Rose & Crown Brewery (demolished
January 2018)
Sadly, in January 2018 Ipswich lost a small but important fragment of
its social and economic history with the demolition of most of the
former Rose & Crown public house on the Bramford Road/Norwich Road
junction. We understand that, during extensive interior alterations to
create a community centre, builders deiscoverd that the whole structure
was unsafe.
2018
images
The view from Bramford Road of the site and the Norwich Road junction
shows the dramatic change with much shuttering in evidence. The only
section of redbrick walling here remaining is that section bearing the
rather run-down 'Bramford Ro...' street nameplate.
More or less the only part of the old Rose & Crown remaining in
early February 2018 is the fascade and carriage entrance which runs
beneath the next door travel agency officees. All are supported by
extensive scaffolding.
This has resulted in this lettering example being added to our These we have lost page.
The sign as it was...
2014 image
Above: the broken 'BRAMFORD ROAD' street
nameplate on the Rose & Crown; an equally battered street nameplate
can be found on the former A.A. Gibbons building on the corner with Benezet Street.
Anyone walking regularly down Bramford Road from
the
busy junction with
Norwich Road could easily miss this most elusive sign. The side wall of
the Rose and Crown public house with its frontage and small triangular
car
park on the corner, extends down Bramford Road with the meeting room
above.
One can only conjecture the way in which the buildings were once put to
use. The sign clearly states:
'ROSE
& CROWN BREWERY
DAN... INCE'
The whole wall
itself
tells a story. One window bricked up, another cut into the wall right
in
the middle of the sign; some of the lettering obscured by a vertical
iron
wall truss and down-pipe.
2012
images
Above: the
brick walls of the rear yard, the hall/meeting room which bears the
lettering and the public house furthest from the camera with the junction of Bramford Road and Norwich Road at far the
right. By July 2011 this pub closed with plans
to turn it into a Kurdish centre and when these photographs were taken
it looked as if people were repairing cars in the car park at the front.
By 2012 the black background and characters are
bleaching and patchy (last photograph shows Cumberland House in the
background).
Below:
Those fugitive characters, in close up and enhanced,
with heavy
drop-shadow (plus two
full stops) on a black painted panel.
[UPDATE 23.2.08: New management
at the Rose & Crown has resulted in
the upstairs meeting room at the rear of the premises (the outside wall
of which we show here) being stripped back to bare brick and boards, to
be used as a music venue. Vestiges of the old brewery can be seen - or
imagined - the 'rough hewn' look of the room adding to the period
feel. However, it is closed in 2012.]
[UPDATE 5.1.10:
Dave Riseborough tipped us off about the CAMRA website (see Links) which contains fascinating historical
background to some of the pubs featured. "Concerning the "DAN....INCE"
letters under the Rose And Crown Brewery sign, something which I have
wondered about since I was a child, I note that on the Suffolk CAMRA
pub website the Rose And Crown had a landlord named Daniel Vince
between 1855 and about 1879 - so maybe it is his name there." Here's a
summary from that CAMRA page:
"1830s brew pub
My Parents Charles and Hilda Elvin were the licensees from 1944 to
about 1948, after being bombed out of the Malthouse Pub in Ipswich. My
sister Mary was born at the Rose and Crown on the 13th July 1946 and it
has been suggested that she was the only female child ever born there?
We moved to New Zealand in 1950 and I currently reside at the Gold
Coast in Queensland Australia. (information
from Geoffrey Elvin)
Recorded publicans
1823 Thomas Clarke [1]
1844 Westrop William Waller [2]
1855 Danl. Vince [2]
1869 Daniel Vince [3]
1871 Peter Johnson [4]
Sailor/27/Gothenburgh, Sweden
1871 Esther Bunyard [4]
Wife/62/Stowmarket
1871 Harry Banyard [4]
Hawker/62/Stowmarket
1871 Alice Jennings [4]
General servant/24/Sproughton
1871 Alice Jennings [4]
General servant/24/Sproughton
1871 Daniel Vince [4]
Inn Keeper/60/Bildestone
1871 Daniel Vince [4]
Inn Keeper/60/Bildestone
1874 Daniel Vince [2]
1879 Robert Garrard [5]
1891 Robert Garrard [3]
1892 Robert Garrard [5]
1937 ALFRED WILLIAM CHANDLER [5]
1944-48 - Charles and Hilda Elvin
1952 PJ Flegg [5]
1956 PJ Flegg [5]
Information sources
[1] Pigot's Directory
[2] White's Directory
[3] Post Office Directory
[4] Suffolk Census
[5] Kelly's Directory]
So: 'DANIEL VINCE' it must be.
In the 21st century we are experiencing a growth in
micro-breweries, often selling craft beers through limited outlets.
This lettering reminds us that small brewing operations behind or below
licenced premises (or in private houses), such as the St Jude's brewery are
nothing new. Of course, the story of large-scale, commercial brewing in
Ipswich, given its strength in malting barley, has left its mark on the
town: The Unicorn Brewery (Catchpole) and Cliff Quay Brewery (Cobbold) still stand.
Tollemache's Steam Brewery in Tacket Street and others have long
disappeared.
Edwardian postcard
1910(?)
image courtesy Lisa Wall
[UPDATE
16.3.2020: Lisa Wall has sent the above image. This is taken from just
below the Benezet Street
junction at the top of Bramford Road. We would guess that the date
might be around 1910. What is interesting is the building to the right
which, at this date, has at the second storey, second window in which
already pierces the advertisement panel for the Rose & Crown
brewery, unreadable here (also the down-pipe is in place). The vertical
metal braces holding the wall – until recently – aren't visible here.
The licensee was Daniel Vince (as shown on the old sign and in the
publicans list above) between 1855 and about 1879, so that fits with
the assumed date of the postcard (c.1910). The window must have been
cut in the wall between c.1880 and 1910(?). The 'Shilling Shop' is
visible at the left with an advertisement nearer to the photographer
reading:
'THOMSON'S
DYE
WORKS
PERTH'
The decorative dividers between the shopfronts can still be seen
today, but the further two, including the 'Shilling Shop' have been
bricked up.]
2020
images
The above 2020 photographs taken from slightly different angles
(the right-hand one from a rather more life-threatening position in the
carriageway) show a similar view to the postcard above (although modern
camera lenses clearly differ from Edwardian ones). The shop divider
with its triangular top can be seen at the far left and the rendered
section of brickwork just above the kerb which has been painted black
can bee seen at the far right – the closest end marks the corner of the
pub frontage as it once stood. It is clear that additional windows at
first floor level of the former flour mill were cut through when it was
converted to accommodation. The brick quoins on the edge of the old
mill can be seen, with the ball finial just visible at the top. The
jumble of shuttering at the right tells its own story of a sadly abused
pub building which, when these photographs were taken in March 2020 was
nearing total demolition as shown below.
March
2020 image
Above: the wrecked former Rose & Crown has almost
disappeared and the red-painted building to its right shows that the
Easttravel agency is still functioning, even though its shared wall
with the pub is now exposed. Cumberland House rises in the background.
Gaye Street 'TFL'
Just around the corner in the narrow Gaye Street was
the
somewhat mysterious,
modern, bricked up shop frontage bearing the initials 'TFL' (what
challenges
would have faced the bricklayer if one of the initials had been an
'S'?).
This laid back from the corner with Benezet
Street.
[UPDATE 23.2.08: This example
has now been demolished and builder's
shuttering now surrounds the corner site. Note that Slavery
abolitionists, celebrated in Ipswich street names – someone once
said that they
included a
Quaker called Claude Gay(?) – even though this street name includes an
'e'
at the end.] This area was demolished and redeveloped as housing, post
2008.
2000 image
[UPDATE
7.9.2023: "The ‘TFL’ on the wall stands for Training For Life. A
training centre for young people of low ability. During the 70’s 80’s
90’s and into the 2020s. Regards, Marianna Milford." Thanks Marianna; you surely qualify as
having the
longest gap between the orginal post of the photograph and the update.
These days it would stand for 'Transport for London'.]
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