mother’s name is simply listed as Miller. Whether these are also misspellings or not is uncertain. The surnames Epswick and Apswick, can also be found in the USA & are believed to be derived from mispellings of Ipswich; “Epswick, Suffolk” was often written down as “place of origin”. Likewise, the surname Ipswick only appears once - in the 1900 census a Henry Ipswick, born 1878, is recorded in Marion County, Florida.  As he does not appear on previous or subsequent censuses, this is most likely to be in error. (Ipswick Circle is the name of a street in Columbus, Ohio.  This is also likely to be an original error in spelling that has been perpetuated.) In the UK, records of people with the surname Ipswich or a variant such as Ipswick are few & far between.  The earliest we have found is a Thomas Ipswich who graduated from Cambridge University in 1496.  It may be, however, that this Thomas did not have a proper surname, but merely came from Ipswich. This also applies to the many earlier ways of spelling Ipswich as Gipeswic, Gippewic, etc. which we return to below. The next two records are from the eighteenth century: An Isabella Ipswick was buried in March 1781 at Whitechapel, aged 72, whilst a child named Elizabeth Epswick, was in buried in May 1744 at Cripplegate in the City of London.  A century later, the 1851 Census records a John Ipswick living in Hackney, born 1822 at Walden (probably Saffron Walden in Essex) & described as an agricultural labourer. Next we have an Ann Ipswich who is also recorded as “Ann Ipswick”.  Since the original name is handwritten, it is uncertain which of these is correct.  She was buried as “Ann Ipswick” on 28th May 1864 at Croydon St Johns in Surrey. In the 1911 Census there are records of a Benjamin Geraint Ipswich, aged 30, born in Bangor, Co. Down, Ireland, and his wife Ellen Daisy Ipswich, aged 32, born in Dalhousie, India.  They lived in Brockley, London. He was an accountant working for a gold company. It is noticeable that the records above with “Ipswich” shown as a surname only appear in one particular census year and not preceding or subsequent years, which leads us to suspect that the real surname was different, and the enumerator may have entered it incorrectly. A record also exists of Viscount Henry Charles Ipswich, born 6th April 1978 at Westminster, London. Nobility & royalty, however, have a habit of using their titles as surnames, & further research has revealed that this was actually Henry Charles FitzRoy, later to become the 12th Duke of Grafton, whose subsidiary title is Viscount Ipswich  (see section below).In the Caribbean, a sad but interesting fact is that Ipswich is recorded as a slave name given to Africans (all males) six times between 1817 and 1828.  They are recorded in Antigua (owner Sir Christopher Codrington); Nevis (owner Mary Robinson); Jamaica, St Elizabeth Parish (2 different slaves aged 36 and 17 were given this name by their owner Thomas Smith); Jamaica, St Elizabeth Parish (owner Hampstead Pons); Jamaica, St Ann Parish (owner John Watkin Williams). Gippeswic (and variant spellings) as a surname:-  As mentioned above, the earlier ways of spelling Ipswich were also used as a form of surname.  The pipe rolls and other early records have “de Gipewic”, “de Gipeswic”, or other spellings for people who came from the town.  Obviously, people who lived at Ipswich or in its proximity are regularly referred to in this way.  The earliest reference we have found for a person who lived elsewhere is with Adam de Gepeswic or Adam de Gippeswic (both spellings are used) who was the owner and lived in the property at 11 Honey Lane at All Hallows in the City of London.  He is recorded in deeds from 1192 to 1212.  It cannot be said to be a true surname at this stage of its development.  Only when it is handed down to the children who do not come from that place, can it be considered a proper surname. The first definite usage of Gippeswic and its other forms as a surname passed down from father to sons appears to be in a will proved in the Archdeaconry Court of Sudbury in 1445.  It is the will of Nicholas Yepisswich also referred to by the surname Gypewic.  In his will he mentioned his relatives by a variety of names: his father Thomas de Gippewic, his sons William de Gippewic and John Yebyswych, and his grandsons (sons of John) William Gippewic and Nicholas Gipp. The latter surname (Gipp) is interesting because it is used as evidence for those who maintain that people in the eastern counties who have the surname Gipp or Gipps derive it from Gippeswic, and not as a pet-name for Gilbert or ‘son of Gilbert’ which also gives the surname Gibb or Gibbs.  Ipswich, Queensland, is said to owe its name partly to the fact that the governor of New South Wales, at the time, was Sir George Gipps (see Ipswich, Queensland  page). If anyone can shed any further light on the origin of the surnames Ipswich, Ipswitch, Gippeswic or any of its variants, please email details to info@planetipswich.com . I would especially like to hear from anyone with the surname Ipswich or Ipswitch. Does anybody, anywhere else in the world have this surname? Any information at all would be greatly appreciated. (See also Candis Tyson Ipswitch, Inc. (formerly Tyson & Ipswitch), California, USA  &  Scott Was Here  - Book by Elaine Ipswitch  sections) Viscount Ipswich  Created in 1672, the title Viscount Ipswich is one of three subsidiary titles held by the Duke of Grafton (the other two being Baron Sudbury & Earl of Euston). The family seat since 1685 has been Euston Hall in Suffolk, not far from Thetford on the border with Norfolk & more than 25 miles from Ipswich. It was inherited by the first Duke, Henry FitzRoy; the illegitimate son of King Charles II & the Duchess of Cleveland . The current Duke, Henry FitzRoy (born 1978), is the twelfth. The title Duke of Grafton is taken from the village of Grafton Regis in Northamptonshire.   (See also Islas Ipswich  page) East of Ipswich - TV drama by Michael Palin  Although, apart from the title, not actually about Ipswich, this TV comedy drama was written by Michael Palin of Monty Python fame. Loosely based on Palin’s own experiences in small English seaside tow ns during the 1950s, the action centres around Richard Burrill, a seventeen year old dragged away on holiday to the Suffolk coast with his parents (he very early on asks whether there actually is  anything ‘east of Ipswich’).  Bored due to a lack of anything to do except sit all day in a deckchair, admire church architecture & identify passing ships, Richard falls in with a group of teenagers who hang around coffee bars, listen to jazz & skiffle & chase girls (much to his parent’s dismay). This culminates in his sexual initiation at the hands of a promiscuous Dutch girl named Anna. East of Ipswich  was filmed in the Suffolk town of Southwold & starred Edward Rawle-Hicks as Richard, John Nettleton & Pat Heywood as his parents, Pippa Hinchley as Anna & Joan Sanderson as the overbearing landlady Miss Wilbraham. The programme was produced by Innes Lloyd & directed by Tristram Powell. It was first broadcast as part of the BBC’s Screen Two series on 1st February 1987. It was released on DVD in 2009. Ipswich Man – BBC Documentary  First shown on 6th May 2010 on BBC2, as part of the History Cold Case series, Ipswich Man  tells the story of the investigation into the archeological discovery of a skeleton found in Ipswich, England during the 1990s, dating back to medieval times & bearing traits indicating that he was of African origin.    The investigation, led by Sue Black, OBE, head of Anatomy and Forensic Anthropology at the University of Dundee, set out to find out why a man with these characteristics would have been in medieval Ipswich & where he originated from. Initiall y thought to be of sub-Saharan origin due to the shape of the jaw, anthropological, DNA & stable isotope tests revealed that this individual was more likely to have been from North Africa. Carbon dating revealed that the skeleton originated from the period 1190 – 1300 AD, which was consistent with a medieval belt buckle found close to the body.  The man is thought to have been between 40 & 60 years old at the time of his death, around 5 feet 6 inches tall, & robust in stature. He was not undernourished & there was evidence of a healthy, balanced diet. Stable isotope tests on a leg bone also showed that the man had been in a colder climate, such as Suffolk, for at least ten years prior to his death. A facial reconstruction based on a laser scanned 3D model of the skull was also produced (see photo, left).  The skeleton was one of around 150 found in a medieval cemetery discovered in the mid 1990s, when excavation work was being done near Franciscan Way, close to the site of the Greyfriars friary that had been established in the late thirteenth century.  Close examination of his vertebrae revealed the man had suffered from a spinal abscess in the mid to lower thoracic area of the vertebral column, which would have effected lower limb mobility & made walking painful. It was thought that this abscess may have been the cause of the man’s death. Other skeletal remains from the same site show most of these individual’s were nearly all middle aged or elderly, some with visible signs of disease or physical disabilities, leading the experts to conclude that the graveyard was probably attached to an infirmary or medieval hospital run by the Greyfriars; the Franciscan friars being known to have been apothecaries & to have practiced medicine on a charitable basis. During the Roman occupation, people of African origin would have come to Britain as both soldiers & merchants. Once the Romans left, however, during the fifth century AD, there would have been very few people of African origin to be seen in Britain up until the sixteenth century. So how did this man, whose features & darker skin would make him stand out in medieval England, come to be in Ipswich?  The answer may lie with the founder of the Franciscan friary in Ipswich; Sir Robert Tibetot (or Tiptoft) of Nettlestead, who died in 1298. Sir Robert is known to have been on the ninth & final crusade (1271-2), led by Prince Edward (later King Edward I). It is known that en route to the Holy Land, the knights stopped at Tunis on the North African coast. What is also known is that Thomas of Clare, who was on the same crusade as Tibetot, brought four “Saracens” back to England with him, although whether as slaves or free men is unknown; the term Saracen in this context meaning a Muslim. It is possible that Sir Robert Tibetot may have also done likewise.  If this is the manner in which the man buried in the Greyfriars cemetery came to Britain, then he must have converted to Christianity at some time to have been buried in a Christian friary.  Nor would it seem likely that he was poor at the time of his death, as this would have made it unlikely that he would have been in the infirmary, or buried in a single grave.  The Ipswich Cuckoos - Film  Described as “a low speed comedy set in the fast-paced world of benefits claims investigation” The Ipswich Cuckoos  is the first full length film by Optimistic Panic Productions.  Written & directed by Pete Moffat & first released in 2010, the film was originally available to watch through the website ‘ theipswichcuckoos.co.uk ’, but can now be viewed on YouTube. Starring characters calling themselves Pete Mahatma Stalin & Jon Gorogonizer, the ‘plot’ revolves around two investigators working undercover to catch a benefit fraudster.   The film begins with a few images of Ipswich, England (‘Welcome to Ipswich’ sign/Norwich Road Bridge/an Ipswich bus etc.). Thereafter, the ‘action’ takes place almost entirely indoors or in a car, with very little clue as to location.   Be warned that the dialogue consists of a great deal of strong language & sexually explicit banter. I’d like to tell you that its redeeming feature is its humour, but sadly this isn’t the case, & after a few minutes the whole thing gets a bit tedious. If you enjoy listening to two guys talking inane rubbish for an hour & twenty minutes, then this is for you. If not....avoid!  The ‘Sons of Ipswich’ in the film The Covenant  Released in 2006, The Covenant  is a supernatural thriller film written by J. S. Cardone,  directed by Renny Harlin & produced by Gary Lucchesi & Tom Rosenberg. The story starts in Ipswich, Massachusetts during the Salem Witch Trials of 1692, where five families, by the names of Danvers, Parry, Garwin, Simms & Putnam, form a covenant of silence to protect their families & their keep their secret powers hidden from the witch-hunters. One family  - the Putnams - become obsessed with obtaining more power, which puts the families in great danger, & as a result they are banished from the land & disappear without trace.  Fast forward to the present day: Teenagers Caleb Danvers , Pogue Parry, Reid Garwin & Tyler Simms are all students at the prestigious Spenser Academy.  Descended from the five families, they are the ‘Sons of Ipswich’, & all are warlocks with supernatural & mystical powers including psychokinesis, pyrokinesis, levitation, astral projection, shapeshifting, teleportation & clairvoyance. The downside of these powers is that excessive use causes a drain on their life force.  When the son of the long lost fifth family, Chase Collins, suddenly appears, he threatens to kill their loved ones unless they “will” their powers to him.  The four ‘Sons of Ipswich’ realise that they must stop him from stealing their powers, & they have a battle on their hands to ensure the safety of the covenant.  The five main characters are played by Steven Strait, Taylor Kitsch, Toby Hemingway, Chace Crawford & Sebastian Stan. The film also stars Laura Ramsey, Jessica Lucas & Kyle Schmid. The movie was a critical failure, with the film review website Rotten Tomatoes  stating “ The Covenant plays out like a teen soap opera, full of pretty faces, wooden acting, laughable dialogue, and little suspense. ” The Covenant was released on DVD and Blu-ray in 2007. There is some evidence that a sequel, The Covenant II: The Ipswich Curse , was at one stage being considered. This, however, doesn’t seem to have ever come to fruition.  “Lord Clive Montdrako of Ipswich” and references to Ipswich in an episode of Bewitched  An episode in of the popular 1960s American fantasy situation comedy show Bewitched  features several references to Ipswich, including a character called Lord Clive Montdrako of Ipswich.  Created by screenwriter Sol Saks (1910-2011), Bewitched , originally broadcast between 1964 and 1972, is about a young witch named Samantha (played by Elizabeth Montgomery, see photo, right) who marries an ordinary mortal man called Darrin (Dick York) and tries to lead the life of a typical suburban housewife. Many of Samantha’s relatives, all with magical powers, also feature in the shows, most notably Samantha’s mother Endora (Agnes Moorehead) who is constantly at loggerheads with Darrin. The programme ran for 8 series and 254 episodes.  The show in question is entitled I Get Your Nanny, You Get My Goat, and is episode 15 of season 4, first broadcast in December 1967.  The plot revolves around Samantha calling in her old nanny, Elspeth (Hermione Baddeley), to babysit their daughter Tabitha. The arrival of the English nanny (whose character is clearly based on Mary Poppins) doesn’t go down well with Endora, who calls up Elspeth’s employer, the British Lord Clive Montdrako of Ipswich (Reginald Gardiner), who she claims is “the only warlock in the House of Lords”.  Lord Montdrako doesn’t take kindly to Darrin, as he sees him as having poached Elspeth away from him.  Much magical mayhem follows, which sees a variety of spells being cast, usually to Darrin’s detriment. This culminates with a scene in which Samantha magically transports herself to Lord Montdrako’s castle in England. This scene contains two more references to Ipswich:  During a tour of the castle, the guide (Samantha in disguise) makes reference to “The Ghost of Ipswich Downs” who is alleged to make a tapestry fly up and wave whenever strangers enter the hall. She also points out to the tourists a suit of armour owned by “The First Earl of Ipswich, who in his time danced his way into the hearts of many a young lady”. Needless to say, both the tapestry and the suit of armour then perform to order, courtesy of Samantha’s magic powers.  This particular episode was written by Pittsburgh born Ron Friedman, who as well as writing more than 700 hours of episodes for many TV series, was also famous as a television and film producer.  We have been unable to find any reason for the name Ipswich being used, other than the association that the name conjures up with images of witches, magic and sorcery in some people’s minds.  “Ichabod Ipswich” – Character in Goober and the Ghost Chasers  Goober and the Ghost Chasers was a children’s animated cartoon series produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions between 1973 and 1975. Only 16 episodes were ever made.  The show’s theme is very similar to Hanna-Barbera’s successful and more famous Scooby-Doo, Where Are You! , insofar as it features a group of teenagers and their dog, Goober, who work for Ghost Chasers  Magazine and go around solving  paranormal mysteries.  Goober, who is green in hue, has the ability to become invisible.  Episode 11 is entitled Go West Young Ghost, Go West  and features a ghostly character called Ichabod Ipswich (see picture, left). The plot revolves around an amusement park called Funland, where a haunted house has been brought by the owner from Salem, Massachusetts and set up as an exhibit. It is haunted by the spirit of one Ichabod Ipswich, who is alleged to have been a coward and is now doomed to roam the house until he can clear the family name.   The twist is that a rival park owner is dressing up as the ghost to scare away customers and lure them to his own business. After much mayhem and zany capers, the real ghost, plus the Ghost Chasers team, unmask the imposter. Ichabod Ipswich is now seen as a hero, instead of a coward, and has therefore cleared the family name of Ipswich.   The name Ipswich was probably used due to the close proximity of Ipswich, Massachusetts to Salem, and the connection with witches and all things paranormal. Fictional town of Ipswich, Oregon, USA in the film Summer of '84   The movie Summer of ’84 , which was released in 2018, is a Canadian horror/mystery film directed by François Simard, Anouk Whissell and Yoann-Karl Whissell, and starring Graham Verchere, Judah Lewis, Caleb Emery, Cory Gruter-Andrew, Jason Gray-Stanford, Tiera Skovbye, and Rich Sommer.  The film is set in the fictional town of Ipswich in Cape May, Oregon, USA, and revolves around the hunt for a serial killer known as the “Cape May Slayer”. Teenager Davey Armstrong, a conspiracy theorist, suspects that a neighbour of his, Ipswich police officer Wayne Mackey, is the killer. With help from three of his friends, Davey decides to investigate in an effort to bring the killer to justice. The climax of the film sees Davey and one of his friends, Woody, abducted by Mackey and taken to an offshore island. Mackey kills Woody by slitting his throat, but spares Davey in order to leave him paranoid and constantly in fear of the killer’s return.  The movie ends with Mackey still on the loose.  So why was the name Ipswich used for the fictional Oregon town? This is down to  producer and co-screenwriter (along with Stephen J Smith) Matthew Leslie, who grew up in Massachusetts, in the area around Ipswich and Salem. Summer of ’84  was actually filmed in Vancouver, Canada, but the geography and character of the fictional town during the writing process was inspired by Ipswich, Massachusetts, with its tidal islands only accessible by road at low tide. With its similar topography, however, the area around Vancouver was eventually chosen as the filming location.  (For details of the film’s soundtrack, which includes the instrumental Ipswich Lanes  by Le Matos, see More Songs & Music with “Ipswich” in the Title , above). Ipswich Almond Pudding & Ipswich Lemon Pie  There are two recipes that I know of that are named after Ipswich in England:- Ipswich Almond Pudding: Sometimes simply called Ipswich Pudding, the Recipe dates back to at least the eighteenth century. Details of the ingredients & instructions vary slightly, & there are several published versions on various websites & in books. These are the basics: Heated milk & cream are poured onto breadcrumbs. Sugar, almonds & orange or rosewater are added & left to soak in for a few minutes. Beaten eggs are added & mixed in. The mixture is then poured into a pie dish & dotted with butter, before being placed in a water filled roasting tin. It is then baked until set & served hot with cream, custard or fruit compote. Ipswich Lemon Pie: Also sometimes known as Mrs Kent’s Lemon Pie, this recipe dates back to the eighteenth century. Mrs Kent was an Ipswich housewife, & the recipe was recorded by her friend Elizabeth Hicks, who was a collector of local recipes. This is a type of lemon curd open tart with a shortcrust pastry base. Lemon juice, grated lemon rind, sugar & butter are heated in a saucepan until the sugar dissolves, then allowed to cool. The beaten eggs are then strained into the mixture & returned to the heat until combined. This is then poured into a pastry case, glazed with milk, & put into the oven for around half an hour until the filling has set. Can be served hot or cold. Ipswich Super Blue Pork Sausages  Since 2007 this product (see photograph, right) has been on sale at the renowned “Jimmy’s Farm” at Wherstead, Ipswich, England.   Ipswich Super Blue Pork Sausages comprise fresh crushed garlic, blue stilton cheese and free range, rare breed pork.  One food critic says that “the blue cheese adds an almost creamy flavour to the sausage and mixes perfectly with the garlic whilst not overpowering the excellent pork”.  The name was given in tribute to local Ipswich Town FC whose colours are blue and white. “Jimmy’s Farm” is one of the UK’s best known farms made famous by a documentary series on BBC television from 2004.  It featured Jimmy Doherty, best friend of celebrity chef Jamie Oliver, establishing a rare breeds piggery in 2003 with his wife Michaela Furney on the outskirts of Ipswich in Suffolk, mainly to save the Essex breed of pigs from extinction.   Jimmy Doherty majored in Animal Biology at university and he champions free-range food and local produce through his numerous television documentaries and books.  “Jimmy’s Farm” is a working free-range, rare-breed pig farm first and foremost, but still prides itself on producing high quality meat, including its renowned range of sausages, as well as offering locally sourced poultry, beef and lamb.  The farm itself is open all year round to the public and has a farm shop, butchery, restaurant, field kitchen, education centre and farm park.  The farm has successfully diversified to become a top tourist attraction for the region, and “Jimmy’s Farm” now has its own entry in Wikipedia.   Ipswich Clams   The soft-shell clam, Mya arenaria , is commonly known in America as the ‘Ipswich clam’, due to their prominence in the Ipswich Bay area of Massachusetts. However, the species  is found, not only in New England, but down the Atlantic coast from Canada to the southern states of the USA. They are also found on the other side of the Atlantic, including the British Isles, & have become an invasive species along the Pacific coast of America from Alaska to California. Ipswich clams are a well known delicacy in America. They can be steamed or fried & are commonly used in clam chowder & clam bakes. However, most “Ipswich clams” sold today come from Maine because pollution and an invasion of predatory green crabs have almost wiped out their presence in their traditional home. These bivalve molluscs have a very thin calcium carbonate shell, hence the name ‘soft-shell’, & are usually found buried in up to ten inches of mud on tidal mudflats. Other colloquial names for this clam are ‘steamers’ ‘belly clam’ ‘longnecks’ & ‘piss clam’. These names are identified with the long neck, or siphon, that sticks out of the shell. The clams live in the sand just below the surface and when people walk nearby, the pressure on the sand makes the clams squirt water in the air. (See also Ipswitch - Trademark , below)  Almost Ipswich - Food with Names Similar to Ipswich  The first two brand names below are derived from “sandwich” rather than Ipswich, but the prefix used in each case provides a name that is very similar to the place of that name. Chipwich - The Chipwich is an ice cream sandwich made of ice cream between two chocolate chip cookies and rolled in chocolate chips, hence the name.  The Chipwich name and logo is trademarked by Crave Better Foods, LLC.  Although ice cream sandwiches had been sold in New York City since the 1890s, the Chipwich would not be known until the chocolate chip cookie had been invented.  (We assume the non-North American English speakers are familiar enough with the American term “cookie” but, if not, it is what non-Americans refer to as a “biscuit”.) This was invented by the American chef Ruth Graves Wakefield  in 1938 when she added chopped up bits from a chocolate bar into a cookie that she was baking.   The original “Chipwich ” was created by Americans Richard LaMotta and  Sam Metzger in New York City in 1978.  It was made up of vanilla ice cream sandwiched by two chocolate chip cookies, with the sides rolled in chocolate chips, which stick to the ice cream.  Although very successful, the small independent company that they formed struggled to attract capital and filed for bankruptcy twice (in 1987 and 1992).  The venture ultimately passed into the hands of the larger ice cream and chocolate manufacturers, but in 2009 the then owner, Nestlé, stopped production of the original Chipwich.  The trademark was acquired in 2017 by Crave Better Foods, LLC and the product was re-launched in 2018 in the USA.   Sipwich - Several coffee houses and cafés in the USA go by the name “Sip”, an allusion to what customers can do when they enter such an establishment.  However, only one came up with the idea of merging the name with “sandwich” to advertise their particular brand of that article.  This was the Sip Bar on Amsterdam Avenue, New York City.  Although now closed, this outlet was popular in the late 2000s especially for the “Sipwich” at a cost of $4.  The Sipwich was a delicious egg sandwich topped with all sorts of little delights, such as an extra egg, cheese, ham, avocado or chorizo.  It was also recommended that a side order of Billionaire Bacon should complete this snack.  The Sip Bar and its Sipwich was just the place for a comforting breakfast, brunch or a late night snack to recover from the day’s exertions.    Chipswich - And it could be expected that an enterprising fish and chip outlet in Ipswich, Suffolk, would realise the potential of this brand name.  Located in the Chantry suburb of Ipswich, the entrepreneurial owner of this establishment has assured himself of the name by incorporating the business in 2016 as Chipswich Limited.  (We take it that our American readers know that “chips” in Britain are what you know as “French fries”.)     Chipswich - And it could be expected that an enterprising fish and chip outlet in Ipswich, Suffolk, would realise the potential of this brand name.  Located in the Chantry suburb of Ipswich, the entrepreneurial owner of this establishment has assured himself of the name by incorporating the business in 2016 as Chipswich Limited.  (We take it that our American readers know that “chips” in Britain are what you know as “French fries”.)

Order of contents on this page: (Click on the links below) Music:    The Ipswich Song Book       Ipswich Volunteers Funeral March  - S. Ball Ipswich Début  – Concert piece by Attila Jurth Which Switch is the Switch, Miss, for Ipswich?     From Auschwitz to Ipswich  - Song by Jarvis Cocker   Long Drive Through Ipswich  - Song by Steve Towson Ipswich  - Song by Georgi Kay Ipswich  - Song by Finnish Rock Band Absoluuttinen Nollapiste  More Songs & Music with "Ipswich" in the Title Ipswich - Indie Band from Christchurch, New Zealand   Ipswich - Rock Band from California, USA Ipswich Down – Rock Band from New Jersey, USA        Ipswich Musicians’ Union Big Band Ipswich Model Band       Other Ipswich Bands     Ipswich Method Ringing Compositions (Bellringing) Hotels & Hostelries: Ipswich Inn, Colorado, USA                  The Ipswich Inn, Ipswich, Massachusetts, USA Ipswich View Homestead Bed & Breakfast, Western Australia Ipswich in the Names of Public Houses, Bars & Inns etc The Ipswich Song Book  This came to light in August 1864 at a meeting of the British Archaeological Association held in Ipswich, Suffolk.  Thomas Wright FSA (Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries) gave a presentation entitled “ The Song Book of an Ipswich Minstrel ”. Apparently a manuscript of songs and carols collected during the reign of King Henry VI (1422-1461) was found among the municipal records of the Borough of Ipswich during a “clearing-out session”.  Unaware of its historical merit, the manuscript was to be destroyed, but a Mr. Fitch (presumably an employee of the borough) took it home.  He later offered it to Thomas Wright who, being an antiquarian, immediately recognised its value, but declined to purchase it since he knew Mr. Fitch could gain far more than he could afford in an open auction. It was soon realised that it was a stock-in-trade of a professional minstrel of the 15th century who would have carried it on his person when singing at festivals or private entertainments.  A manuscript collection of songs so early is extremely rare and the only other collection was held at the British Museum as part of the Sloane Collection.  A few of the Sloane pieces were also in the ‘Ipswich Song Book’, but the latter had by far the larger number of songs, most of which were unique, and also complete copies of songs already partly known.  The manuscript was originally purchased for a private collection, but it is now also owned by the nation and is in The British Library along with the Sloane Collection.  Although a great proportion of its content consists of carols and religious songs, the ‘Ipswich Song Book’ shows how minstrels catered for the public taste in that it is rich in drinking songs, and a number of satirical songs against the female of the human species. Ipswich Volunteers Funeral March - S. Ball  In 1808 The Ipswich Volunteers, Slow & Quick Marches, with Funeral March for a Military Band was published by Broderick & Wilkinson (London).  The composer was S. Ball, the bandmaster of the Ipswich Volunteers (see The Loyal Ipswich Volunteer Corps  on the Ipswich, England page).  The Funeral March was specifically written for the Ipswich Volunteers, whereas the other pieces were regular marching tunes. S. Ball lived in Ipswich, Suffolk, and is known from about 1797.  In 1808 he was also the organist of St Lawrence Church in Ipswich.  He is reported as performing his songs at Ranelagh Gardens in Norwich.  In 1840 he ran a music publishing company known as “Ball & Sons” in Ipswich. (See also East Suffolk Quadrilles  - S. Ball on the Misc. Page of www.planetsuffolk.com ) Ipswich Début – Concert piece by Attila Jurth  Ipswich Début  is a flexible concert piece for beginner string ensembles from piano trio to string orchestra with obligate piano.  The piano part should be played by a teacher or advanced student.  It has a duration of four minutes. Attila Jurth was born in Budapest, Hungary, in 1945 and wrote his first composition in 1956.  From 1961 to 1962 he attended the Academy of Music in Budapest, studying piano and theory.  Jurth moved to Russia in 1963 where he gave piano recitals and won the first prize in composition in the City of Leningrad Music Competition.  He continued to study composition and economics in Russia and Hungary before moving to Austria in 1969 to continue further studies at the University of Vienna in translating/interpreting, political science, international law and economics.  In 1975, Jurth married Réka Kocsárdi, an Hungarian-born Australian language teacher and interpreter.  In 1982 his young family moved to Australia.  Following his arrival in Brisbane, he increasingly turned his attention to various aspects of music and became a member of the Music Teachers’ Association of Queensland.  The Jurth family settled down in Ipswich, Queensland. In response to the musical development of his four children, Jurth specialised in writing arrangements and original compositions for ‘uneven string ensembles’, where the cello has the most advanced part while one of the violins is assigned the least demanding role.  In 1985 he composed a piece for his children called First for Kinga and Levente .  This was renamed Ipswich Début  after the good reception it received at its first performance. Which Switch is the Switch, Miss, for Ipswich?  Which Switch is the Switch, Miss, for Ipswich? is a song from the play Rosy Rapture . Written by Worton David, J Barnett & Herman Darewski  & sung by Billy Murray, with orchestra conducted by Walter B Rogers, this tongue twister of a song tells of a man’s frustration with a telephone operator who keeps getting his request to be put through to Ipswich wrong; putting him through to Northwich by mistake!!  (see lyrics, below) It was released in December 1915 as an ‘Edison Diamond Disc’. MP3 downloads & ringtones of the song are available from several websites. Gaby Deslys Rosy Rapture, the Pride of the Beauty Chorus , was a play written by J M Barrie & is described as a ‘burlesque in seven scenes’. A silent film of the play came out in 1914, starring Gaby Deslys in the title role, supported by Biddy de Burgh & John East, with minor parts for G K Chesterton & George Bernard Shaw. The stage show opened in London’s Duke of York Theatre on 22nd March 1915, again with French actress Gaby Deslys playing the lead, alongside Jack Norworth.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                               Which Switch is the Switch, Miss, for Ipswich? Hello?....Hello?......HEL-LO?    Aah, she won’t answer me I’ve just had a row with a telephone girl, A telephone girl, my brain’s in a whirl I asked her for Ipswich, but she lost her head And somehow she switched me on Northwich instead She got so mixed up with the switches, it’s true That I got annoyed and I cried ‘tell me do...’ (Chorus)  Which switch is the switch, Miss, for Ipswich? It’s the Ipswich switch which I require Which switch switches Ipswich with this switch? You switched my switch on the wrong wire You’ve switched me on Northwich...... not Ipswich So now to prevent further hitch If you’ll tell me which switch is Northwich and which switch is Ipswich, I’ll know which switch is which I begged the young lady to please put me through I cried ‘switch me do, on Ipswich two two’ I waited an hour, then the ‘sweet little thing’ Came back from her lunch and exclaimed ‘did you ring?’ Then just as I fancied at last I was through She cried ‘have you finished?’  I said ‘what the..? er..who?’ (Repeat Chorus) I got through at last and I thought all was well Rang up my hotel, but more trouble fell I said ‘can you fix me a table for two?’ A voice said ‘(huh) we can Sir, but this (huh) is the zoo!’ I murmured a prayer then I fainted away And when I came round I was trying to say... (Repeat Chorus) Long Drive Through Ipswich - Song by Steve Towson  Long Drive Through Ipswich  is a song by Brisbane based singer/songwriter/guitarist Steve Towson. Towson’s music is often categorised as folk-punk. The song first appeared on The Venom In My Veins , an EP Towson made with his band The Conscripts in 2005; subsequently also appearing on the band’s 2006 album Shah Mat .  Another version appears on Towson’s untitled solo album dating from 2009.  Cause it’s a long drive through Ipswich Long drive through town Long drive through Ipswich as the sun is setting down On meI can see the look of anguish Written across your face As I lay down your weary hand I can see you’ve reached the end of your race For the poison it lies within your blood The poison’s in your belly I can hear the banshee as she howls Moving through the corridor For all of your life you vested your trust In the hands of those driven by lust For convenience Financial reward Until at last you severed the cord From Auschwitz to Ipswich - Song by Jarvis Cocker  From Auschwitz to Ipswich  is a song written & performed by Pulp frontman Jarvis Cocker. It appears on his first solo album Jarvis , released in November 2006 on Rough Trade Records. When asked about the song, Cocker replied that he had come up with the phrase “Auschwitz to Ipswich” after hearing of someone whose relative had been kept in a prisoner of war camp near Ipswich during the Second World War. He admitted that the title was “slightly inappropriate” & went on to comment that the piece was “muscially quite pretty actually; it’s a pity I had to spoil it by writing such dark lyrics”.   From Auschwitz to Ipswich “They want our way of life” Well, they can take mine any time they like’ Cos God knows - I know I ain’t living right: I’m wrong Oh, I know I'm so wrong So like the Roman Empire fell away Let me tell you; we are going the same way Ah, behold the Decline and Fall All hold hands with our backs to the wall It’s the end: Why don’t you admit it? It’s the same from Auschwitz to Ipswich Evil comesI know from not where But if you take a look inside yourself - maybe you’ll find some in there Not one single soul was saved I was ordering an Indian takeaway I was spared whilst others went to an early grave Oh, got stoned Yeah, went out and got stoned Well if your ancestors could see you standing there They would gaze in wonder at your Frigidaire They had to fight just to survive So can't you do something with your life? It’s the end: Why don’t you admit it? It’s the same from Auschwitz to Ipswich Evil comes I know from not whereBut if you take a look inside yourself - maybe you'll find some in there Here it comes, why don’t you embrace it? You lack the guts needed to face it Say goodbye to the way you’ve been living You never realised you were on the wrong side And nobody’s going to win “They want our way of life” Well, they can take mine any time they like Ipswich - Song by Georgi Kay  Born in 1993 in Ascot, England, Georgina Kingsley, better known as Georgi Kay, is a singer/songwriter who grew up in Perth, Western Australia, where she began playing lead guitar for the rock group, The Vains, at the age of fourteen.  She was based in Australia until 2018, but has now moved to Los Angeles.  She released her debut EP, Strange Things  in March 2010, & followed this with her first album Backwardsforwards in May 2011. Kay’s first appearance on a major international label was with the single In My Mind , released in January 2012. In April 2013, Kay released the double A side single Ipswich / In My Mind  on limited edition 7” vinyl. The song Ipswich  is inspired by the Salem Witch Trials (see The Salem Witch Trials - the Ipswich Connection on the Ipswich, Massachusetts page), together with Kay’s love of horror films and the supernatural. Ipswich Drag me down to the water And hold me down until I’m full Until I struggle no longer Until I’ve drowned in my sinful will Bound my hands to the stake And set fire to the ground below Watch my skin bubble and burn Beneath the rising smoke And you may kill me now And you may hurt me so But I will haunt you til the end is nigh And you may hunt me down And you may turn me cold But I will haunt you til the day you die The day you die Chase me down through the fields You got your hooves and I got my bare heels Chop off my head to show the world That I am no ordinary girl And you may kill me now And you may hurt me so But I will haunt you til the end is nigh And you may hunt me down And you may turn me cold But I will haunt you til the day you die The day you die Hunting for witches Hunting for witches Hunting for witches Hunting down those bitches And you may kill me now And you may hurt me so But I will haunt you til the end is nigh And you may hunt me down And you may turn me cold But I will haunt you til the day you die The day you die The day you die The day you die The day you die Ipswich – Song by Finnish Rock Band Absoluuttinen Nollapiste   On their sixth album, Nimi muutettu  (see cover, right), which was released in 2002, the Finnish progressive rock band Absoluuttinen Nollapiste recorded a song entitled Ipswich .  Written by band members Tommi Liimatta (vocals) & Aki Lääkkölä (guitars & keyboards), the group’s line up on this album is completed by Aake Otsala on bass guitar & drummer Tomi Krutsin. Absoluuttinen Nollapiste (which translates as Absolute Zero), were formed in June 1991 in the city of Rovaniemi, approximately 3 miles (5 km) south of the Arctic Circle. The band underwent a few changes of personnel early in its existence, although the core line up as on the Nimi muutettu  album has remained relatively constant since 1992. The band’s first album was Neulainen Jerkunen (1994), & they have since released many singles & albums, mainly for the Finnish market. For anybody that’s interested, below are the lyrics; firstly in Finnish, then with an English (?) translation. All the band’s other songs have titles in Finnish, so why the name “Ipswich” has been used remains unclear.  Even with the English version, I’m still not sure what the song is about. I think something may have been lost in translation!!  Ipswich  Jos oletetaan tilanne, kuvitellaan niitty ja niitylle Niin monta jänistä, ettei niiden määrää käsitä, Ja laukauksen hetkenä ei jokainen jäniksistä mahdu Juoksemaan eri suuntaan Kun sen kaikki näkevät, Konttaan maantietä nisunpala suussa. Kun sen kaikki näkevät, Annan lampaalle tekohengitystä Ipswichissä kuvittelemallasi niityllä. Jos kuvitellaan rinne, siihen polku, Jota laskeudut ja samaa polkua laskeutuu Joku tuntematon, ei samaa polkua laskeutuva Tuntematon sinua seuraa, ei tule paha Mielessään, se olen minä. Kun sen kaikki näkevät, Konttaan maantietä nisunpala suussa. Kun sen kaikki näkevät, Annan lampaalle tekohengitystä Ipswichissä kuvittelemallasi niityllä. Annoin lampaalle tekohengitystä Ipswichissä. Annoin lampaalle tekohengitystä Ipswichissä.    Ipswich  Assuming the situation, imagine a meadow and meadow So many hares, that they understand the amount, And he thinks a moment, not every rabbits fit Run in a different direction When its all to see, Crawl to the road nisunpala mouth. When its all to see, I 'll give artificial respiration with lamb Ipswich imagine a meadow. If one assumes a slope, the path And the land on which the same path descends Someone unknown, is not the same path descending Unknown on you, not bad In his mind, it's me. When its all to see, Crawl to the road nisunpala mouth. When its all to see, I'll give artificial respiration with lamb Ipswich imagine a meadow. I gave the sheep artificial respiration Ipswich. I gave the sheep artificial respiration Ipswich.  More Songs & Music with "Ipswich" in the Title  Listed in this section are as many songs & pieces of music with “Ipswich” in the title that I have been able to find. There are undoubtedly others out there that have been missed. If anyone knows of any not included below, please email details to info@planetipswich.com See also:  Which Switch is the Switch, Miss, for Ipswich?                       From Auschwitz to Ipswich  - Song by Jarvis Cocker                       Long Drive Through Ipswich  - Song by Steve Towson                       Ipswich  - Song by Georgi Kay                       Ipswich  - Song by Finnish Rock Band Absoluuttinen Nollapiste   The Ipswich Prisoners  - Paul Buck:  Released in 2012, The Ipswich Prisoners is one of five songs on Paul Buck’s The Ipswich Prisoners EP  (the other songs being Jet Black Sunset/Purple Slurpee/The Fountain/Great Elation ). Buck sings & plays all the instruments on the EP, which falls into the electronic/synth pop genre.  Buck is from Branford, Connecticut, which presumably means that the Ipswich in question is Ipswich, Massachusetts.  Exactly who the ‘Ipswich Prisoners’ refers to is uncertain and the lyrics do not make this clear.  However, it seems likely that it relates to 10 women from Ipswich who were accused of witchcraft in 1692.  They were known as “the Ipswich prisoners”.  The conditions in prison were so bad and most of them had been there for over six months and were in a poor state.  They wrote a petition to the Governor, Council & General Assembly of Massachusetts requesting bail so that they would be alive to stand trial the next Spring.  This petition still survives (an image can be seen on the Internet).  (Refer also to the Ipswich - Song by Georgi Kay , above).   Ipswich Dozen  - Dead ‘Til Friday:  Formed in 2007, Dead ‘Til Friday are a metal / hardcore band from the Newcastle/Kilkeel area of County Down, Northern Ireland. Having released their first EP Through the Motions  in 2008, they brought out the follow-up Ipswich Dozen E.P in March 2010. As well as the title track, the EP also features two other songs: She’s the Ideas Man’s Daughter  & Silence is Golden . Who or what the ‘Ipswich Dozen’ refers to is not clear at present.   Ipswich is a Good English Place  - The Guy Who Sings Songs About Cities & Towns:  Ipswich is a Good English Place  is a strange, wacky 1 minute 17 seconds rap song by someone calling himself ‘The Guy Who Sings Songs About Cities & Towns’. The song is taken from the 2012 album English England, British Britain, Uk, Great Song! , which features more than 90 short tracks, each of which ‘pays tribute’ to an English town or city. Titles include: An Attempt to Celebrate Darlington in Song ; A Mildly Enjoyable Song About Coventry  & Farnborough Deserves Its Own Song, so Here We Go! . Ipswich is a Good English Place  namechecks the Ancient House, the Willis Building & Neptune Marina, amongst other local landmarks.  The Guy Who Sings Songs About Cities & Towns has released a number of albums in similar vein, all consisting, as his name suggests, of short, rather strange songs about towns & cities in Great Britain, Canada, Australia & various US states. These include These Songs Are About Canada Places ; New York State Nice Places Ny Song Yes!  & Texas City & Town Song Fun, Tx . Ipswich, Queensland  - The Guy Who Sings Songs About Cities & Towns:  Another offering from the above mentioned The Guy Who Sings Songs About Cities & Towns, is the two minutes fourteen seconds long Ipswich, Queensland. Taken from the January 2014 album  These Australia Places Deserve These Nice Songs. According to the lyrics of the song, Ipswich, Queensland   has “got a lot of cool stuff in it”, & is a “fabulous community”. In fact “everything good in the world comes from Ipswich”.  Riverlink Shopping Centre gets a mention (“you can go & shop in there”), as does Ipswich Railway Station. And just for the sake of completeness, I suppose we should mention Poop Song for Ipswich, Massachusetts  by The Odd Man Who Sings About Poop, Puke and Pee, taken from his 2017 City Poop Songs  album.  With song titles such as Poop Song for San Francisco and Buenos Aires Poop Song  plus forty six other titles in similar vein, all of which (mercifully) are no more than around a minute or so in length, you’ve probably guessed that there’s a theme running through this album. Best avoided. In real life, The Guy Who Sings Songs About Cities & Towns  and The Odd Man Who Sings About Poop, Puke and Pee  are one and the same. This is Matt Farley, a Massachusetts-based comedy musician.  In 2008, Farley started writing songs about every topic imaginable and he has carved out a strange (and successful) career in recent years, releasing hundreds of novelty albums and songs on Spotify and iTunes.  He is said to have written 18,300 songs.  Most of them are released under various band names, some of which can be found on the Internet site Matt Farley Discography at Discogs.  Honeymoon in Ipswich  - Andrew Green:  The instrumental track Honeymoon in Ipswich  is featured on jazz guitarist Andrew Green’s 2008 album Narrow Margin . Based in New York, Green is the author of several books including Jazz Guitar Structures  & Jazz Guitar Technique . Honeymoon in Ipswich  was composed by Green & runs for nearly nine minutes. The reason for the name is unclear, unless Green did actually spend his honeymoon in one of the Ipswiches of the world (Massachusetts, maybe?). Ipswich  - Grannykart:  Ipswich , by Grannykart clocks in at just 1 minute 17 seconds long. It is basically a weird & wacky version of Which Switch is the Switch, Miss, for Ipswich , which samples the opening “Hello?......HEL-LO?” from the 1915 Billy Murray recording ( see above ). The song features on the electronic/experimental album Grannykart’s Own Thing , which was released in 2010. The leading figure in the Studio City, Los Angeles based Grannykart is Jody Beth Rosen, with occasional help from Andre LaFosse.  Into Ipswich  - Nick Wyard:   Into Ipswich  features on Nick Wyard’s 2011 album An Acquired Taste . Wyard is originally from Chelmsford, England but is now resident in Toronto, Canada. The album was put together over many years, beginning in the early 2000s, & the songs include references to several places in the Essex/Suffolk region of England. Wyard’s diverse influences range from medieval, renaissance & baroque music, through Andrew Lloyd Webber & the Beatles, to progressive rock acts such as Genesis, Jethro Tull & Pink Floyd. At just under four minutes long, the instrumental track  Into Ipswich  has a medieval feel to it. Where’s the Sea In Ipswich  - Exit 13:  Where’s the Sea in Ipswich  is a track from the 2009 re-issue of the album Celia’s Last Wednesday Plus Singles  by Exit 13. Formed in Ipswich, Suffolk, in 1980, the band Exit 13 were at first known as Emergency Exit, but had to change their name the same year as a Scottish punk band had already acquired that title. Their music is best described as psychedelic folk. Their first single Fields of Joy  was released in 1985, with the debut album Celia’s Last Wednesday  first appearing in 1989. The band has released singles & albums sporadically over the years, & were still in existence up until at least December 2018. The band’s line-up has undergone many changes over the years, revolving around the ever-present guitarist, vocalist & main songwriter Steve Mann, who was born at Hollesley, near Ipswich.  It should also be noted that Exit 13 was also the name of an American group from Pennsylvania, active from 1989 to 1997.  Where’s the Sea in Ipswich  is a folky song about sailing, although Ipswich doesn’t actually feature in the lyrics. All the Fish in Ipswich  - Underwater Airport: The 2011 digital only album The Sea Sides  by Underwater Airport includes the short experimental instrumental track All the Fish in Ipswich .  According to the Boston, Massachusetts based band’s website: “ Underwater Airport is an improvising and recording multimedia ensemble combining music and projected visuals for the purpose of creating spontaneous portals into alternate space-time dimensions ” Their music is described as “ ambient  folk jazz for the sonically adventurous ” The name of the group was adopted to reflect both the underwater and the aerial realms which are strange, beautiful, and somewhat dangerous places, inhabited by curious and fantastic creatures, affording extraordinary visions.  Underwater Airport represents a kind of mythical alternative universe and that is a pretty good description of what it feels like to play and listen to this music.  When founded in 2008 the line up comprised: Peter Spellman - Drums, Percussion, Guitar & Keyboard Russell Lane – Drums & Percussion (retired in 2015) Jim Whisenant - Bass, Stick, Percussion & Laptop Lynda Stephens – Saxes & Electronic Wind Instrument Marc Lisle - Electronic Wind Instrument,  Percussion, Video Projection & Laptop Ed Blomquist - Guitar, Bass, Synthesisers Goin’ Down to Ipswich Mass.  - Robby Roadsteamer:  The acoustic guitar accompanied song Goin ’  Down to Ipswich Mass. by Robbie Roadsteamer is from the 2008 album New England Weathered Friends .  As the title suggests, this song is about Ipswich, Massachusetts, with Crane Beach getting a mention in the lyrics. Musician,comedian & performance artist Roadsteamer (AKA Louis Robert Potylo) hails from Boston, Massachusetts. His other albums include Postcards From the Den Of Failure  & The Heart of a Rhino . Ipswich  - Ben Walker:  The four minutes seven seconds long jazz/folk song Ipswich  features on Ben Walker’s 2013 album Gorgeous . London born Walker lived in Suffolk during the 1980s, before heading across the Atlantic. He studied jazz in New Jersey in 1992, then moved to Toronto, Canada. He later returned to London, where he gained a first class degree in Performance Arts from Middlesex University. He is now based in the north of England. His first CD Bahaudin  was released in 2001. The album Gorgeous  is a reworking of 12 of his early compositions. In the past, Walker has worked with members of such bands as Lindisfarne, 10cc, New Model Army & Jools Holland’s Rhythm and Blues Orchestra. The song Ipswich  includes the line “down the Norwich Road, take the A14 to Stow” & suggests “getting up & getting down to Ipswich town”. Ipswich  - Faspitch:  Featuring Trick Berganos (guitars), Trevor Bicknell  (bass), Henry Allen (vocals), O.J. Anonas (drums) and  Russell Manaloto  (guitars and vocals), Faspitch are a five piece alternative metal/post-hardcore band from Cebu City in the Philippines, formed in 2000. The song Ipswich  appears on the band’s self titled second album, released in August 2014. The lyrics, written by vocalist Henry Allen, give no clue as to why this song is called Ipswich .  Why a band from the Philippines should use the name remains a mystery at present. Fish and Chip Bitch from Ipswich  - Escape From Toytown: Fish and Chip Bitch from Ipswich  is a country-influenced song by Brisbane based punk band Escape From Toytown. The song title refers to Pauline Hanson, co-founder and leader of One Nation, a far right Australian political party, who, before entering politics, owned a fish and chip shop in Ipswich, Queensland. The original version of the song appeared on a cassette called Junk Food and More Toys . A re-recorded version then appeared on Behind The Banana Curtain , a various artists compilation album from 1996 which was released by Brisbane independent community radio station 4ZZZ.  The song went on to win the station’s Hot 100 poll for that year.  The song has since been released on the band’s Pockets of Resistance  “home made” compilation CD, first issued in 2003. A compilation of the same name, also featuring Fish and Chip Bitch from Ipswich , was released in April  2016.  Escape From Toytown were formed in 1995, and initially comprised Cal Crilly on guitar, vocals and keyboards, Chris Bell on guitar and Doug Mohr on drums.  After several personnel changes, and various independent releases (including the 1999 album Escapegoat  on Oracle Records), they seem to have disbanded in the early 2000s.   Ipswich  - Po!: Po! Were an indie band from Rutland in England, who formed in 1987 and whose last recordings date from 1998. The line up changed several times over the years, with Ruth Miller (vocals and guitar) being the hub around which the band revolved. The track Ipswich  first appeared on their final album Horse Blanket Weather  which dates from 1998. It also features on a 2017 compilation album called Saturday Boots & Sundae Spoons , released on Rutland Records.  Other albums by Po! include Little Stones  (1989), Ducks And Drakes  (1993) and Not Marked On The Ordnance Map  (1996).  Ipswich  - Paul Zarv:  The atmospheric instrumental track Ipswich  features on the 2016 electronic/dance album HPL  by Paul Zarv.  Not much more is known about this artist, but the fact that another of the tracks on this album is called Dunwich Rites , suggests a possible Suffolk connection.  Ipswich Stand Up  - Brotherhood (feat. Gman, Lewis, Rye Shabby & Relly Crise):  Taken from their 2017 studio debut album Flvd , this rap song, with explicit lyrics, is by Brotherhood. Formed in their hometown of Ipswich, Suffolk in 2006, Brotherhood consists of two brothers Blaze (Jerome), the eldest, and Menace (Byron Ingham). On Ipswich Stand Up  they are joined by featured guests Gman, Lewis, Rye Shabby & Relly Crise.  Girl From Ipswich (Anema)  - Paul Rippengal and Peter Bennie: Taken from their 2016 debut album Into the Clown’s Barrel , the title of this improvised instrumental is a play on The Girl from Ipanema , the Brazilian bossa nova jazz song that was an international hit for Astrud Gilberto and Stan Getz in 1964.  The album, which features these British musicians Paul on guitars and Peter on bass and electronics, is described as “A collection of tracks inspired by a free improvisation on acoustic guitar and electronics”. At just over six minutes long Girl From Ipswich (Anema)  is a laid back, percussion dominated, atmospheric  piece. Girl From Ipswich  - Sacha Collisson, Owen Parker, Dominic Marsh:  This track is taken from the 2015 various artists album Comedy , released on the SATV label (which stands for Seriously Addictive Tunes and Vibes). Girl From Ipswich  is basically a jazz tinged instrumental with wordless vocals, which weighs in at just two minutes eighteen seconds.  Ipswich  - Matt Booth & Palindromes: This jazz instrumental can be found on the quartet’s eponymous 2018 album, available on Breakfast For Dinner Records.  The band consists of the New Orleans jazz musicians Matt Booth on bass, Brad Walker on saxophones, Chris Alford on guitar and Doug Garrison on drums. The seven minutes eighteen seconds long piece Ipswich , written by Booth, is the first track on the album, which was recorded in New Orleans in 2016.  Why the name Ipswich was chosen for this piece is not known.  Matt Booth & Palindromes has been performing in New Orleans since 2016, and this album, which represents a small portion of the group’s repertoire, explores a variety of moods and textures, from the meditative to the wildly bombastic, with an emphasis on deep listening and collective play. (Tr)Ipswich  - Muckaniks:  This track features on a hip-hop compilation album called Brapp Beat Tape, Vol. 3 (Continuous DJ Mix) , released in April 2018. The track is listed as being by Muckaniks, whose real name is Ryan Gallant, a Hip Hop producer/musician from Ipswich, England. His Production credits include:Brotherhood (see Ipswich Stand Up , above), Rye Shabby, Verb T, Lunar C, Scorcher, Kid Bookie, Richard Osborne, Torch, and Piers James amongst others. Ipswich  - DJ Ushuaia:  Ipswich  is taken from the album Rooster House Techno Edm Electro Music . As the album title suggests, this instrumental track is in the house/techno genre. The album, released in December 2018, consists of 30 tracks by various DJs, each one named after a British town, city or area, including Ayr, Cardiff, Grimsby, Liverpool, London, Manchester, Merseyside  and East Coast . As well as Ipswich , two other tracks boast names of Suffolk towns: Felixstowe  and Lowestoft .  The name Ushuaia is taken from the Ushuaïa Ibiza Beach Hotel, where, according to theushuaiaexperience blog, the world’s best DJs perform. Ipswich  - Anjimile:  The track Ipswich  features on the 2018 album Colors  by Anjimile.  Anjimile is a self-styled “queer and trans songmaker/lover boy with a heart of gold based in Boston, MA.” His music is described as “spiritual and melodic indie-pop characterized by a smooth, highly expressive croon backed by guitar and synthesizer”. Ipswich Lanes  - Le Matos:  Le Matos are a Montreal based duo comprising Jean-Nicolas Leupi and Jean-Philippe Bernie. Formed in 2007, their music is synthesiser/electronic orientated. Ipswich Lanes  is a 1 minute 27 seconds long instrumental piece taken from the soundtrack album to the film Summer of ’84 , for which the band provide all the music.  The movie Summer of ’84 , which was released in 2018, is a Canadian horror/mystery film set in the fictional town of Ipswich in Cape May, Oregon, USA. See Fictional town of Ipswich, Oregon, USA in the film Summer of ’84   in the TV & Film section for more details. Girl from Ipswich  - Beds and Beats:  Described as the “Ultimate Lift Musak Track”, Girl from Ipswich  is a jazz-tinged instrumental piece clocking in at two minutes and composed by Dave Bethell. It appears on the 2019 album Lounge and Kitschen (sic), published by Beds and Beats Ltd, a London based music library service, specialising in production music and promos for radio and television. Beds and Beats Ltd was founded by Dave Bethell in 2008 and was bought by the Berlin-based BMG in 2015.  Dave Bethell is an accomplished producer and voice over artist originally based in the UK.  Dave moved to Los Angeles in 2015 to promote BMG’s activities in the American market and in 2018 he joined TM Productions as its Creative & Business Development Director.  In 2020 he became a co-owner of this company in a management buy-out from its parent company.  Girls of Ipswich Town  - Sedbuskers:  Taken their debut 2016 album The Lady in the Lake , Girls of Ipswich Town  is a song about the murders of five women in Ipswich in 2006 (see The Ipswich Murders 2006  on the Ipswich, England page). English folk band Sedbuskers are singer/songwriter duo Ian and Sue Bembridge, who are also members of the ceilidh and barn dance Bullenbush Band.  Ian and Sue had long accompanied other folk groups. They set out on their own in 2007.  Most of their work is self-penned and based on true stories from which they hope to provide entertainment and also a message from the story. (This same topic has also been covered by the folk group The Simon Hopper Band - see The Ballad of the Suffolk Five  on the Suffolk Misc. page on www.planetsuffolk.com  page). Ipswich, MA.  - Grant Wallace Band: Released in December 2017, Ipswich, MA  is a 3 minutes 42 seconds track taken from the album By This Time Tomorrow  by the Grant Wallace Band. Originating in Chicago, Illinois in 2011, the Grant Wallace Band are actually the trio of composers/performers Ben Hjertmann (voice/pedal steel guitar), Chris Fisher-Lochhead (viola/banjo), and Luke Gullickson (piano/guitar), whose influences include modern jazz and old-time folk. Seeing drawings made by the grandfather of a fellow-composer, the group decided to name itself after him.  Grant Wallace (1867-1954) was an eccentric Californian artist who practised interstellar communication in an isolated cabin, and drew structural diagrams of the universe based on professed telepathic communications with beings from other star systems.  This suggested a fresh, diaphanous sound that the Grant Wallace Band was creating from a mélange of indie rock, experimental jazz, folk and bluegrass.  We have no idea why the name Ipswich, MA was chosen. P etrichor: An Open Letter, Ipswich River  - Ethan Lally: Ethan Lally is a singer/songwriter/multi-instrumentalist from Gloucester, Massachusetts. Petrichor: An Open Letter, Ipswich River  is a six minute song taken from his 2016 self-produced album People, Places, Things .  (In case you were wondering, the definition of the word petrichor is: a pleasant smell that frequently accompanies the first rain after a long period of warm, dry weather) 18:18 to Ipswich  - Matt Cade:   18:18 to Ipswich  is a song on the 2018 album Childhood  by Matt Cade. According to Matt, “ ‘ Childhood ’ is a collection of songs and memories from growing up.” The spoken-word-over-music track recreates a train journey from London Liverpool Street station to Ipswich, using both real and fake rail announcements.   Ipswich  - Sherman and Field:  This duo from Ipswich, Queensland describe themselves as explorers of soundscapes, and use effects-drenched guitar, found/environmental sound, objects, devices, and acoustic/electronic beats to create their music. At nearly eight minutes long, the short film soundtrack Ipswich  was released in August 2018 and is, in the band’s own words “improvised guitar and electronic drums accompaniment to a video filmed via mobile phone.” and was recorded as “a visual and sound representation of Brisbane and Limestone Streets in Ipswich Queensland - the heart of our town, submitted in a skateboard deck art exhibition as part of the 2018 Ipswich Fused Festival.”  The film is available to view on YouTube.  It’s Always Raining in Ipswich  - Booda French:  Produced by Muckaniks and released in May 2019, this track is by Ipswich, Suffolk born Booda French, who describes himself as an “occasional unpopular rapper”. Other releases by the same artist include Fortune Cookies , Club 27 Reservations  and Awesome is Everyday . All we know about Booda French is that he could not wait to leave the place of his birth, although he still expresses a fondness for it, hence the title of this track which apparently sums up his feelings of the Chantry Estate in Ipswich.  Maybe this reflects his earlier stage-name which was Truth. Ipswich - Chronologist:   Ipswich  appears on Solstice II , a four track EP released on the 21st December 2019 (the winter solstice) by the instrumental progressive rock band Chronologist. The band formed at the Berklee College of Music in Boston, Massachusetts in 2013, but are now based in Austin, Texas. Comprising of Julian Gargiulo, Nick Broomhall and Zach Sacco, the band have also released the EPs Equinox I , Equinox II  and Solstice I , plus the 2016 album Cartographer . Are You Telling Me Ipswich Has No Fun Points?  - Haest:   At just one minute seventeen seconds long, Are You Telling Me Ipswich Has No Fun Points?  appears on the January 2020 album Anomie  by the hardcore band Haest, who formed in early 2018 and hail from Hastings in East Sussex, England. They no doubt take their name from the old spelling of their home town - Haestingas. Why Ipswich has been referenced in this title is unknown. Ipswich Cathedral Choral  - Andrei Krylov:  Taken from the 2018 album 50 Medieval Gothic & Celtic Fantasies for Folk Lute and Classical Guitar , the one minute thirty three second piece Ipswich Cathedral Choral   is written  and played by Russian born guitarist, composer and poet Andrei Krylov. Now based in Canada, Krylov has released numerous albums since his 1992 debut Nostalgy. Russian guitar songs and romances . As far as we know, Krylov has had no connection with Ipswich, nor does the place have a cathedral, so we are at a loss to explain this title.  Maybe wishful thinking?  Straight Outta Ipswich  - Oliver John Cameron & The Original Cast of the Colour Orange: Straight Outta Ipswich  is a six minute long song taken from The Colour Orange: The Pauline Hanson Musical.  The stage show is written by Sophia Roberts and Oliver John Cameron with original music composed by Oliver John Cameron. Having won the Critics’ Pick award at the 2017 Sydney Fringe Festival, the show was subsequently performed in 2018 at the Adelaide Fringe Festival, Sydney Comedy Festival and Sideshow Festival. The Original Cast album was released in 2020. As with the song  Fish and Chip Bitch from Ipswich  by Escape From Toytown (see above), the musical is based on the life and career of Pauline Hanson, co-founder of the far right One Nation Party, who, prior to entering politics, owned  a fish and chip shop in Ipswich, Queensland. The Colour Orange  is a theatrical caricature of her political career. Sydney born composer, arranger and conductor Oliver John Cameron completed a Bachelor of Music (Composition) with Honours in 2015 at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, before becoming composer in residence and composition teacher at Meriden School.  His other works include Sketches of the Moonflower  for soprano and piano, Iuxta Modum  for brass ensemble, Ortus  for symphony orchestra, Cool Trepidation  for bassoon and electronics, and Earth 10  for flute, French horn, cello and piano.       ***Beware of the songs Merry Christmas Ipswich  & Happy New Year Ipswich with Countdown and Auld Lang Syne , credited to Personalisongs & available to download. These songs are not unique to Ipswich, but are available for a whole host of different towns throughout Great Britain, with just the name of the town or city being changed on each recording.***    Ipswich Town FC Songs:  Starting in the 1970s, several songs have bee n released about Ipswich Town Football Club with “Ipswich” in the title.   The first of these was Ipswich Football Calypso , credited to Johnny Cobnut (a play on the name of the then club chairman John Cobbold, together with Tolly Cobbold’s Cobnut Ale, which dates from that period). Ipswich Football Calypso  was the b-side of the club’s first ever 7” single from the early 70s, the a-side of which was Come on the Town  (see single & original cover, right).  There have been several versions of Ipswich, Ipswich (Get that Goal)  released over the years. The first appeared in the mid 70s, with a special edition, with adapted lyrics, coming out during the FA Cup winning run of 1977/78. Three different versions of this song can be found on the 2000 album Singing the Blues: The Songs of Ipswich Town FC , one of which is listed as The Ipswich Song , with another being a punk version by Elmerhassel. Other songs on the album include Blitzkreig Bop (For The Ipswich Lot)  by Blue Flag ‘78 (which is based on the Ramones song Blitzkreig Bop ), & Pride in Ipswich  by Psychodelia. Beware, however, of a track called Go Get the Goal (Ipswich Town) . This track, by Don’t Kick the Baby, appears in 26 versions on a digital album called Go Get the Goal  - Championship League . Each song is identical apart from the insertion of the name of a different English football club in the lyrics.   The Ugly Truth about Ipswich 1981-2011 :  Also worthy of mention is The Ugly Truth about Ipswich 1981-2011 , a double CD compilation released on the Antigen Records label. Featuring a truly eclectic mix of 45 different artists & bands from Ipswich, England, the album’s diverse line-up includes the pop sounds of Nik Kershaw, the grindcore/death metal of Extreme Noise Terror, the classic punk of The Adicts, the indie rock of Bleach, the hardcore punk of The Stupids & the reggae of Jah Warriors, amongst many others.         Ipswich - Indie Band from Christchurch, New Zealand  Formed in Christchurch, New Zealand in late March 2011, Ipswich are a post-punk/indie band comprising Steven Marr on guitar & lead vocals, Matthew Gunn on bass & backing vocals, & Jamie Larson on drums.  In the aftermath of the earthquake that devastated Christchurch in February 2011, with virtually no live music venues available, the band began by playing at house parties. When venues began to re-open, Ipswich became regulars on the Christchurch scene, & soon began getting attention from the local media.  Their self-titled debut EP was issued in May 2011 & was followed in November 2011 by the four track Living in a Stranger’s Home  EP.   Ipswich’s first album was Live in Dunedin , which, as the title suggests, features a live nine track set recorded at  XII Below in Dunedin on 21st January, 2012. It was released in April 2012 through Muzai Records. The CD of the album was sold encased in a 5.25” floppy disc! The band’s first studio album, Baby Factory , followed in July 2012 (see album cover, right), featuring ten self-penned tracks & again released through Muzai, although this time in a more conventional CD format.  A single, Whitecore/Smoke Crack, Shake Babies  was released in November 2012. The majority of Ipswich’s back catalogue is still available to download. According to the  NZ Musician  magazine the band took its name “from a street sign somewhere between Christchurch and Dunedin”. This must be either Ipswich Street in Hampden, a rural settlement between the two cities; or Ipswich Street in Bradford, a suburb of Dunedin (see Roads Named Ipswich  page). The band split up during 2013, with all three members joining other groups by the end of that year.  Steven Marr and Matt Gunn helped form ‘Doprah’ in 2013, and Jamie Larsen became drummer of ‘Christian Rock’.  Ipswich – Rock Band from California, USA   Band Logo Based in Fremont, California, the band Ipswich describe their music as Jazz Punk Infusion/Thrash-a-billy/Rock/Alt-Rock. Formed in 2009 from the remnants of a band named The Dying Ego, the current band line up comprises Noel English on vocals, Kenn Bobbit & Bobby Rodriguez on Guitars, Carlos Torres on bass, Dave Govang on keyboards & Rizaldy Abawag on drums (who replaced original drummer Kris Betchart). Five of their songs are available to download from the band’s Facebook page: Blurred , Self Inflicted Misery , Outta Control , Down Not Done  & Save Me . The band hosted a music venue at the Moose Lodge in Newark, CA every 4th Saturday called “Rock the Moose”, although whether this is still ongoing is uncertain, as the last post on the band’s Facebook page dates from July 2012. It may even be that the band have now split up. No reason has yet come to light as to why a band based in California should use the name Ipswich.                                                                                    Ipswich Musicians’ Union Big Band  The Ipswich Musicians’ Union Big Band was formed over 30 years ago as a rehearsal band for the benefit of local musicians wanting to play ‘Big Band Jazz’ for their own pleasure.  This 18 piece Big Band playing both Big Band jazz standards and more contemporary arrangements has been one of the leading bands in East Anglia in England for many years. For the first ten years they went under the name of ‘The Paul Davis Big Band’ after their band leader and pianist, who has since gone on to recreate the 1940s and 1950s big swing band sound with an orchestra of this same name.  In 1983 the band recorded their first album, The Heat’s On  at Hillside Studios, Ipswich, under the Paul Davis name, featuring several musicians who still play with the band over 30 years later.    After Paul left, the band was directed by Bob Bennett, a local trombonist, teacher and arranger, who worked full time for the Musicians’ Union, and thus the band’s present name was adopted.  The band, now under the direction of David Bolton, a local music teacher, recorded their latest album Hullaballoo  in 2011 (see cover, right).  Recorded at the Gemini Studios in Ipswich, the CD has 11 tracks including My Funny Valentine, Sweet Georgia Brown,  and Bahia Alegre . Although the band shortens its name to the IMU Big Band, there is a danger of confusion with other groups and individuals that use these same initials.  We have noted the following shown as IMU: Intuitive Minds United, Intuitive Music Unit, Imagem Music USA, Inspire Music Unite and IMU Music Group. Ipswich Model Band  The Ipswich Model Band is one of the longest operating bands in Australia.  Established in 1906, the band has evolved into the community band it is today.    The group regularly performs in concerts, festivals, and parades in Ipswich and South East Queensland.  It has a broad repertoire ranging from Bizet, Rogers and Hammerstein and everything in between.  A video of them playing “ Shut Up and Dance ” (original by the American rock band ‘Walk the Moon’) can be viewed on line.  The headquarters of the band is in Basin Pocket, Ipswich, Queensland, where they were given a hall in 1954.  It was renamed the Horace J. Harper Hall in 1967 after a lifetime member of the band. The band is essentially based on wind and brass instruments and, as their name implies, they will perform in marching parades.  In Australia, a “model band” is a name given to a marching band and the band was called this as early as 23 January 1906 by The Queensland Times .  However, it had many name changes in the early days before settling on the Ipswich Model Band. The name “model band” was coined by the English-born Australian musician and composer, Thomas Bulch.  He emigrated to Australia in 1884 and settled in Victoria, where he became the bandmaster of the 3rd Battalion Band for whom he composed several marching tunes.  He resigned in 1887 and formed his own private band known as Bulch’s Model Band “for accompanying a modern army”.  Today, this still exists as the City of Ballarat Municipal Brass Band and the name “model band” became associated with any band marching in a parade.      Between 1972 and 1981 the band was named the Ipswich Vice-Regal Model Band.  The background to this name change is covered in the next article that follows.  Ipswich City Vice-Regal Band 1890-1972  During the 19th and most of the 20th century it was commonplace for every town and almost every village in the UK to have its own “Brass Band”.  The larger towns would have more than one band.  “Brass Band competitions” were regular events and it was a matter of pride for the local band to gain one of the top positions.  This popular practice was taken to the countries where the British and Irish people settled, such as Australia and New Zealand. The Ipswich City Vice-Regal Band was long considered the “top brass band” in Ipswich, Queensland, Australia.  It had its origins in the Hancock Bros Plywood and Timber Mill at North Ipswich where, in 1890, the company sponsored a brass band named Hancock’s Band.  In these early years it had a few name changes: to the Ipswich Town Band in January 1894; the Ipswich City Band in 1904 when Ipswich became a city; and in the same year it became the Ipswich City Vice-Regal Band,  after playing before the Governor of Queensland, who gave permission for the band to bear this name to denote that it had been under Vice-Regal patronage. As the Ipswich City Vice-Regal Band it succeeded in winning the Australian Brass Band Championship in 1923, 1929 and 1932.    An interesting and (in 2020) topical account is the incident in 1919 when the band attended a Sydney Contest and became involved in a three week (what we now call) “lockdown” during the Spanish Flu pandemic.  The border between New South Wales and Queensland was closed and the band was not allowed to return home.  It was forced to camp out for three weeks, during which time the City of Ipswich raised funds to pay for the men’s living costs and lost wages during the time spent in the camp. About 1972 the Ipswich City Vice Regal Band wished to wind up their affairs and approached the Ipswich Model Band with the view of handing over their assets to them.  As part of the deal the Ipswich Model Band had to incorporate “Vice Regal” into their name.  In 1981, after the annual general meeting, the constitution was changed and “Vice Regal” was deleted.  The band reverted to its original name, the Ipswich Model Band; thus, the distinctive name of the former band passed into history.  Other Ipswich Bands  We are not listing those bands which are located in an Ipswich e.g. the Ipswich Gas Works Brass Band, New Ipswich Cornet Band, unless they have issued a record (in which case they will be covered in the above section), or they have an interesting background, usually with respect to their name.  For the record, we have noted 58 bands which have the name ‘Ipswich’ in their title, including those bands that have a separate entry above. Ipswich Down – Rock Band from New Jersey, USA  Ipswich Down was a rock/pop band from the Ashbury Park area in southern New Jersey. They combined elements of rock, pop, and punk, with the rhythmic grooves of classic R&B and funk. Or, in the band’s own words: “soulful rhythm, grooves that move, and infectious melodies, wrapped up with a rock n roll attitude”. Formed in February 2014 by three veterans of the New Jersey music scene: drummer Damien Mendez (the Coppertones, Cross Eyed Jesus), bassist Timmy Douglas (Nick Clemons Band, Basskidd), and singer/guitarist David Fagan (Snowball 37).  The band’s influences range from The Red Hot Chili Peppers to the Ramones, and all styles of dance music in between. You can hear five Ipswich Down tracks on ReverbNation: The Upside , Fraidy Cat , Psycho Killer  (cover of the old Talking Heads song), Baby You’re a Star (Live)  and I Need More . There are also a few live videos of the band on YouTube, playing The Upside , Fraidy Cat  and So What  at various venues in New Jersey during early 2015. The gigs seem to have dried up in 2015, and it appears that the band broke up around this time. What remains a mystery is why the name Ipswich Down was chosen. Ipswich Method Ringing Compositions (Bellringing)  To say we are somewhat out of our “comfort zone” is an understatement.  Every craft, hobby and sport has their own terminology and special expressions, but with regard to Bellringing their use of language is practically unintelligible: the words are in English, but not as we know it.  We refer the reader to the abridged Glossary below. “Change ringing”, the traditional English method of sounding bells swinging full circle, evolved during the 17th century.  The basis of the art is that having started from ‘rounds’ (ringing down the scale), each bell follows a pre-determined path amongst the others, so that the bells ring in a different order each time until they return again to ‘rounds’.  The simplest way to use a set of bells is ringing rounds , which is sounding the bells repeatedly in sequence from treble to tenor: 1, 2, 3, etc.  Ringers typically start with ‘rounds’ and then begin to vary the order of the bells, moving on to a series of distinct rows . Each row (or change ) is a specific permutation of the bells (for example 123456 or 531246).  Each bell is rung once and only once, the difference from row to row being the order in which the bells follow one another. In “Method ringing” each ringer has to memorise a pattern describing his or her bell’s course from row to row; taken together, these patterns (along with only occasional calls made by a conductor) form an algorithm.  These can be shown on a chart that plots this path and, fully developed, this becomes an intricate and exacting science.  This is something that those who practice it cannot agree on: is Bellringing music, an art form or science? Since permutations are involved, the ultimate theoretical goal of method ringing is to ring the bells in every possible permutation; this is called an extent  (to us normal people we call it a full peal ).  For a “method” on bells the number of possible permutations can be expressed by the factorial mathematical notation, e.g. three bells can be rung six ways: 1,2,3; 1,3,2; 2,3,1; 2,1,3; 3,1,2; 3,2,1 expressed as “factorial three” (3!) obtained by multiplying 1 x 2 x 3 = 6.  It follows that four bells will have 24 permutations, factorial four (4!).  With six bells there are 720 permutations (6!) and with 8 bells there are 40,320 permutations (8!).  This is why bellringing can be considered a ‘science’. There are several Glossaries of Bellringing but whether the descriptions mean much to the reader we leave to their imagination.  We provide those that are relevant to this piece on “Ipswich”. Band - a group of bellringers is called ‘a band’.  The similarity to ‘music’ enters. Row -a sequence in which every bell is struck once, i.e. 1,2,3,4 or 2,3,1,4 or 4,3,1,2 Change - colloquially refers to a ‘row’, although strictly speaking it means the transition from one row to the next. Method - a specific sequence of Changes all of the same Stage.  ‘Methods’ have names.  They are less baffling, if you know how they work.  They have three parts, for example ‘Plain Bob Doubles’, ‘Norwich Surprise Minor’, ‘Kent Treble-bob Maximus’, but can also only be two words! The first part of the ‘Method’ is the specific name given by the first band to ring the ‘method’ in a peal.   ‘Methods’ are often named after the places where first rung, but they can be named after people and some names are quite comical.  “Ipswich” is a Method name. The second part is the type.  This can get a bit technical, and is to do with the way the method is constructed.  The definitions of those used in the “Ipswich” compositions are given next (sorry, we are not able to give a translation, but we can confirm they are in English): Alliance - a class of Symmetrical Treble Dominated method in which the treble reaches the back but rings in some positions more often than others. Bob - a class of Plain method in which dodging occurs. Delight - a class of Treble Bob method in which internal places are made at some but not all cross sections. Place - a class of Plain method with no dodges and in which the paths of all bells consists of only hunting and place making. Surprise - a class of Treble Dodging method in which an internal place is made at every cross section. Treble Place - a class of Symmetrical method in which the Treble makes at least one place within the half lead, and the Treble has the same total number of blows in each position of the path within the lead. Stage - this is the third part of the name and is simply the number of bells used but, of course, the bellringers have to have technical terms which are: for an odd number of bells used  3 = Singles; 5 = Doubles; 7 = Triples; 9 = Caters; 11 = Cinques; for an even number of bells used 4 = Minimus; 6 = Minor; 8 = Major; 10 = Royal; 12 = Maximus. To use the language to complicate matters so that the average person does not know what you are talking about can only be described as an ‘art form’. There are hundreds of these Methods which have been composed over the centuries and all have names, some very fanciful.  Each ‘Method’ or peal is a distinct Composition and belongs to the person who first produced it.  Once a person had made out a title to a peal, it was their property.  In early days the names of the authors who invented the ‘Method’ was not always recorded.  However, in the 19th century books were published and peal records were kept.  There is, of course, a body that controls this activity.  This is the Central Council of Church Bell Ringers founded in 1891.  They have to be notified and check that the ‘new’ peal conforms to set rules on peal ringing.  There are also regular “striking competitions” between different bands of bellringers.  This has led to an insistence by some members that “bellringing is both an art and a sport”. There has been a ringing tradition in Ipswich, England, for over 250 years and from 1880 to 1939 the St Mary-le-Tower society was the leading “Maximus Company”, i.e. using 12 bells, in the country.  The 15th-century church of St Lawrence in Ipswich has the oldest ring of five church bells in the world.  (See St. Lawrence - The World’s Oldest Church Bells  on the Ipswich, England page) Given that Ipswich has had such an influence on bell-ringing it is not surprising that Compositions with the title “Ipswich” as the ‘method’ exist.  These Compositions and when first recorded are given below.  The number of bells used is shown in brackets for the reader’s benefit and would never be used by a bellringer – the title already provides that information! Ipswich Surprise Major  (8 bells) first peal on tower bells on 21 May 1927 at Newchurch Kenyon, Lancashire.  First peal on handbells at Danbury, Essex, on 19 March 1985. Ipswich Surprise Minor  (6 bells) first peal on tower bells on 9 April 1932 at Wadhurst, East Sussex.  First peal on handbells at Whewell’s Court, Trinity College, Cambridge University on 8 March 1963. Ipswich Bob Caters  (9 bells) first peal reported in 1973.Ipswich Delight Major (8 bells) first peal on tower bells on 5 January 1982 at St Mary-le-Tower, Ipswich.   Ipswich Delight Maximus  (12 bells) first peal on tower bells on 3 April 1982 at St Mary-le-Tower, Ipswich.   Ipswich Delight Royal  (10 bells) first peal on handbells at Wilmslow, Cheshire, on 1 June 1999. Ipswich Bob Major  (8 bells) first peal tower bells on 17 April 2004 at St Mary-le-Tower, Ipswich. Ipswich Alliance Major  (8 bells) first peal on tower bells on 22 October 2016 at St Mary’s, Peterborough. Ipswich Treble Place Minimus  (4 bells) first peal at Llanarthne, Carmarthenshire, Wales, on 8 July 2017.(Also refer to Suffolk Method Ringing Compositions (Bellringing)  on the Suffolk Misc. page of www.planetsuffolk.com .) Ipswich Inn, Grand Junction, Colorado, USA  This motel was located at 2222 E North Ave, Grand Junction, CO 81501. The management advised us that the name was given by the original owners who came from Ipswich, England, before 1963. Unfortunately, their names have now been forgotten, although they will certainly be held on record somewhere.  The hotel was incorporated as a company in 1973.  The Ipswich Inn was originally the San Juan Motel and is known to have still had that name in 1960 before the new owners from Ipswich bought it. The motel was probably built in or soon after 1949 to cater for visitors to the Veterans Hospital opposite which was constructed in that year.   The motel closed in 2017 and it has been converted into one bedroom, one bathroom, fully furnished, single family studio apartments going under the name of “2222 North Avenue Apartments”.  If anyone has any further details, please let me know by emailing info@planetipswich.com . The Ipswich Inn, Ipswich, Massachusetts, USA  The Ipswich Inn is also known as Ipswich Bed & Breakfast and 2 East Street but is better known as the historic Robert Jordan House.  A complete write-up of its history can be found on the Internet.  Briefly, according to records, the site dating back to 1689 has been occupied by several houses, including a meeting house for the Methodist Episcopal Church before the present church was built. In May 1862 it was sold by the trustees of the church to Robert Jordan.  He was a Civil War veteran who made his living as a general merchant after the war.  Mr Jordan built this present house in April 1863.  It is an example of the Victorian Italianate-style situated on an acre of land in the centre of historic Ipswich, and includes an ice-house and carriage house at the rear of the property.        The present owners bought the property in 1996.  Although it was not their intention to start a bed and breakfast, they thought it would be great to meet new people, and to share their home with strangers that wanted to pay for being there.  So, in 1999 the B&B was started.  This has now grown to become known as The Ipswich Inn where not only B&B is still provided, but the dining facilities cater for special occasions, business meetings and other social events.  Ipswich View Homestead Bed & Breakfast, Toodyay*, Western Australia  Ipswich View Homestead Bed & Breakfast is situated at 45 Folewood Rd, Toodyay WA 6566, Australia.  The original homestead called Ipswich View was probably built in the late 1860s. The name was given by the owner of the land at the time, John Acton Wroth, as it reminded him of the view over the River Orwell i n his home town of Ipswich in England.John Acton Wroth was born in Ipswich, Suffolk in 1830. In 1848 he was convicted of forging orders for watches, gold chains, boots & slippers. For this he received a sentence of ten years. He was transported to Australia on the Mercury , which left Portsmouth in January 1851 & arrived in Freemantle in May of that year.  He was appointed a clerk at the York & Newcastle convict depots &, in 1854, his exemplary behaviour earned him a pardon. He married in the same year & was appointed the local postmaster at Toodyay (at that time called Newcastle) & remained there until his death in 1876. Wroth gifted the land at Ipswich View to his daughter Elizabeth Caroline Wroth. In 1890 she married John Ferguson, who built the present house around that time. The property, however, remained in her name & was then passed on to her daughter.  The Ferguson family owned Ipswich View for over 100 years & the property has a reputation as one of the most famous haunted houses in Western Australia. Room 5 is said to be haunted by three old ladies. Room 2 keeps locking itself, even though nothing is found to be wrong with the lock. As well as this, whispered voices, knocking sounds, footsteps & the meowing of a ghost cat have also been reported. Ipswich View Homestead is set in 7 acres, only a few minute’s drive from the centre of Toodyay. Facilities include a tennis court, mini golf & a swimming pool.  It has five guest rooms plus one self-contained family unit. Despite the paranormal activity, it is said to be a peaceful & serene place to stay, with comfortable rooms & great food. Ipswich View was sold in May 2021 as a Bed & Breakfast.  As at September 2022 it was still operating under the same name. *Pronounced 'Too-yay'  Ipswich in the Names of Public Houses, Bars & Inns etc.  Our research to date shows that, sadly, most pubs, bars & inns that have at one time or another had the name “Ipswich” in their title are no longer in existence;  three of the four remaining  being in the USA, two of which are in Ipswich, Massachusetts. Those that have closed or now exist under a different name are listed below. Beneath these are also listed the hotels, motels, guest houses etc. with “Ipswich” in their name. There is a special case of a pub still existing with Ipswich in its name which is located in Ipswich, England.  This is the first entry below; its story is covered in the narrative that follows after the list.    (Pictured above is the former Ipswich Arms on Tayfen Road, Bury St Edmunds)   If anyone knows of any other pubs, hotels etc. with “Ipswich” in their title, either closed or still thriving, please email details to info@planetipswich.com   Still existing (England):   The Duke Ipswich     Woodbridge Road, Ipswich, Suffolk (see below) Still existing (USA): Ipswich Tavern (formerly Ipswich Sports Bar & Grill )   Hammatt Street, Ipswich, Massachusetts (the COVID shutdown brought an opportunity to refurbish this bar; it re-opened in October 2020 under its new name) Ipswich Ale Brewer’s Table   2 Brewery Place, Ipswich, Massachusetts  (See below)  The Ipswitch (or The Ipswich)     501  Jones St,  San Francisco, California CA94102        See below  Still Exists, but under a different name (England): Ipswich Arms Tayfen Road, Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk Now called The Beerhouse. Established 1857 & has also been called The Gaff, Segment and Bar Curvo No longer existing (Australia): Ipswich Arms     King Street, Sydney, NSW, Australia.   Mentioned in The Sydney Morning Herald  of 3rd March 1845.  A property was being sold that was adjacent to the Ipswich Arms. Ipswich Hotel   Brisbane Street, Ipswich, Queensland, Australia.  See below  Ipswich Tavern  Brisbane Street, Ipswich, Queensland, Australia  aka Palais Royal Hotel - see below No longer existing (England): Ipswich Arms      Fingringhoe Road, East Donyland, Essex A listed Grade II building. Became the Walnut Tree  in the 1980s. Converted to a private house in 2003 Ipswich Arms  Market Place, Ingatestone, Essex Became the Ipswich Arms & Chequers for a time in the mid 18th century. Changed name to the White Hart in 1881, before closing & being demolished in the 1960s. Ipswich Arms North Hill, Colchester, Essex On the northeast side of the Roman wall.  Changed name to The Lancer in the 1860s, after the building of the cavalry barracks. Closed as a pub in 1908, the building became a restaurant in the 1990s. Ipswich Arms         Moulsham Street, Chelmsford, Essex Dating from before the 18th century; a coaching inn near to the river. Later changed its name to The Coachhouse and The Ship Inn. Demolished c.1900.   Ipswich Arms Cullum Street, London EC3  Site now occupied by offices; recorded in 1677 & 1816, as it was the terminus for the Ipswich Carrier, the postal service to Ipswich.  Ipswich Arms  Lower Thames Street, London EC3 Mentioned in 1790 as a meeting place for the Freemasons; recorded in a court case in 1795 at the Old Bailey as a place of an incident; mentioned along with the Ipswich Arms on Cullum Street in John Lockie's "Topography of London" 1810, & again mentioned in 1826. Ipswich Arms  Endell Street, London WC2 In 1861 the Friends of Labour Loan Society had a branch based at this pub. No other details available. Ipswich Arms Henniker Road, Stratford, Essex Appears in the  London Gazette  0f 1869, as the (now Greater London E15) publican went bankrupt. Ipswich Arms Lower Brook Street, Ipswich, Suffolk First recorded in 1684. Closed c.1900 Ipswich Arms  High Street, Shoreditch E1 6JE In the censuses from 1851 to 1871. Ipswich Arms  Lower Brook Street, Ipswich, Suffolk First recorded in 1684. Closed c.1900 Ipswich Arms  London Road, Ipswich, Suffolk Briefly renamed Bridge House during the Second World War. Closed in 1999, the site is now a supermarket. Ipswich Arms  Foundation Street, Ipswich, Suffolk Recorded in Ipswich archives in 1764 as a former tavern that is now  part of the almhouses, property of Christ's Hospital.  Ipswich Arms  Mann Island, Liverpool, Merseyside Closed in 19th century; a dockland pub. Ipswich & Suffolk  Princes Street, Ipswich, Suffolk Closed in 19th century (previously Ipswich & Suffolk Coffee House) Ipswich Tavern  Tavern Street, Ipswich, Suffolk    Closed mid 19th century Ipswich Tavern Ipswich Tavern  St Stephens Plain, Norwich, Norfolk Closed 1974. There had been an alehouse on this site  since 1317; it was called the City of Norwich until 1864, then Ipswich Arms 1864 to 1866, before becoming Ipswich Tavern. (The Ipswich Tavern in Norwich, pictured in 1936)

The small town of Ipswich, Saint Elizabeth parish in the county of Cornwall is situated at 18° 11’ 60” N 77° 49’ 60” W. It is approximately 21 miles south east from Montego Bay. Population:- Population figures dating from the 1970s show that there were 1,170 inhabitants back then.  No population figures are available from later censuses.  Reports in 2013 indicated that the settlement had almost been abandoned, with only a few old-timers still in residence, the youngsters having drifted away.  A count undertaken in 2020 showed that there were 290 inhabitants. How to get there:- By road: From Black River take A2 north, then B6 north. From Montego Bay take B8, then B6 south. Ipswich is on a barely navigable road to the east of the B6. Rail services were discontinued in 1992. Nearest airports are Sangster International, Montego Bay & Norman Manley International, Kingston. Time Zone: Eastern Standard Time (GMT -5 hrs).  No daylight saving time in summer.    Order of contents on this page: (Click on the links below) Early Settlement & Derivation of Name The Decline of Ipswich  Ipswich Limestone Ipswich Caves Spirostemma ipswichensis Saint Elizabeth Parish   Early Settlement & Derivation of Name  The commonly held belief (and the one that is given by both the Jamaica Information Service & the website About Jamaica) is that this Ipswich was named after his place of birth by the English Baptist Missionary the Rev. John Hutchins, when he was establishing a church here around 1836. Although there is no available evidence that Hutchins was from Ipswich, his wife Mary Ann was the daughter of the Rev. Thomas Middleditch who definitely did have connections with Ipswich, Suffolk. After her death in 1838, her father wrote a book “The Youthful Female Missionary.  A Memoir of Mary Ann Hutchins, wife of the Rev.John Hutchins, Baptist Missionary, Savanna-la-mar, Jamaica, and daughter of the Rev. T Middleditch of Ipswich” . This was published in 1840. Even so, there is no written record of the Hutchins’ being in Ipswich, St. Elizabeth & there is no record of a Baptist church there. And although her father is known to have been a minister in Ipswich, Suffolk in 1841 (after Mary Ann’s death) there is no reason to think that she ever lived there or had any connection with the town. However, the name Ipswich was definitely being used in 1776 & probably before that. In 1684, 8,000 acres of land in this area had been bought by John Yates & Richard Scott.  This land was granted to Scott in compensation for plantations he had lost during the Anglo-Dutch Wars  in Surinam. Although there is no record of Richard Scott’s background, it is known that he was married to Bathshua, the daughter John Oxenbridge, who was a minister from Boston, Massachusetts.  The plantation was divided up into three estates, two of which were named after early Massachusetts towns (Ipswich & Springfield). The other, the largest, was the YS Estate, named after the initials of Yates & Scott. The YS falls, which are one of Jamaica’s main tourist attractions, are on the Black River, only eight miles from the Ipswich Caves. It would seem, therefore, that the name comes from this source rather than directly from the original Ipswich in Suffolk.  In December 1776, there is the first written record of Ipswich in an “ Indenture registered between John Morse and Thomas Smith of London and others on a mortgage of YS, Ipswich and Springfield Plantations in St. Elizabeth, Jamaica”. Ipswich was devastated during the Great Jamaican Slave Revolt of 1831 & was probably being inhabited by former slaves when the Baptists arrived in the area shortly afterwards. Top of Page The Decline of Ipswich  Up until the 1990s, Ipswich was a thriving community, with a rail service running daily through Ipswich Station. The cessation of all passenger rail services in Jamaica in 1992*, however, had a devastating impact on the town. As the Jamaican newspaper The Sunday Gleaner  put it in an article entitled “Ipswich: Left for Dead” on 21st February 2010: “There is, for all practical purposes, no road to the community of Ipswich in St Elizabeth.  Mostly, there is a rutted pathway, with white marl only navigable at a very careful crawl.  At other points, 'public' is a quasi-tragic misnomer for a road that would be much more appropriate on a large landowner's farm, grass in the middle standing out against narrow, white wheel tracks.  'Public' is inappropriate in another sense, as The Sunday Gleaner does not encounter a single car going down into Ipswich from the Maggotty end or continuing the descent towards the main road near the YS Estate.    And apart from the tiny, forlorn community itself there is only one other village, Merrywood, on that stretch of desolation.  It is all downhill into Ipswich and it is all downhill in Ipswich where, residents say, the October 1992 final cessation of the public rail service has had a devastating effect. It is literally a community that is taken in at a glance, except for houses extending along the line.  Concrete structures are in the decided minority, as are young adults.  This is a comatose community, clinging to life by dint of sheer stubbornness”.   Ipswich main transport, a makeshift mini train built by the residents - Ian Allen photos These days, though trains are no more, it is the same railway track that keeps things going at Ipswich.  The state of the road to Ipswich is so deplorable that residents are forced  to walk with heavy items for as much as two miles.  However, the residents have used their ingenuity and now use the old railway line as a means of transporting items to the community.  They came up with the idea of making a trolley which could run along the tracks, pretty much like a train does.  The trolley is made simply from pieces of wood on the top, and metal beneath for support.  The wheels are also made from metal.  According to residents, the trolley can effectively hold up to 300 pounds or more, and three persons combine muscle power to push the trolley both uphill and downhill along the track. (Abridged from the Jamaica Star , 1 November 2012)                                                                                                * In 2011, some passenger services recommenced in Jamaica from Spanish Town to Linstead, but neither the capital, Kingston, nor Ipswich could be reached because bridges had not been restored.  The revival was short-lived as the railway was not financially viable, and it closed in August 2012, a little over a year after its resumption in July 2011.  Top of Page   Ipswich Limestone  Jamaica was originally formed as part of a volcanic island arc in the Cretaceous, some 100 to 75 million years ago.  The volcanic conglomerates, sandstones and shales form the Cretaceous basement to the island.  A period of faulting followed during which the island began to slowly subside.  As it sank slowly below sea level in the Early Eocene, about 55 million years ago, reefs in the shallow ocean formed the massive limestone beds that cover most of the island.  The initial deposits of limestone were contaminated by debris still being washed off the remaining land mass and gave rise to the impure limestone known as Yellow Limestone which overlies the eroded basement.  As the ocean completely covered the sinking land, the contamination ceased and this led to the pure White Limestone being deposited on top of the Yellow for a period of about thirty million years.  Jamaica re-emerged through uplift caused by the tectonic movement of the Caribbean Plate during the later Eocene (25 to 12 million years ago).  About 10 to 15% of the total surface area of Jamaica is covered by Yellow Limestone and about 60% of its area is covered by White Limestone.  Rainfall dissolves the limestone allowing the characteristic “karst” features to form caves, sinkholes and underground rivers (see Ipswich Caves  section, below).In 1957 the geologist Howard Versey identified a particular sequence of impure limestone from its distinctive fauna which was found only in the rolling hills of the Ipswich area, and hence he named it “Ipswich Limestone”.  Although Versey at first placed it as a series in the White Limestone, since 2004 geologists have placed it in the Yellow Limestone formation.  Dying benthic Foraminifera continuously rain down on the sea floor in vast numbers, and are preserved as fossils in the accumulating sediment that helps to identify the age and differentiate the type of mineral associated with that fauna.  Ipswich Limestone consists of a lower part that is 60 metres (200 feet) thick characterised by fauna of Lepidocyclina antillea  and Yaberinella , then a transitional zone of some 10 metres (30 feet) followed by about 105 metres (350 feet) of limestone densely populated by the Lepidocyclina  fauna.   Top of Page     Ipswich Caves  The caves are located about one and a half miles north west of Ipswich. Also known as the Duanwarie Caves, the Ipswich Caves are in fact one limestone cave with three entrances, the largest being approximately 25 ft high by 40 feet wide. Once incorrectly described as the second largest cave system in Jamaica, the Ipswich Caves are noted for their stalactites & stalagmites. Guided tours of the caves can be arranged. Top of Page Spirostemma ipswichensis  Spirostemma ipswichensis  is a species of land snail discovered near to Ipswich, St Elizabeth in 1898. It was first described by Henry A Pilsbry, Conservator of the Conchological Section of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia (see Ipswich as a Scientific Name  page for full details of this species). Top of Page Saint Elizabeth Parish  Ipswich is located in Saint Elizabeth, the second largest parish in Jamaica, which is situated in the south west of the island, with a population of 150,993 (2012).  St Elizabeth adjoins Westmoreland parish to the west, St James & Trelawny Parishes to the north & Manchester parish to the east. It was named in 1664 after the wife of the first English Governor of Jamaica, Sir Thomas Modyford, 1664-1671. Its capital is the sea port of Black River. There are three mountain ranges in the north of the parish; the Nassau, the Santa Cruz & the Lacovia. To the south is an extensive plain used for grazing cattle, goats & horses. The largest river is the Black River at 33 miles in length. Its tributaries include the Horse Savannah & the YS rivers. The main industries of Saint Elizabeth are Bauxite mining, fishing, tourism & agriculture. Although sugar cane predominates, other crops produced include tobacco, corn, ginger, rice & coffee.  Tourist attractions include the Appleton Rum Distillery, Treasure Beach, the YS Falls, Lover’s Leap, the Maroon village of Accompong & 44 caves, including the Ipswich Caves. Top of Page