Ipswich Historic Lettering: Street name derivations

Ipswich street name derivations

Abolitionists (slavery): have their own page (Clarkson, Wilberforce, Benezet, Dillwyn, Elliott, Gibbons, Granville, Emlen Streets and Burlington Road are all named after notable figures who campaigned for the abolition of slavery in the 19th century.).
Adair Road: commemorates Hugh Edward Adair, of the Adair family of Flixton Hall, Bungay. He was MP for Ipswich 1947-1974. See also Shafto Road.
Adams Close: see Bromley Close.
Alan Road: named for Alan Brooksby Cobbold, the owner in 1864 of the 238 acre Rose Hill estate. The Rev E C Alston of Dennington then became the owner. On his death it was sold, and Alan Road, Alston Road and Rose Hill Road (q.v.) were then constructed. However, Margaret Hancock's article on the history of Rosehill points out that Alan Road ran more or less between Little Allins Field and Great Allins Field, parts of the Rose Hill Farm estate; the suggestion being that 'Alan' derives from Allins.
Albion Hill: a short stretch of Woodbridge Road between the bridge over the Felixstowe branch line and the entrance to St Mary's housing estate, as labelled on the 1902 map on our Sunny Place page. One might have expected that the steep slope between The Duke of York and the railway would have been called 'Albion Hill', but not so. 'Albion' is an ancient poetic name for Britain and must have arisen from the Napoleonic St Helen's Militia Barracks which existed here. The name was applied to the two hilltop windmills (see Windmills in the Borough of Ipswich) near Belvedere Farmhouse and in the mid-19th century to the public house The Albion Mills.
Alderman Road: see Portmans Walk for a possible derivation.
Alexandra Road: Alexandra of Denmark (Alexandra Caroline Marie Charlotte Louise Julia 1844-1925) was Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and Empress of India as the wife of King-Emperor Edward VII. The name was also given to the not-terribly-nearby Alexandra Park, off Grove Lane.
Alf Ramsey Way: see Portmans Walk. Home to the hidden ITFC lettering.
Alpe Street: commemorates William Alpe, Borough highway surveyor, 1698.
Alston Road: see Alan Road.
Ancaster Road: commemorates an 18th century family connection of Lord Gwdyr of Stoke Park. An ancestor, Peter Burrell, married Priscilla (Baroness Willoughby d'Eresby) the eldest daughter of the third Duke of Ancaster and Kesteven. See also Burrell Road, Willoughby Road.
Anglesea Road: commemorates Sir Henry William Paget, 1st Marquis of Anglesey (1768-1854) – the variance in the last two letters is probably due to a scribe in the past guessing at the spelling – who lived in Ipswich in the early 19th century. He was second-in-command to Wellington in the Battle of Waterloo, 1815 but Paget's career with the General was cut short when he eloped with Wellington's sister-in-law. According to Carol Twinch (see Reading List), there is an alternative derivation: the name of the sixth son of the 1st Marquis, General Lord George Augustus Frederick Paget (1818-1880) who gave Lord Cardigan 'his best support' and led the 4th Light Dragoons in the Charge of the Light Brigade in 1854. However, George never inherited the 'Anglesey' title. Interestingly, he commanded the remains of the Light Brigade at the Battle of Inkerman in 1854 and the Inkerman public house on Norwich Road commemorates this. Anglesea Road was formerly the western end of Fonnereau Road (q.v.), then called Dairy Lane, and known in the 17th century as Peddar's Lane: a country walk lined with hedgrows and pollarded oaks. The East Suffolk & Ipswich Hospital & Dispensary was built on Anglesea Road in 1835 and the familiar portico still catches the eye at the top of Berners Street (q.v.). See also Paget Road, Barrack Corner/Lane.
Arcade Street: the original 'escape' from the northern part of Museum Street to the present-day kink in that road's layout. The access through to King Street (q.v.) was cut through a house formerly lived in by Victorian novelist Jean Ingelow (see Plaques). It's not really an arcade (a succession of arches), but a extended arch. For the fuller story of these streets, see our King Street page.
Austin Street: this road originally linked Stoke Street and Great Whip Street (the original approach to the town from the south) and reminds us of St Augustine's (or Austin) parish in this area. The church and parish have since been lost.
The Avenue: an allusion to the fine avenue of trees shown on Kirby's map of the Christchurch estate 1735, which was a continuation of the avenue which ran from the Mansion to the Park Road gateway, cutting across Great Kingsfield beyond present day Valley Road.
Back Hamlet: the hill running from the Duke Street/Fore Street junction up to the Grove Lane/Foxhall Road junction. Fore Hamlet (q.v.) runs south of Back Hamlet to the bottom of Bishops Hill. Probably relates to Wykes Ufford, one of the four hamlets into which the town was once divided (the others were Wykes Bishop, Stoke and Brookes). See also Wykes Bishop Street. Back Hamlet is labelled on early maps: 'Road to Brightwell' (1674), 'Wykes Ufford Hamlet' (1778), 'Wykes' (1867).
Bader Close on the Racecourse/Priory Heath estate is named after Sir Douglas Bader (1910-1982), who became famous as a flying ace despite his two prosthetic legs. He flew his first combat mission in May 1940 while his squadron, 222 Squadron, was stationed at Martlesham Heath airfield, Suffolk. From there, they provided defence for the beleaguered British army who were stranded on the beaches of Dunkirk. There is a public house named after him on the Martlesham Heath development, built in the mid-1970s over the former airfield.
Badshah Avenue: commemorates Kavas Jamas Badshah who retired from the Indian civil service in 1904 and came to live in Ipswich where his family had been established since 1892. He became a town councillor in 1913, was awarded the OBE in 1918 in recognition of his war work in Ipswich and became mayor in 1925.
Bank Street: a name not well known in modern Ipswich, it refers to the small stretch of road at the southern end of Foundation Street, close to the west door of St Mary-At-The-Quay Church. From the 18th century it was named after the 'Yellow' Alexander banking house (the colour denoting the Liberal politics of the Quaker Alexander family). The elder Dykes Alexander (1763-1849) was in business with his sons, one of whome was Richard Dykes Alexander (1788-1865), to whom a blue plaque is dedicated in St Matthews Street. The building appears as 'The Bank' on Pennington's map of Ipswich 1778, but the southern road is labelled as an extension of Key Street, which curves upwards round the church to the banking premises at this time. More recently, this tail-end has been known as part of Foundation Street.
Bantoft Terrace: Near Cobham Road, commemorates William Bantoft, Town Clerk 1883-1924 ('a good innings' in cricketing terms).
Barrack Corner / Barrack Lane: reminders of the heavy military presence in Ipswich over a long period. Just as – until the dissolution of the monasteries after Cardinal Wolsey in 1536-41 – Ipswich must have been full of Catholic monks and clergy (given the five main monastic houses in the town, Ipswich must in the early 19th century have been full of troops. "The town at this time was full of military – the 10th Light Dragoons, the 7th ditto, under Lord Paget, the West Suffolk Militia, the Hertford ditto, etc." (George Elers, Captain in the 12th Regiment of Foot, writing in 1808). The main garrison between Anglesea Road and Norwich Road eventually closed in the 1930s. See also Anglesea Road, Paget Road, Berners Street.
Bartholomew Street: linking Spring Road and Alexandra Road, this was one of the earlier Freehold Land Society developments. It appears that the street is named after the poet Bartholomew Long, who was the landowner here. We wonder if Bartholomew Long is Peter Bartholomew Long (c.1806-1890), solicitor and Mayor of Ipswich in 1837, 1840, 1850 and 1854. (He was also a member of the Ipswich Society of Professional & Amateur Artists from 1832 and was probably tutored by the artist Henry Davy.)
Beatty Road: runs parallel with Rands Way, commemorates David, first Earl Beatty (1871-1936), Admiral of the Fleet, and his distinguished service in the First World War. No known links with Ipswich.
Beck Street: (now demolished) commemorated Cave Beck, headmaster of Ipswich Grammar School 1650- 1657. He held a plurality of livings - rector of St Margaret's 1658, St Helen's 1658 and Monk Soham 1674-1706. Noted nationally as the author of The Universal Character in which he sought to establish a universal means of language using numerals as linguistic symbols. Beck Street was cleared in the late 1960s to make way for Crown House, Crown Poools and Charles Street Car Park (now Crown Car Park). Much more information and images on our Charles Street page.
Bedford Street: linking Berners Street and St Georges Street, commemorates Thomas Bedford, a 'postmaster' - a hirer of horses, coaches and gigs, with premises off St Matthew's Street in 1855.
Bell Lane: as with several thoroughfares, is named after a notable public house on the corner of the road: The Old Bell, Over Stoke. See also Rose Lane, Black Horse Lane, Eagle Street.
Belle Vue Road: featured on our Russell Villas page. See Belvedere Road.
Belvedere Road: like its sister, Belle Vue ('beautiful view' in French) Road, this must have been named after the panoramic view over the town and river which exists "if it wasn't fer the 'ahzes in between" (to quote 1900 music hall performer Gus Elan) these days. A belvedere is an architectural structure sited to take advantage of a fine or scenic view. Belvedere Road was built as an extension to Parade Terrace, named after Belvedere Farm (the farmhouse still stands), which in turn was named after a house called Belvedere off Sidegate Lane.
Benezet Street: see Abolitionists (slavery).
Berners Street: Built in the 1830s as an approach to the portico of Anglesea Road Hospital, it commemorates the Berners family of Woolverstone Hall, itself built on his riverside estate by William Berners (1710-1783). Bettley/Pevsner (see Reading List) points out that: "Berners Street ... is comparable to High Street, but grander: Berners Street was for the officers of the nearby barracks, High Street for the non-commissioned officers." William Berners also owned a street of the same name in the West End of London which can still be visited.
Bishops Hill: see Wykes Bishop Street. Home of brickwork street lettering.
Black Horse Lane: it may seem obvious, given the name of the inn we see today on the corner with Elm Street; however, it is included here because for centuries it was Burstall Lane, not being labelled with today's name until White's map of Ipswich, 1867. Whether there is a link to the village of Burstall, 4 miles west of the town, it is of note that the village is mentioned in the Domesday Book as Burgestala / Burghestala. In the 18th century it was known as Gaol Lane after the nearby town gaol. Black Horse Lane is described as an intramural lane in that it is within the ancient defences, its northern end entering Westgate Street inside the Old Bar Gate (cf Lady Lane) – in the 20th century the northern part was renamed Black Horse Walk. Not only that, but a number of scholars claim that The Black Horse building could include part of (or stand on the site of) the birthplace of Thomas Wolsey (1473-1530). A Tudor doorway remains within today's building with Jacobean workmanship. The Black Horse is Listed Grade II: "A C16 timber-framed and plastered building with a cross wing at the north end and a wing extending east at the rear. It was altered in tile C18 and later. The first storey was jettied originally but was later built out in brick, probably in the C16, now painted." Originally a merchant's house, it did not become a public house until after 1689. Maps of the area are on our Civic Drive page.
Blanche Street: runs between Woodbridge Road and Cemetery Road. Named after Blanche, the wife of Thomas Neale (1841-1891) of Freston, whose daughter married into the Fonnereau family of Christchurch Mansion. In 1882 a Thomas Neale is recorded as being in residence at Christchurch Mansion (see Withipoll Street for history of Christchurch Mansion ownership). See also Neale Street.
Blenheim Road: commemorates the battle of 1704 in the Seven Years War which ensured the Hanoverian succession to the English throne.
Bloomfield Street: on the California Estate, was possibly named after a resident. In 1874 Bloomfield Street had only five householders, one of whom was Mrs Elizabeth Bloomfield (information from Clegg, M. : The way we went (see Reading list). See also the brickyard in Bloomfield Street. Another source of the street name (and in keeping with the other poet-related names – Crabbe, Milton, Kirby, Cowper and Howard) is Robert Bloomfield (1766-1823) who was born of a poor family in the village of Honington, Suffolk. He was an English labouring class poet whose work is appreciated in the context of other self-educated writers such as Stephen Duck, Mary Collier and John Clare. (See also Milton, Crabbe, Cowper, Kirby, Howard Streets)
Bolton Lane: Perhaps it ought to be 'Thingstead Way' (leading northwards from the Thingstead – ancient name for a meeting place, now St Margarets Green) was labelled in the Pennington map of Ipswich in 1778 as Bolton Lane. The meadowland to the east of Christchurch Park was known as Little Bolton Field (the lane labelled on a 1735 map 'Little Bolton'), while that to the west was Great Bolton Field (the lane labelled 'Bolton Lane'). However, White's map of 1867 clearly shows the names of the farms north of the parkland: to the west (Henley Road side) 'Sand Hill Farm'; while above and to the east (Westerfield Road side) is 'Bolton Farm'. Bolton Lane is the home of the dated former Wrestlers public house.
Bond Street: commemorates Henry Cooper Bond who had a tannery here and another on Bramford Road. He lived in a house at Majors Corner where the Regent now stands. Bond Street was cut through in the mid 19th Century (mentioned in White’s Directory of 1855). Another suggested derivation is that Bond Street is named after Robert Bond of Cauldwell Hall, the big house on the hill a mile to the east. Bond Street is the home of the Ragged Girls School. See also Cauldwell Hall Road.
Booth Court: a 21st century development on Handford Road, named after D.H. Booth, who, as Mayor of Ipswich, had laid the foundation stone of the Corn Exchange on 22 October 1880; the building was opened on the 26th July, 1882. Handford Lodge which once stood on the site had been the home of railway engineer, Peter Bruff. Bruff died in 1900 and Handford Lodge became the home of Mr D. H. Booth after the death of Mrs Bruff. See our V.A. Marriott page. See also Bruff Road.
Boss Hall Road: there are two possible derivations: one from the name De Bois, landowners here in the 13th century, the other a contraction of Bordshaw Hall.
Bostock Road: off the southern end of Wherstead Road, named after the family who owned the Hippodrome in St Nicholas Street (which stood on the site of the home of the young Thomas Wolsey) and the Lyceum theatre in Carr Street (q.v.).
Bourne Hill, Bridge & Park: The name Bourne can be traced back to 'burna', the Old English name for a stream or brook. Later Bourn(e) was the name given to a settlement which grew up beside the water. Given the relationship between Bourne Park and Bridge and Belstead Brook we can see the most likely derivation of their shared name. Bourne Hill (home of Bourne Farm) used to run up from the brook to Wherstead village; it has now been bypassed by the A137 which runs up past the ski slope (site of the Wherstead brickyard) and meets the busy A14 junction just west of the Orwell Bridge. The dual carriageway cutting here severed the top of Bourne Hill and isolated the small village of Wherstead.
Bridge Street: an obvious one as it leads to Stoke Bridge which gives access over the River Orwell/Gipping to Over Stoke and Wherstead to the south. The original Anglo-Saxon fording point of the river was between today's Great Whip Street and Foundry Lane, when the river was much wider and shallower; it would be 300 years until a bridge was built over the river nearby. The notional point at which the brackish, tidal River Orwell waters mingle with the fresh water of the River Gipping was believed to be here. Many people agree that this co-mingling takes place at the Horseshoe Weir, north of handford Bridge. Bridge Street street nameplate has sadly been lost.
Bromley Close. Three gentlemen celebrated in modern street names were all Locomotive Superintendents on the Great Eastern Railway in the 19th century (also Adams Close and Sinclair Drive). All related to Bruff Road (q.v.)
Brooks Hall Road (in 1884 labelled as 'Brookeshall Road') is a short road between Norwich Road and Bramford Lane; it commemorates Brook(e)s Hall and the Brook(e)s Hall estate. A holding known as Brokes was given by Edward the Confessor (1003/5-1066) to Aluric de Clare. It was later owned by Sir Anthony Wingfield (c.1488- 1552) – see also Wingfield Street – and much later by Capt. Arthur Thomas Schreiber – see also Schreiber Road – who opposed the building of the 1930s Ipswich by-pass (Valley Road) adjacent to his property and was soon to instruct an Ipswich builder to carefully dismantle, brick-by-brick, Brooks Hall so that it could be loaded onto seventeen LNER railway wagons to be taken to Templecombe in Somerset, where is was rebuilt and stands to the present day. This hall dated to the 18th century and has a grand Queen Anne facade, four reception rooms, six large bedrooms and has paddocks and 8.5 acres of land. This estate shares the name of one of the original four hamlets of ancient Ipswich (Brooks/Brokes/Brookes, Stoke, Wykes Bishop – see also Wykes Bishop Street – and Wykes Ufford, see Back Hamlet). Our Brickyards page has an 1884 map of 'Brookes Hall' under the section 'Broom Hill Brickyard'.
Brook Street: currently split into Upper and Lower Brook Street at the Tacket Street/Dogs Head Street junction, this unassuming name (originally ‘Brocstrete’) commemorates a time when free flowing water was a common feature of the public streets. Water is said to have flowed down Dairy Lane, later Fonnereau Road (q.v.) and from the springs and ponds in Christchurch Park, funnelling down Northgate Street and into Brook Street towards the River Orwell below Stoke Bridge. Sluices on the ponds in the park could be opened and the flooding waters pouring through the town are said to have sometimes caused real problems to those on foot. At times of heavy downpours, the bowl-shaped terrain of Ipswich caused floods in the streets running down to the River Orwell, principally the dock. See also The Wash, Stepples Street, Spring Road. Read more about Water in Ipswich.
Brownrigg Walk: on the 'Jamestown housing estate' (see also Virginia Street). Ralph Brownrig (1592–1659), bishop of Exeter, was born at Ipswich of parents who are described as being 'of merchantly condition, of worthy reputation, and of very Christian conversation.' His father died when he was only a few weeks old, but he was well brought-up by a pious and judicious mother, who sent him at an early age to the excellent grammar school at Ipswich. His father could be “Merchant Brownrigg of Ipswich”, as referred to in the activities of his son and daughter. This would make the merchant an approximate contemporary of Bartholomew Gosnold, founder of Jamestown in Virginia, however, no link with the early settlers has yet been found by us.
Bruff Road: a 2007 housing development off the lower part of Croft Street, the site of the original Ipswich Station. Peter Schuyler Bruff (1812-1900) has been called 'The Brunel of East Anglia' and engineered the remarkable Stoke Hill railway tunnel and much of the Ipswich sewage system. See also Bromley Close for early Railway Superintendents' street names. For more on Peter Bruff see the pages on V.A. Marriott and the E.U.R.
Bulwer Road: commemorates James Redford Bulwer, QC (1820-1899), MP for Ipswich 1874-1880.
Burlington Road: see Abolitionists (slavery).
Burrell Road: named after Peter Robert Burrell (1810-1909) who was responsible in July 1860 for redesigning the approach roads to the newly built railway station once Stoke Tunnel was engineered by Peter Bruff (see also Bruff Road). Burrell Road runs parallel with the river to link the station with Stoke Bridge. Burrell rose very high, becoming heir in 1870 to the Gwydyr barony (see also Gwydyr Road) and he lived at and rebuilt Stoke Park Mansion; he was High Steward of Ipswich 1884-1909. See also Willoughby Road, Ancaster Road, Stoke Park Drive.
Butter Market: the street running parallel to Tavern Street in which stands The Ancient House; part of the street was for a long time know as Fish Market; on Edward White's map if 1867 it is labelled 'St Lawrence Street'. The messy, odorous fish market was regularly held on the site of the famous Ancient House frontage, then called Sparrowe's House. The Sparrowe family finally got the market moved to Upper Brook Street, cleared the ground and erected the facade with all its decorative pargetting that we see today. We separate the words 'Butter and 'Market', as do the Borough Council's street nameplates, to distinguish the street from the modern Buttermarket Shopping Centre, which has an entrance onto Butter Market.
‘The name Butter Market had in the meantime began to be associated with the areas which had formerly accommodated the fish market and the cheese market. In 1621 the name appeared for the first time when Joan Coppin, widow, was in trouble for allowing the street before her house in the Butter Market to be in decay. In 1635 it was ‘the fish market now used as the butter market' (forum piscum modo usitat. pro foro butier) and in 1695 ‘The Cheese and Butter Street’. Possibly ‘the street from the Butter Market towards the Cornhill (1628)’ is the Thoroughfare, shown but not named by Ogilby [1674] and Pennington [1778]. For some time the name Butter Market continued to be associated with the market site, which had never extended to Brook Street. Thus throughout the eighteenth century the East end of the street continued to be called ‘the street from the Butter Market to Brook Street’ or ‘the street leading from the Butter Market to the Old Fish Market in Brook Street’ (1776). Ironically, it was probably not until a market ceased to be held in the street that the name Old Butter Market and eventually Butter Market was applied to the entire street.’ [M. Clegg: Streets and street names in Ipswich (see Reading list)]
Canham Street: off Portman Road, commemorates William James Canham. In 1883 he acquired a 75 year lease from the Borough of grazing land here. He was a furniture van proprietor with premises in Portman Road. Houses were built on the land in 1933.
Carr Street: has an uncertain root in a variety of spellings, but in the reign of Edward I (1239–1307) the principal resident of 'Karistrete' was William Caa (Kaa) and the name reappears as 'Carystrete' in 1402. Medieval references give the curious impression of a dead end – the street not leading anywhere, as Westgate Treet does. It is possible that Carr Street led to the long-disappeared Eastgate to the town, although another candidate site for the gate is near the Martin & Newby corner on Orwell Place.. Carr Street remains part of the presumed Roman road through the northern part of the old town once surrounded by a ditch-and-rampart defensive ring: Carr Street – Tavern Street – Westgate Street: today's main shopping area. Another name for the street in the 16th century is Cady(e) Street at a time when the Cady family was prominent in Ipswich. By the 18th century it was generally known as Cross Keys Street, after the inn of that name at no. 26(?) Carr Street. The inn survived reconstruction of the street to make space for tramways in 1887/8, when it was largely rebuilt and finally closed in 1938. [Information from M. Clegg: Streets and street names in Ipswich, see Reading list.]
Cauldwell Hall Road (also Cauldwell Avenue): named after the hall and farm it served. Cauldwell Hall itself, the main residence of the vast Cauldwell Hall Estate, stands at the end of the track extending from Cauldwell Avenue and stands close to another house in a little green oasis high on the hill above Spring Road. It was Victorianised, quadrupled in size and much of what we see today dates from that period. The name comes from 'Cold well (cold stream)' after the large number of natural springs in the area and eventually gave rise to Cauldwell Brook, to Spring Road (q.v.) and The Wash (q.v.) – appropriately the estate was once occupied by the Rivers family (see Rivers Street). In his Brief History of St John's Parish, Ipswich Kenneth H. Brown refers to the land belonging to Cauldwell Hall Farm and states that this had been the manor in the Middle Ages, records going back to at least the 1300s. It is also noted that Copinger in his Manors of Suffolk states that it was held by the Holbroke family from 1300 to 1370: in the early 1400s John de Cauldwelle lived there and from 1460 to 1473 Bishop James Goldwell, before becoming Bishop of Norwich, is said to have lived there. It was later owned by Edmund Wythipoll who built Christchurch Mansion. There were several other owners until 1848 when the hall and land were put on the market, the farm ceased to exist and the California Estate was developed by the Ipswich & Suffolk Freehold Land Society. The following from a family history website (see the update): 'Cauldwell is spelt with a "double u" in Domesday, because at that time the letter 'W' did not exist in the English alphabet, whilst the "u u" sound most certainly did. U was usually rendered as a V at this time and in earlier inscriptions, to complicate matters.' [UPDATE 12.6.2016: 'I don't think it's right that Cauldwell is in Domesday Book. I can't find it – can you tell me what folio it's supposed to be on? Also it's wrong to say "at that time the letter 'W' did not exist in the English alphabet". There are lots of Ws in Domesday Book and earlier documents. Dr Keith M. Briggs [co-author of A dictionary of Suffolk place-names; see Reading list].' Thanks to Keith for the correction – ah, the perils of believing everything you read... See our Cauldwell Hall Road page for a review of its house names. Incidentally, on the FLS map of 1860, Cauldwell Avenue is labelled 'Tovells Road West' – see Tovells Road for adjoining road labels on this map.
Cavendish Street: follows a curious route from the foot of Fore Hamlet/Bishop's Hill, round a sharp bend, up a steep narrow incline, across Alan Road (q.v.) and finally emerging, as Upper Cavendish Road, in Tomline Road (q.v.) opposite the Rosehill branch public library. Presumably named after Sir Thomas Cavendish (1560-1592) who was born at Trimley St Martin and became a prominent privateer (a kind of legalized pirate) in the wake of Sir Francis Drake, whom he followed in the second English circumnavigation of the globe alongside Thomas Eldred (1561–1624), whose home is commemorated on our Isaac Lord page. See also the house names found in Cavendish Street.
Cecil Road: off Barrack Lane, named in 1929, it commemorates Viscount Edward Algernon Robert Gascoyne Cecil (1864-1958), a leading figure in the founding of the League of Nations after the First World War.
Chalon Street: a short road which runs between Princes Street and New Cardinal Street; together with Metz and Sedan Streets it commemorates events in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870. These last two have disappeared under the Greyfriars and later developments along Princes Street (q.v.).
Chapman Lane (at the back of the New Wolsey Theatre): named after Samuel Belcher Chapman who lived in Ipswich 1822-1880. Chemist and druggist (and amateur painter) in Tavern Street, later the Cornhill, he was a generous philanthropist, founding in 1857 the St Matthew's Industrial Home for Girls at nearby 8 Black Horse Lane. The premises consisted of 'three or four cottages, forming three sides of a small enclosure'. On June 18, 1858 the Home was officially certified as a Reformatory for up to twenty girls sentenced by the courts to detention for up to five years. The Home also accepted voluntary admissions and it is clearly shown on the 1883 map of Ipswich. The Home closed in 1920 and the buildings no longer survive. [More information can be found at www.childrenshomes.org.uk/IpswichIH/] Chapman Lane, today a nondescript street, does not appear on the 1902 map of Ipswich, so we assume that it was created and named during the 1960s development of Civic Drive (q.v.), St Matthews roundabout and the ill-fated Greyfriars Shopping Centre.
Chevallier Street: commemorates Dr Barrington Chevallier (1819-1889), Mayor of Ipswich 1873-1874. Educated at Charterhouse (1832-37) and Brasenose College, Oxford 1837; BA 1840; MA 1843; BMed. 1846. In 1870 the 24th Report of Commissioners in Lunacy gives the following licenced private asylums in Suffolk: Aspall Hall, nr Debenham, Miss Chevallier and The Grove, Ipswich, Dr B. Chevallier. See our page on Old Hospitals for more on Dr Chevallier and St Clement's Hospital.
Clarkson Street: see Abolitionists (slavery).
Claude Street: removed during the clearance of housing where Charles Street car park, Crown House and Crown Pools were built. Claude Street was the tiny east-west road running (oddly) parallel with Charles Street linking High Street and the northern part of Fitzroy Street – it still qualifies to bear a street nameplate, shown on our Museum page, because the road pattern has changed today. Christchurch Mansion and estate were bought by Claude Fonnereau from the Devereaux family between 1732 and 1735 (see Withipoll Street for history of Christchurch Mansion ownership); this is the source of Claude Street. Other roads with Fonnereau connections are Navarre Street (q.v.), Ivry Street (q.v.), Neale Street formerly William Street (q.v.), Fonnereau Road formerly Old Dairy (Deyery) Lane (q.v.), Blanche Street (q.v.). Much more information and images on our Charles Street page.
Civic Drive: part of the 1960s 'improvement' scheme driven by Central Government plans to hugely expand housing on the south-west of the town to house large numbers of people transplanted from London's East End and Docklands. This never happened, leaving Greyfriars high and dry. This saw the destruction of the ancient street pattern around The Mount area of Ipswich: Friars Bridge Road (q.v.) and Lady Lane (q.v.) truncated to stubs, Tanners Lane lost amongst others which removed the clear view of the line of the rampart/ditch to the west of the Anglo-Saxon town layout. It is perhaps ironic that the 1963 Civic Centre building giving the dual carriageway Civic Drive its name was demolished in 2008, once Ipswich Borough had moved its offices to Russell Road opposite SCC's Endeavour House.
Cobbold Street: (featured on our Bolton Lane page) runs westwards between St Margaret's Green (not very green these days) and Christchurch Street (see Withipoll Street for the history of Christchurch Mansion ownership). John Chevallier Cobbold (1797–1882) is credited with opening up railway communications to Ipswich. Felix Thornley Cobbold (1841–1909) was born at the family pile, Holywells House (now demolished), and was also part of the famous farming, brewing and banking family and was benefactor to the town (notably Christchurch Park and Mansion, Fore Street Baths and Gippeswyk Park). See our Links page for the excellent Cobbold Family History Trust.
Cobden Place: a tiny streetlet off Woodbridge Road; in 2017 it leads to the municipal car park which has taken over the site of the Ipswich Caribbean Association building. Richard Cobden (1804-1865) was an English manufacturer, Radical and Liberal statesman associated with two major free trade campaigns: the Anti-Corn Law League and the Cobden–Chevalier Treaty. Cobden was one of the leading lights in the Freehold movement nationally; he saw the need for the ‘middle and industrious classes’ to work together to change the political landscape. Because The Ipswich & Suffolk Freehold Land Society was one of the first such organisations, it is likely that the street was named after him. [requires confirmation]
Colchester Road: possibly named, not after our nearest large town, but after one of the notable Victorian landholders in Ipswich, William Colchester. [requires confirmation]
College Street: Ipswich-born Thomas Wolsey, later Cardinal Archbishop of York and Lord Chancellor of England in 1528, when at the height of his power created the Cardinal’s College of Mary in Ipswich, incorporating the Grammar School (see Foundation Street), planned as a main feeder school to his Cardinal College Oxford (after Wolsey's fall renamed King's College, now called Christ Church College). In 1529 building began on the nearby site of the dissolved Priory of St Peter and St Paul but it was incomplete when Wolsey fell from grace and died in 1530. The only remaining physical feature of the college is the water gate which, in dilapidated form, still stands in College Street. Also home of St Peter's Church, the Benet Aldred merchant's house and the now-vanished Burtons lettering.
Colman Street: cut across the garden of Dr Colman in 1821. His house and garden at the corner of Northgate Street are marked on the Pennington map of 1778. Great Colman Street still exists, but Little Colman Street which ran southwards from its parent street into Carr Street was lost with the Carr Precinct development in 1966. The attractive East Anglian Daily Times building was a well-known landmark on the corner of Little Colman Street and Carr Street – difficult now to see the sense in demolition to make room for the very poor replacement.
Constitution Hill: The one in London (not much of a hill, really), near the Mall obtained its name in the 17th century from King Charles II's habit of taking 'constitutional' walks there. In Strype's Map, 1720, it is marked 'Road to Kensington'. In John Smith's map of 1724, it is called 'Constitution Hill'. We've found this name in London, Birmingham, Aberystwyth, Poole, Bristol, Sudbury, Southwold, Norwich, Ipswich and... Johannesburg, among others. We suspect that they were all named after the London thoroughfare. At least the Constitution Hill in Ipswich is a proper hill running from Henley Road past the Italianate mansion built by the Paul family (1872), Woodside.
Coprolite Street: running between Neptune Quay and Duke Street, formed in 1850s at the time that Edward Packard set up his fertiliser factory, later Fison's, on the lock side of the road (the site of today's Neptune Marina apartment block), processing coprolites (phosphatic nodules dug from the base of 'Suffolk Crag' in coastal regions of Suffolk). See also: Henslow Road and Packard Avenue.
Corder Road: possibly named after John Shewell Corder (1856-1922) who was a distinguished architect in the town with over 100 commissions to his name (see Scarborow for a short biography). However, in 2014 John Norman, Chair of the Ipswich Society, points out that J.S. Corder's father was Frederic Corder, founder of Corder's Country Store in the Buttermarket in 1787. This was a small silk mercer and draper's shop, eventually growing to be a comprehensive department store between Tavern Street and the Butter Market (the latter stone frontage featuring classical pillars, pillasters and arched windows) now part-occupied by Waterstones Bookshop). Corder's was eventually taken over by Debenham's (William Debenham was a Suffolk boy!) and incorporated into Waterloo House with Footman Pretty, the forerunner of the present-day Debenham's store. [requires confirmation]
Cowper Street: on the California Estate, named after William Cowper (1731-1800) was an English poet and hymnodist. One of the most popular poets of his time, Cowper (more correctly pronounced 'Cooper') changed the direction of 18th century nature poetry by writing of everyday life and scenes of the English countryside. Cooper was a Hertfordshire boy; there doesn't appear to be any link to Suffolk. (See also Milton, Crabbe, Bloomfield, Kirby, Howard Streets)
Cox Lane: the centre of the extensive pottery industry for almost 500 years ('Ipswich Ware' was dated from the mid-7th to the mid-9th century and was the only wheel-made and kiln-fired pottery made in England during that period; it was widely traded) this now insignificant lane is one of the town's oldest routes running between Carr Street and the top of Foundation Street. Once known as Cock's Lane (among many other names), the derivation could come from cock-fighting which certainly took place at the nearby Cock & Pye public house. The lane had numerous names over the centuries: Balmannys Lane in 1480, Warrockeslane in the 1500s, Baldman's Lane in the middle of the 16th Century, Baleman's Lane not long after, Ballman's Lane and, by early in the 17th Century, Cocke's Lane. In the early 19th century Cox Lane was heavily populated, and in 1874 there were plans to build more cottages. “Hunt's Guide described it as 'an old fashioned avenue leading to Carr Street, containing many varieties of dwelling house and small shops, but not a good one." (Information from C. Twinch: Ipswich street by street, see Reading list.)
Coytes Gardens: should perhaps be 'Beestons Gardens' as it commemorates Dr William Beeston (1671-1731) whose noted 'physic garden' is marked on the Pennington map of 1778. He published two catalogues of his plants, 1796 and 1907, which established the national importance of the garden. The remainder of the lane that is today's Coytes Gardens once ran through Dr Beeston's garden. At his death, the good doctor willed his garden to his nephew, Dr William Beeston Coyte, who died in 1810 and the land was sold for development in 1824. When Princes Street was cut through in 1878, it was Dr Coyte rather than Dr Beeston who was freshest in the memory when the byway was named.
Crabbe Street: on the California Estate, named after George Crabbe (1754-1832) who was born in Aldeburgh, Suffolk. He was an English poet, surgeon, and clergyman. He is best known for his early use of the realistic narrative form and his descriptions of middle and working-class life and people. (See also Milton, Cowper, Bloomfield, Kirby, Howard Streets)
Crane Hill: commemorates the Crane family of the famous Crane engineering company. They lived at the Crane Hall, Listed Grade II, which still stands on Crane Hill and is used as offices (for many years the headquarters of Thompson & Morgan seedsmen). Christopher Crane held office as a chamberlain (financial officer) of the Borough circa 1564. He was born in the parish of St Matthew. Crane Hill is also home to a milestone.
Cromwell Square (formerly Cromwell Street): presumably named after Thomas Cromwell (1485-1540), servant (and then successor as chief minister to King Henry VIII) to Cardinal Thomas Wolsey. He was a friend to Ipswichians in persuading the king to return St Peter, previously comandeered by Wolsey as the chapel for his College, to its parishioners. He was later beheaded by the king. Cromwell Street was dramatically changed, as documented on our Ipswich tomorrow page, to leave a few houses and a car park.
Croft Street: home of the EUR public house, the name of the street relates to St Mary-At-Stoke Church above the Burrell Road/Stoke Street junction. A church has existed on the site since the 10th century. During the late 19th and early 20th century it railwaymen referred to it as the railway church due to the fact that the Ipswich loco-shed was within the parish and many of its parishoners were railway workers and their families. The Reverend Croft was vicar for a number of years in Victorian times and he gave his name to Croft Street, the approach to the original Ipswich Station off Wherstead Road. On White's 1867 map of Ipswich this road is labelled 'Halbert Street' (an alternative spelling of halberd, a two-handed pole weapon). See map detail on our Brickyards page under '13. Over Stoke brickyard'.
Cullingham Road: off Handford Road, possibly named after Charles Cullingham who, with Ashton Blogg, set-up a Steam Brewery adjacent to Upper Brook Street in 1856. By the time of its sale to Tollemache in 1888, Cullingham was sole proprietor and the company was a large concern, owning sixty-nine pubs and maltings. [requires confirmation]
Curriers Lane: running from Elm Street to Railway Station Road (later Princes Street) was a place known for the tanning trade since medieval times. A 'curryer' finished the dry leather by greasing it to make it flexible. Formerly known as Barkers Street after the 'barker' who steeped fishing nets in an oak bark solution to help preserve them in the sea (another form of tanning). In the 17th century this was known as Pudding Lane; 'pudding' was a word for entrails or guts and was then applied to the scrapings from hides being cured in the lane. It must have been a stinking, horrible place. Home of the now vanished Grey Coat Boys School.
Cutler Street: commemorates the Cutler family of St Nicholas parish, members of which held in the 17th century the offices of bailiff, justice and coroner of the Borough. William Cutler endowed Cutler's Charity in 1620 to aid the poor and under the Municipal Reform Act of 1835, Ipswich Corporation became trustees of the charity. See Cutler Street nameplate. See also Felaw, Purplett and Tyler Streets for namings after other charity benefactors.
Dairy Lane: during the 16th and 17th centuries a lane, called Dairy (Deyery) Lane (q.v.), ran roughly parallel to where the lower part of Fonnereau Road (q.v.) is today, well inside the park boundary. It is thought to run northwards from the site of today's Bethesda Church up to a 'Horseshoe Pond' (lying west of the Wilderness Pond) which may well hav ebeen the site of the medieval conduit head This feature is known to have been equipped with a brick-built cistern and several settling tanks by the late 16th century and was fed by ditches from adjacent springs. The pipe leading from this location along Dairy Lane to the town's 'Common Conduit' was the subject of repeated repair works during the early post- medieval period, owing to it being only buried to a shallow depth alongside Dairy Lane. A combination of traffic and repeated floods from Withypoll's new ponds from the 1550s onwards appear to have caused this. No evidence , for this pipeline can now be seen in the parkland, but it undoubtedly still exists running along the former line of Dairy Lane. Dairy Lane was one of the Ipswich lanes which ran with flowing spring water, feeding into Northgate Street and down the Brook Streets (q.v.). It is probable that Dairy Lane (probably a mdieval 'green lane' being a hollow way in parts with some embankments – no wonder it often flowed with water) ceased to function as a road when Fonnereau Road was laid out in 1847. If not, then it occurred during the creation of the Arboretum in the 1850s, so that by the time of Pennington's 1867 map Dairy Lane survived only as a field boundary.
Darwin Road: running between Fuchsia Lane (q.v.) and Wellesley Road (q.v.); named after the famous (and in his own time, infamous) naturalist and geologist Charles Darwin (1809-1882), who had connections to Ipswich (see Henslow Road). A clutch of streets named after eminent Victorians is to be found here: Faraday Road (q.v.), Gladstone Road (q.v.), Ruskin Road (q.v.) and Wellesley Road, of course.
Devereux Court: a recent development of Bolton Lane Music School and grounds in Bolton Lane. Elizabeth Withipoll (the granddaughter of Sir Edmund Withipoll who bought Christchurch Mansion in 1548-50), married Leicester Devereux, 6th Viscount Hereford and the mansion passed to the Devereux family. Price Devereux, 10th Viscount Hereford (1694-1748) was a British Peer. He owned Christchurch Mansion and sold it in 1734 to Claude Fonnereau.
Dial Lane: the earlier name of Cooke Row was in use until about 1844 but it became the present name because of the clock which then stood out from the west face of the tower of St Lawrence Church. The clock was removed when the tower was rebuilt in 1882. Home of the art nouveau gem Scarborow on which page is shown an 1830 engraving of the Dial in place. Note that the crossing formed by Dial Lane and St Stephens Lane was the heart of the medieval fish market – something that impinged on owners of The Ancient House, until the market was moved in 1616 to Brook Street. The Cheesemarket then moved eastwards and for a while occupied Dial Lane; in 1665 it was 'the street sometime called Cookrowe now the Butter Market'. For most of the 18th century Dial Lane was known as St Lawrence Lane, or simply Lawrence Lane. Names swapped back and forth until the projecting clock gave the lane its current name. [Information from Clegg, M.: Streets and street nmaes in Ipswich, see Readng list.' Our Scarborow page has further details and an image of the 'Dial' in Dial Lane.
Dillwyn Street: see Abolitionists (slavery).
Discovery Avenue: see Virginia Street.
Dog's Head Street: name derived from the inn, the slightly grisly-sounding The Dog's Head In The Pot, which stood at the north-east end of the street (more like an alleyway) Dog's Head In The Pot Lane as it was called on the Ogilvy map of 1674. Possibly a picturesque, Dutch origin relating to a slovenly household where if one was late for dinner, one found the dog's head in the pot (once the food had been served from the cooking pot, it was consigned to the family dog to lick out). Later greatly widened into the present Dog's Head Street.
Duke Street: seems to have progressed by 1844 from the earlier humble name of Duck Street, as given on the Ogilby map of 1674. It has been suggested that ducks were kept in this area adjacent to shipyards and the river. Site of the now vanished Electricity sign and Ransomes lettering.
Dyke(s) Street: This small street is today a spur off St Georges Street. The east-west section was called Salem Street, after the nearby Salem Chapel, at a time when the area was crowded with small terraced houses (see the 1902 map on our Brook Street page). Today Dykes Street is largely a service lane to the rear of houses fronting Berners Street, notably the car park in the garden of no. 72, the Ipswich Orthodontic Centre. It reaches down as far as a drift off Berners Street between nos. 48 and 46 which accesses properties at the rear. The singular form 'Dyke Street' still shows on a 1930s map of the town, but has since had an 's' added. One is tempted to think that this might have been in commemoration of the Quaker banker Dykes Alexander, but this seems unlikely. An alternative explanation is that the north-south lane had a ditch dug down the middle, perhaps carrying spring water towards and through the site of lost Chapel of St George to the south. However, a dyke is a thick wall that is built to stop water flooding onto very low-lying land from a river or from the sea. Muriel Clegg in The way we went (see Reading list) refers to Dyke (formerly Duck) Street.
Eagle Street: named after the public house on the crossroads (Fore Street, Orwell Place, Upper Orwell Street): The Spread Eagle. This is the last remaining of the four pubs which stood at each corner: The Bull's Head, The Eclipse, The Shoulder of Mutton). The short Eagle Street was once the western end of Rope Lane, now Rope Walk. It was the home of historian and philanthropist John Glyde (1823-1905), marked by a blue plaque. See also Rose Lane, Black Horse Lane, Eagle Street, Bell Lane for streets named after well-known pubs.
Edith Cook Way: on the Ravenswood Estate which was built, appropriately, on the site of the Ipswich Airport. Edith Cook was a pioneering aviatrix and balloonist and is commemorated by a Blue plaque in Fore Street.
Elliott Street: see Abolitionists (slavery).
Emlen Street: see Abolitionists (slavery).
Ernleigh Road: developed by a local builder Ernest Lee. "I had already worked out the reason for the name of the road through the original conveyance, it also mentions that Ernest William Lee lived at "Halliwell" Cauldwell Hall Road. So I assume that he also developed the road south of Ernleigh Road, yes, Halliwell Road [both off Britannia Road]." Note from Robert who in 2011 bought a house in Ernleigh Road - thanks.
Falcon Street: named after The Falcon public house on the corner with Queen Street, but the pub name has been changed (in 2018, "Bowman's").
Faraday Road: off Foxhall Road; named after the famous scientist Michael Faraday (1791-1867) who contributed to the study of electromagnetism and electrochemistry. His main discoveries include the principles underlying electromagnetic induction, diamagnetism and electrolysis. A clutch of streets named after eminent Victorians is to be found here: Darwin Road (q.v.), Gladstone Road (q.v.), Ruskin Road (q.v.), Wellesley Road (q.v.).
Felaw Street: named, along with the huge, adjacent maltings now converted to offices, after 15th century local merchant, Portman and commissioner Richard Felaw (c.1420-1483) who was eight times bailiff and twice MP for Ipswich. As a successful merchant, his ships brought 'salt and fish from Scandinavia, wine from Gascony and iron from Spain'. See our Felaw Street page for more information. He bequeathed his house in what is now Foundation Street (q.v.) – the site is now a multi-storey car park – to the Ipswich School, endowing it with lands at Whitton so that children of needy parents could attend without paying fees. One of the first pupils to benefit from Felaw's endowment was a young Thomas Wolsey, later Cardinal Wolsey. (See also Wolsey Street, Purplett Street, Tyler Street, Cutler Street.)
Fitzroy Street: once a residential street to the north of Crown Street, now a short linking road on the site of Charles Street car park. Possibly named after Augustus FitzRoy, 3rd Duke of Grafton, who served as Prime Minister in the 1760s (see also Grafton Street). The original Fitzroy Street is shown on a 1902 map on our Ipswich Museum page under 'Claude Street'. [requires confirmation] Much more information and images on our Charles Street page.
Fletcher Road: commemorates Mrs E. M. Fletcher, member of the Borough Council 1922-1933 for St Margaret's Ward. Her husband was rector of the Church of St Matthew 1900-1915.
Fonnereau Road: runs down the western side of Christchurch Park (see Withipoll Street for history of Christchurch Mansion ownership) as the lower extension of Henley Road (itself named after the village at its far end). During the 16th and 17th centuries a lane, called Dairy (Deyery) Lane (q.v.), ran roughly parallel to where the lower part of Fonnereau Road is today, well inside the park boundary. For a period photograph of the Park Bakery at the corner of Fonnereau Road and Crown Street, see Introduction.
Fore Hamlet / Fore Street. Fore Hamlet runs south of Back Hamlet (q.v.) up to the foot of Bishop's Hill which leads into Felixstowe Road. Carol Twinch in Ipswich street by street (see Reading List) quotes one 1864 commentator's description of the inhabitants as a "coarse-speaking, noisy race of seamen and labourers ... [who] ... seem like a separate race from the population of other parts of th town" prone to uproarious jollity one hour and to fighting the next. They were "good-hearted but improvident people, with doubtless much of the blood of old Saxon fishermen and sailors in their veins". But why 'Fore'? Muriel Clegg (see Reading List): "It was much used by neighbouring parishioners who called it 'the Fore', a name similar to 'le For' which appears among Petty Rentals of 1499, describing a 'way' near the salt water at the western* fringes of the town"; rather than the suggestion that it was the foremost street, it seems to be derived from its association with the foreshore. Nikolaus Pevsner describes it as 'the most interesting street in Ipswich'. See Links for the Fore Street Facelift 1961 website for much more its history with films, audio and images. See also Wykes Bishop Street. [*We believe that this should read 'eastern']
Foundation Street: once named St Edmund Pountney Lane after the church of that name which once stood on Rosemary Lane (between Foundation Street and Lower Brook Street). Foundation Street was earlier home of the Dominican Friars (Blackfriars), the ruins of which are still visible next to The Unicorn Brewery. By 1600 Christ’s Hospital and the almshouses of the Tooley Foundation, though separately managed to set up with rather different intentions, were moving towards an ever-closer union. The road running beside the Blackfriars western wall soon acquired its present name of Foundation Street.
Freehold Road was created in 1850 during the development of the Cauldwell Hall Estate by the Ipswich & Suffolk Freehold Land Society, hence the name 'Freehold'. It bisects the California development, running between Cauldwell Hall Road and Britannia Road – both also newly created. It is the home of Kossuth Cottage.
Friars Bridge Road: now a tiny stub which was mutilated first, by the cutting-through of Princes Street, it became a road across the New Cattle Market (opened 1856) between Princes Street and Portman Road and eventually disappeared when this area became car parking. The name indicates that it marked the western boundary of the Franciscan Friary (Greyfriars) which extended south from Friars Street. The Friars Bridge, one of the western approaches to Ipswich, led to the Priory. See our Friars Bridge Road page for maps and photographs
Fuchsia Lane is an interesting little by-way running at an angle between Foxhall Road (former site of The Blooming Fuchsia public house) and Cauldwell Hall Road via a neat little humpback bridge over the Westerfield-Felixstowe railway line). We hear that, contrary to the belief that the lane was named after the public house, the pub was might have been named after a fuchsia nursery on or near the site. Suffolk is well-known for its enthusiasm for fuchsia-growing. East Ipswich ('California' in particular) was known for its smallholdings, nurseries and market gardens, virtually all now filled in with housing. Note also that this lane is labelled 'Birds Avenue' on Edward White's 1867 map – ten years before the Westerfield-Felixstowe branch was opened – shown on our Cavendish Street page.
Gatacre Road: commemorates Major-General Sir William Forbes Gatacre (1843-1906) who served with distinction in India, Egypt and in the Boer War 1899-1901 in South Africa. From 1898 to 1904 he commanded the army's eastern district based at Colchester. Gatacre Road is the home of the Bramford Road School lettering.
Gaye Street: a tiny road which commemorates Charles Gaye (1804-1882) rector of the nearby Church of St Matthew 1847-1875.
Geneva Road: The League of Nations (see also Cecil Road and Geneva Road street nameplate) held its first council meeting in Paris on 16 January 1920, six days after the Versailles Treaty came into force. In November, the headquarters of the League was moved to Geneva, where the first General Assembly was held on 15 November 1920. The first three Geneva Conventions of 1864, 1906 and 1929 – when this road was laid out – had established humane rules of war.
Gibbons Street: see Abolitionists (slavery).
Gladstone Road: off Foxhall Road; named after the Liberal Prime Minister William Ewart Gladstone 1809-1898). A clutch of streets named after eminent Victorians is to be found here: Darwin Road (q.v.), Faraday Road (q.v.), Ruskin Road (q.v.), Wellesley Road (q.v.).
Goddard Road: possibly named after F.E. Goddard, MP for Ipswich in 1920 (see tablet on Girls' Ragged School) or Daniel Ford Goddard (1850-1922) Ipswich civil engineer, business man and Liberal MP for Ipswich 1895-1918 (see Rosehill case study). Ford Goddard was the main philanthropist behind the Ipswich Social Settlement in Fore Street. Three legs of Goddard Road surround Whitehouse Industrial Estate. [requires confirmation]
Gordon Road: a cul de sac off Woodbridge Road and not far from Khartoum Road (q.v.), it probably celebrates General Charles George Gordon and his actions during the siege of Khartoum. See also Kitchener Road.
Gower Street: the short road between Dock Street and Little Whip Street, 'Over Stoke', is named after Captain Richard Hall Gower (1768–1833). He was an English mariner, empirical philosopher, nautical inventor, entrepreneur, and humanitarian. Gower and his family removed to Nova Scotia House at Ipswich in 1817 (see the dock map dated 1805 for the location of Nova Scotia House). He died, aged 65, on his estate ‘Nova Scotia’ (site of the Ipswich Whaling Station) in July 1833. He left a widow, two sons and three daughters whom, because of his abhorrence of public schools, he had been teaching by his own peculiar methods. He lies in a vault on the north side of the church of St Mary-at-Stoke, Ipswich, in the company of master mariners, shipwrights and men of the sea.
Grafton Way: the Duke of Grafton holds three subsidiary titles, all created in 1675 in the Peerage of England: Earl of Euston (Euston Hall in Suffolk is the family seat), Viscount Ipswich, and Baron Sudbury. The most famous Duke was probably Augustus FitzRoy (see also Fitzroy Street), 3rd Duke of Grafton, who served as Prime Minister in the 1760s. Grafton Way used to be named Commercial Road – perhaps an example of gentrification. The name is also given to the offices of Ipswich Borough Council: Grafton House in Russell Road. [UPDATE 1.3.2018: 'Just looking through your list of street names, very interesting. One note however, Commercial Road was renamed Grafton Way in celebration of the crew of HMS Grafton, being granted the freedom of the town. Regards. Chris Deverson.']
Granville Street: see Abolitionists (slavery).
Great Colman Street: see Colman Street.
Great Whip Street: a very historic thoroughfare for it was here, close to the right-angle junction with Dock Street, that the access to the original fording-point going into 'Gipeswic' was thought to be. The ford probably predates the earliest Stoke Bridge crossing (see our Felaw Street page for more about these crossings). This would have been a major route via Over Stoke to Colchester, Chelmsford and London. Muriel Clegg (see Reading list) writes that an early name, first noticed in 1285, for Great Whip Street is Losegateway. or Lousgateway. The source of the 'Whip' name is unclear but could indicate a place where criminals were taken to be whipped (as in York), or have connections with the maritime craft of whipcording. This street was the site of the St Peter's Workhouse, built in 1836 on land bought from Christ's Hospital School, which accommodated 400 inmates; it had a chapel, infirmary and market gardens.
Greenwich Road: leads from Landseer Road down to Cliff Quay (see also Hog Highland). Greenwich (pronounced 'Grennidge') is the name of the largely industrial area south of the road and is found as 'Grenewic' in the 1086 Little Domesday Book. Meaning 'Trading port on the green river bank', it is also, and most famously, found on the banks of the Thames east of London where the Greenwich Observatory is sited, as well as other examples in the country. The modern Greenwich Close continues the use of the name.
Grimwade Street: Richard Grimwade was a draper in Westgate Street from 1844; his son, John Henry Grimwade, took the business to new heights and eventually the 'J.H. Grimwade & Sons' large lettering on the store on the corner of Cornhill and Westgate Street (formerly the site of The American Stores) became an Ipswich landmark. The upper floors and basement were all parts of the shop selling school uniforms, tailoring, mens' and womens' garments and gift items: it included a café. The shop eventually closed for business in 1995 and became a card shop, then largely empty. At least three generations of Grimwades became Mayor of Ipswich. The stretch of road from St Helens Street to Fore Street was cut across the exercise yard of the Borough Gaol – behind County Hall – in the early twentieth century (the mid and southern sections called, on White's map of 1867, Borough Road and Church Street respectively) was renamed Grimwade Street in the mid-twentieth century to commemorate Alderman Edward Grimwade who was Mayor of Ipswich in 1964-5. The house, once the NALGO offices, that has stood empty on the corner of Rope Walk and Grimwade Street, was built for the governor of the prison. See also Grimwade Memorial Hall.
Gwydyr Road: leading off Crane Hill (q.v.) celebrates Lord Gwydyr of Stoke Park (Peter Burrell) who gave the Lairs (Piper's Vale) to the Borough of Ipswich (see also Burrell Road and Stoke Park Drive). [UPDATE 21.12.2018: a gentleman informs us that this Welsh-looking name is pronounced 'G-why-dah'; however, others differ. If it's Welsh, the 'y' would be pronounced as an open 'u', so 'G-wuh-der'.)
Gymnasium Street: runs from Orford Street behid Coe's store, then turns sharply northwards to meet Newson Street which continues up to Anglesea Road. Gymnasium Street was a narrow lane in 1902 with small houses only on the upper east side, as today. It was probably named after the building of that name in the adjacent Artillery Barracks.
Halliwell Road: see Ernleigh Road.
Handford Road: is named after the Anglo-Saxon 'Hagenfordabrygge' (or 'Hagenefordabrycge') meaning 'Hagena's (or Hagni's) ford'. Today's Handford Road and Bridge are part of the original Roman Road from Colchester (Essex) to Caister by Norwich (Norfolk). Handford Bridge is just south of where the Rivers Gipping and Orwell meet – a crossing existed here at an early date.
Hatton Court: Ipswich was home to many notable people, including two Lord Chancellors. Christopher Hatton (1540–1591) who was born and lived in a fine White House, in the town centre in the Court. (Perhaps it was the corner house, more recently Church's Bistro.) He was considered a 'liberal patron of learning and eminent for his piety, charity and integrity.' Sir Christopher ingratiated himself, by his elegant and graceful dancing, into the favour of Queen Elizabeth I and became Lord Chancellor in 1587. The present White House is, according to the Listing text shown on our St Mary Le Tower Church page, 18th century, so is a replacement. Chrsitopher Hatton features in our 'Mansions in Ipswich' section of the Old Cattle Market page. The other Ipswich Lord Chancellor was, of course, Thomas Wolsey, see also Wolsey Street.
Helena Road: running parallel to the South West Quay from Patteson Road down into Ship Launch Road, it is named after a 16-gun sailing sloop of war which from 1869 to 1880 was moored near the Wet Dock lock gates and served as a Seaman's Church; it seated a congregation of 500 souls. She remained at Ipswich until 1880, when she was transferred by the Navy to other duties.
Henniker Road: running parallel with Bramford Road on the outskirts of the town, the derivation is probably from Baron Henniker, originally a peerage of Ireland. The Baronetcy, of Worlingworth Hall in the County of Suffolk, was created in the Baronetage of Great Britain in 1765. Worlingworth Hall was the seat of Sir John Major, Bart., who died in 1781, and whose son-in-law, John Henniker Esq., succeeded to his estates and was created a peer by the title of Lord Henniker, with Thornham Magna, where the present Lord Henniker has his seat.
Henslow Road: on the California estate, the Revd John Stevens Henslow, one time Professor of Botany and Mineralogy at Cambridge University who retired to become the rector of Hitcham, Suffolk. Was mentor to Charles Darwin, taught him much of his scientific technique and arranged his place on HMS Beagle, the voyage of which proved historic in the development of Darwin's Theory of Natural Selection. Henslow was one of the founders of Ipswich Museum and helped to develop the processing and use of coprolite (see Coprolite Street), dug in particular from the banks of Suffolk rivers, The Orwell and The Deben. See also Coprolite Street and Packard Avenue. See also Henslow Terrace, 1868, and Henslow Cottages, 1889 in Nelson Road (q.v.) on the same page. Another Henslow Terrace, developed by the Freehold Land Society, is situated in Henslow Road (q.v.).
Hervey Street: was cut through land farmed by a farmer called Hervey. The 1855 Suffolk Directory records an Ernest Hervey occupying Bolton Farm, which included the northern of Christchurch Park.
High Street: an oddity in that, while many towns have a 'High Street' which is usually full of shops and people, this street in Ipswich was laid out and named leading up to the building of the Ipswich Museum (on a plot originally intended for a church). We hear that, in the naming of the road, the name 'High Street' was eventually chosen because Ipswich didn't have one. It may also indicate that the street is uphill and to give it some sense of importance because of the siting of the new museum in 1880, replacing the old, designed by Christopher Fleury and opened in 1847, now Arlington's Restaurant in Museum Street. Bettley/Pevsner (see Reading List) points out that: "Berners Street [qv] ... is comparable to High Street, but grander: Berners Street was for the officers of the nearby barracks, High Street for the non-commissioned officers."
Hog Highland: not exactly a street name, but a place. A farmer believed that pigs could be fattened up by eating seaweed and malt-combs (the substance that separates from the malt in the act of drying – a plentiful material, presumably, given the number of maltings around the Wet Dock) on this spot beside the River Owell below Greenwich (q.v.). However the speculative venture ended in his ruin. Hog Highland (or Hog Island) is often referred to in accounts of Edwardians promenading down the Island site to 'The Umbrella' shelter and Pegasus sculpture to look across the wide river at that area of shore.
Holywells Road: not, as many believe, named after the 'Holy Wells' of Holywells Park which were frequented by pilgrims but a 'Hollow well' rather than sacred wells. Despite this, a rumour exists that a hereditary 'guardian' existed at the wells until the late 19th century. Some apparently even believed him to have been a Druid.
Hossack Road: a road on the Gainsborough estate which commemorates James Francis Clark Hossack (1868-1937) a local doctor of the East Suffolk and Ipswich Hospital, who was a member of the Borough Council 1908-1929 representing St Margaret's Ward, mayor in 1929 and became an alderman in 1930.
Howard Street: on the California Estate, named after Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, KG (1517-1547) was an English aristocrat, and one of the founders of English Renaissance poetry. He was a first cousin of Catherine Howard, the fifth wife of King Henry VIII. He was the eldest son of Thomas Howard, 3rd Duke of Norfolk. (See also Milton, Crabbe, Bloomfield, Kirby, Cowper Streets)
Humber Doucy Lane: runs from Tuddenham Road (near Westerfield House) to Playford Road (close to the juction with the A1214), roughly parallel with the old by-pass, it is the road with the prefabs. Norma Laming writes: 'Incidentally, you may remember that I asked you if you knew how Humber Doucy Lane got its name? Someone told me that it comes from the French for sweet shade, which would be “ombre doucer” or something.' Thanks to Norma for the suggestion. The Anglo-Saxon 'Humbre' and the Latin verb 'umbro' suggest "to cover with shadows". The name ‘Humber Doucy’ came about in the same way that Ypres became ‘Wipers’ during World War I. And this goes back to the Napoleonic Wars (1803–1815) when Ipswich had a number of militia barracks and also played host to a number of French prisoners of war. On their hot march to and from whatever labour they were required to due during incarceration (working in the fields, perhaps?) they were grateful for the cool shade of the trees along this path/lane, so called it “ombre doucer” or possibly more correctly "ombre douce”. Sweet shade it is.
Hutland Road: derives from the large number of huts that occupied an area of land forming the temporary St Helens Militia Barracks to the north of Albion Hill (Woodbridge Road). See also: Parade Road, Khartoum Road, Barrack Corner/Lane.
Hyde Park Corner: the junction of Westgate Street and St Matthews Street – just outside the old West Gate into the medieval town centre – has acquired this name, but its source remains a mystery. As far as we know there was never a 'Hyde Park' here, nor any relationship or similarity to the notable Hyde Parks in London or Hyde in Cheshire. Looking at the most famous Hyde Park Corner in London, it is a major junction of six streets. The nearby Apsley House, the home of the Duke of Wellington, was given the popular nickname of 'Number One, London', since it was the first house passed by visitors who travelled from the countryside after the toll gates at Knightsbridge. Perhaps Ipswichians of old, or perhaps just one wag, considered that the meeting of Westgate Street, Black Horse Lane, Lady Lane, St Matthews Street, St Georges Street and High Street (at a pinch) and the passing through the bottleneck of the old West Gate into the town mirrored the London landmark? In the 20th century the location labelled on the map of 1902 (shown on our Civic Drive page) was repeated in the office block on the corner of Crown Street and High Street: 'Hyde Park House', 3 Crown Street. As far as we know, the name isn't repeated anywhere else.
Ingelow Gardens: Part of a 21st century housing development off Howard Street (the road with the Brickmakers Arms at the end of it). Named after 19th century novelist Jean Ingelow, who once lived in Elm Street and who is commemorated by a blue plaque.
Isham Place: one of the streets built in the 1990s on the site of Ransomes Orwell Works (including Tye Road, Pownall Road, Hope Court, Siloam Place). Possibly the derivation is the middle name of noted philanthropist Harriet Isham Grimwade, a leading light of Hope House children's home (perhaps the source of nearby Hope Court?) in Foxhall Road. We think that there must be a link to the Isham family of Northamptonshire – there is a village of Isham there. See also Tye Road , Siloam Place.
Ivry Street: relates to the history of the Fonnereau family who had been, in the 15th century, Earls of Yvery in Normandy. The now-anglicised 'Ivry' Street is home to the Pathology lettering and the lodge house commemorating Mrs J.H. Bartlett close to the remnants of the old Anglesea Road Hospital (see Withipoll Street for history of Christchurch Mansion ownership). See also Navarre Street.
Jamestown Boulevard: see Virginia Street.
Jefferies Road: probably named after John Robert Jefferies (1840-1900) who was an apprentice, son-in-law and later partner of the Ransomes in the nearby huge Orwell engineering works on the east bank of the Wet Dock: Ransomes, Sims & Jefferies. John Jefferies lived at St Helen's Lodge – today its garden is bounded by Jefferies Road. See also Ransome Road, Rapier Street. [requires confirmation]
Kelly Road: off Crane Hill (q.v.), commemorates Sir Fitzroy Kelly (1796-1880), a distinguished lawyer. Owner of The Chantry 1852-1867, he was MP for Ipswich 1835, 1837-1841 and 1852-1866.
Kemball Street forms part of the California development, but started as a speculative project distinct from the Ipswich & Suffolk Freehold Land Society. While the F.L.S. had started building in 1850, the area called Pond Field to the south-west was initially bought by Hammond Kemball who laid out Kemball Street and built a few houses on it. After his death in 1872, much of this land was developed by the F.L.S. The name Kemball Street is distinct from the surrounding poet-related street names (Bloomfield, Crabbe, Milton, Kirby, Cowper and Howard).
Kettlebaston Way: Cut through to new housing built on part of the original Victoria Nurseries off Westerfield Road, this short road is named after a hamlet east of Lavenham. This in turn is derived from the Scandinavian 'Ketilbjorn's (Ketel's son's) farm/settlement' (tūn (Old English): an enclosure; a farmstead; a village; an estate). It was first recorded in 1086 in the Domesday Book, where it is listed as Kitelbeornastuna.
Key Street: originally the le Cay or Cai, this was the source of the 'The Quay' – the focus of trade in medieval Ipswich. It is likely that 'Quay Street' morphed into Key Street over time. There does not seem to be a link between St Mary at Quay Church to the biblical Golden Key of St Peter, 'St Mary-on-the-Quay' is the most likely derivation, because the river banks came near to the south door at one time.
Khartoum Road: Khartoum was established 15 miles north of the ancient city of Soba in 1821 by Ibrahim Pasha, the son of Egypt's ruler, Muhammad Ali Pasha, who had just incorporated Sudan into his realm. Originally, Khartoum served as outpost for the Egyptian Army, but the settlement grew quickly as a regional center of trade. It also became a focal point for the trading in slaves. It became the administrative center for Sudan, and later the official capital. Troops loyal to the Mahdi Muhammad Ahmad began a siege of Khartoum on 13 March 1884 against the defenders led by British General Charles George Gordon. The siege ended in a massacre of the Anglo-Egyptian garrison. The heavily damaged city fell to the Mahdists on 26 January 1885, and all its inhabitants were put to death. See also: Gordon Road, Kitchener Road.
Kiln Close: a new development of thirteen houses off Suffolk Road on the site of the old brickyard, as shown on our Brickyards page under 'Cemetery Road/Suffolk Road brickyard'.
King Street: running along the Corn Exchange frontage, today's short road had varying names and extent. King Street may be named after the sizeable King's Head Inn which stood here, at the rear of the Town Hall. It was possibly on or near the site of a building called the King's Hall where Edward I feasted at the time of the marriage of his daughter Elizabeth to the Count of Holland in 1297. See our King Street page for more detail on the name from Muriel Clegg.
Kirby Street: on the California Estate, named after John Kirby (1690-1753) was an English land surveyor and topographer. His book The Suffolk Traveller, first published in 1735, was the first single county road-book. Kirby lived in Wickham Market, Suffolk and spent three years between 1732 and 1734 surveying the entire county. For part of this project he was accompanied by Nathaniel Bacon (see Blue plaques). In 1736 he published a large-scale map of Suffolk. Subscribers to this received a copy of his book as a free gift. A further large scale map was published the following year. He was the father of John Joshua Kirby (born in Wickham Market 1716-1774), landscape painter, engraver, and writer, topographical draughtsman and architect, famed for his pamphlet on linear perspective based on Brook Taylor's mathematics. (See also Milton, Crabbe, Bloomfield, Cowper, Howard Streets)
Kitchener Road: it is almost certain that this road is named after Field Marshal Horatio Herbert Kitchener, 1st Earl Kitchener, KG, KP, GCB, OM, GCSI, GCMG, GCIE, ADC, PC (1850 – 1916) was a controversial British soldier and colonial administrator who won fame in 1898 for winning the Battle of Omdurman and securing control of the Sudan, after which he was given the title "Lord Kitchener of Khartoum"; as Chief of Staff (1900–02) in the Second Boer War he played a key role in Lord Roberts' conquest of the Boer Republics, then succeeded Roberts as commander-in-chief. In 1914, at the start of the First World War, Lord Kitchener became Secretary of State for War, a Cabinet Minister. One of the few to foresee a long war, he organised the largest volunteer army that Britain, and indeed the world, had seen and a significant expansion of materials production to fight Germany on the Western Front. His commanding image, appearing on recruiting posters demanding "Your country needs you!", remains recognised and parodied in popular culture to this day. Kitchener was killed in 1916 when the warship taking him to negotiations in Russia was sunk by a German mine. Significantly, Kitchener Road is a few yards from Baden-Powell Cottages in Bramford Lane, named after another British war hero. See also: Gordon Road, Khartoum Road.
Lacey Street: off Woodbridge Road, commemorates Robert Lacey, named as president of the Ipswich Freehold Land Society in their prospectus of 1849.
Lady Lane: runs between Westgate Street and the Chapman Lane and is now a mere passageway. Its line southwards was partially followed by the 20th century raised pathway between car parks to Civic Centre, now demolished. Lady Lane is described as an extramural lane in that it was outside the ancient defences of the town. Interestingly – and difficult to imagine in the 21st century – the rampart and ditch line dropped southwards from the Old Bar Gate in Westgate Street between Lady Lane and Black Horse Lane. There is more on the line of the western rampart on our Friars Bridge Road page. Our page on Lady Lane tells more of the story of the Gracechurch Shrine of Our Lady. Maps of the area are on our Civic Drive page.
Lanercost Way: part of the Stoke Park housing development. Lanercost is a village in the northern part of Cumbria, near the City of Carlisle. Lanercost is known for the presence of Lanercost Priory and its proximity to Hadrian's Wall.
Lansdowne Road: see Tokio Road.
Layard Close: commemorating Nina Frances Layard. New housing development Layard Close runs off Cauldwell Hall Road. There is an Ipswich Society blue plaque celebrating her work on the Unicorn Brewery building in Foundation Street.
Leslie Road, off Nacton Road. Next to the Alston's Furniture Factory that closed in 2011. It was named after Leslie William Llewellyn Alston C.B.E. 1904-1976. Thanks to Peter Chapman for this derivation.
Lion Street: more of an alleyway today, it passes the front of the Golden Lion Hotel on Cornhill, which once stood beside the Moot Hall and is now squeezed by the Victorian Town Hall and Corn Exchange weighty footprints. The Golden Lion, said to be a late18th century building, replaced an earlier White Lion inn (which is known to have dated back to the 16th century). So the 'Lion' part of Lion Street is very old. Because today's Town Hall was built on the site of the Moot Hall, itself an adaptation of the Church Of St Mildred (built around AD700, so Anglo-Saxon in origin), this little lane was once known as 'St Mildreds Lane'. As we find from the CAMRA information about The Golden Lion, on the King Street page, it was later known as 'Town Hall Passage', presumably post-1868, when the present building was opened. The only query is that perhaps this latter name was applied to the narrow passage which used to run behind an earlier Town Hall on this site linking Golden Lion Yard with the Thoroughfare.
Lovetofts Drive: running north from the end of Bramford Lane to Whitehouse Road is named after John de Lovetoft who had a grant of free warren (a royal privilege to kill game of certain species within a stipulated area) here in 1277; he died in 1295. There was a manor house known as Lovetofts Hall and a nearby farmhouse which was still shown on the 1955 Ordnance Survey map, but had disappeared by the 1959 map.
Majors Corner: named, not after the newsagent's shop at the end of Carr Street, but after a Tudor merchant house which dyer, Joshua Major, purchased in 1656. "Unfortunately Joshua lost his children (John, Joseph and Benjamin) in just three short months early in 1658 – as recorded in the register at the Church of St Margaret. In 1669 he became Surveyor of the North West Ward (of Ipswich), an appointment of the Corporation. One of his first jobs was to alter (and bridge) the watercourse flowing down Spring Road and St Helens Street where it turned sharply into Upper Orwell Street. To describe the outcome as a bridge is perhaps over the top, it was essentially a culvert. The critical design factors were that the culvert was of sufficient size such that it didn’t flood and pedestrians could cross dry-shod" [additional information from John Norman]. Major's House was moved from Majors Corner to the north of Christchurch Mansion in 1924 (see that page for more detail on the rooms). The wing can be visited today; it is now the rooms with dark panelling and creaky floorboards. It is likely that Carr Street led to the long-disappeared East Gate to the town in this area; however, a claim has also been made that the bar-gate stood close to the junction of Orwell Place, Upper Orwell Street, Fore Street and Eagle Street.
Milton Street: on the California Estate, named after John Milton (1608-1674) was an English poet, polemicist, man of letters, and a civil servant for the Commonwealth of England under Oliver Cromwell. He wrote at a time of religious flux and political upheaval, and is best known for his epic poem Paradise Lost (1667), written in blank verse. (See also Cowper, Crabbe, Bloomfield, Kirby, Howard Streets)
Moat Farm Close: the small cul-de-sac off Belvedere Road is named after the farm which once stood there, which was part of The Moat estate. See our More almshouses page for a map of The Red House and The Moat under the 'Cranfield Court' heading.
Moffatt Avenue: off Renfrew Road, commemorates Alexander Moffatt, Town Clerk of the Borough 1925-1946.
Mumfords Passage: this long-disappeared passageway is worth including here for its historical significance. Named after William Mumford, a 19th century surgeon who owned property in the vicinity, the alleyway beside Old Waterloo House – fore-runner of Footman Pretty and later Debenhams store – was the only access to the rear until Lloyds Avenue was cut through. See our Cornhill page for more information.
Murray Road: The owners of the land across which this road was cut were the Cobbold family. John Dupuis Cobbold of Holywells House married Lady Evelyn Murray, daughter of the 7th Earl of Dunmore.
Museum Street: see High Street. The story of the roads around the original Museum is told on our King Street page.
Navarre Street: relates to the Fonnereau family who were, in the 15th century, Earls of Yvery in Normandy, and their sovereign, King Henry of Navarre (1553 – 1610) (see Withipoll Street for history of Christchurch Mansion ownership). This remnant of a short street was between Neale Street (q.v.) and the lost William Street contained ten to eleven houses, now cut off by the car park behind the Cricketers pub in Crown Street. See also Ivry Street. Much more information and images on our Charles Street page.
Neale Street: In 1793 the Reverend Charles William Fonnereau had married Harriet Debora Neale, daughter of Thomas Neale (1841-1891) of Freston. In 1882 Thomas Neale is recorded as being in residence at Christchurch Mansion (see Withipoll Street for history of Christchurch Mansion ownership). See also Blanche Street. Much more information and images on our Charles Street page.
Nelson Road: the nearest residential road running off Woodbridge Road next to the 'Roundwood shops', as they are still known; The Roundwood was the name of a large house once owned – but never stayed in – by Admiral Lord Nelson, one of the great heroes of his day. It was occupied by his wife and father for some years and stood close to the site of St John's School in Victory Road (a reference to HMS Victory, Nelson's flagship). See our Dated buildings page for photographs of The Roundwood. There are some nice F.L.S. house plaques in Nelson Road. Incidentally, on the FLS map dated 1860 this road is labelled 'New Foxhall Road'; the adjoining Tovells Road is 'Tovells Road South', Holland Road is 'Tovells Road North' and Cauldwell Avenue is 'Tovells Road West'.
Nottidge Road: We assume that Nottidge Road was named after the founder of Holy Trinity Church in Back Hamlet. In 1835 this church was built (Frederick Hall - Architect) close to the Ipswich Docks as a Chapel of Ease to nearby St Clement Church, and dedicated to the Holy Trinity by the Reverend John Thomas Nottidge (1776-1847) M.A., Patron and Rector of St Clement Church and St Helen Church. This was the first Anglican parish church – paid for by Nottidge – to be built in Ipswich since the Reformation (1529-1537) and is one of the few churches in the whole country that was built during the reign of King William IV (the “Sailor King”). [requires confirmation]
Old Foundry Road: formerly Margarets Ditches (Pennington's 1778 map), the road running inside the rampart up to the North Gate; indicates that the earth for the defence bank was dug from here creating a ditch. Outside the rampart runs 'Rotten Row' (q.v.) in 1778, today's St Margarets Street. The present name refers to the site of Robert Ransome's original foundry here, which is commemorated by a blue plaque. See also Tower Ramparts. See also our Bethesda page for the 1778 map of the area.
Orwell Place: see Stepples Street.
Orwell Street (Upper & Lower): see Wash, The.
Packard Avenue: close to Rands Way, probably named after Edward Packard who ran the fertilizer works in Coprolite Street. Packard served as a High Steward of Ipswich, Chairman of the Harwich Harbour Board; President of the SFK Chamber of Agriculture, Chairman of the Ipswich Museum & Free Library Committee, and Chairman of the Ipswich School of Arts. He founded the Ipswich Art Society in 1874. [requires confirmation]
Paget Road: at the end of Ivry Street, commemorates the connection of Lord Paget (later the Marquis of Anglesey) with Ipswich. In 1805, as Lord Paget, he received the Duke of York when he came to review the troops on Rushmere Heath. This derivation crosses over with that for Anglesea Road (q.v.) and involves multiple namings and titlings of the same person. Born in London, as Henry Bayly (his father assumed the name Paget in 1770), he was the eldest son of Henry Paget, 1st Earl of Uxbridge. Field Marshall Henry William Paget, 1st Marquess of Anglesey, KG, GCB, GCH, PC (1768-1854), styled Lord Paget between 1784 and 1812 and known as The Earl of Uxbridge between 1812 and 1815, was a British military leader and politician, now chiefly remembered for leading the charge of the heavy cavalry against d'Erlon's column during the Battle of Waterloo. One of the last cannon shots fired that day hit Paget in the right leg, necessitating its amputation. According to anecdote, he was close to Wellington when his leg was hit, and exclaimed, "By God, sir, I've lost my leg!" — to which Wellington replied, "By God, sir, so you have!" The amputated limb went on to lead a somewhat macabre after-life as a tourist attraction in the village of Waterloo in Belgium, where it had been removed and interred. Paget also served twice as Master-General of the Ordnance and twice as Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. See also Anglesea Road, Barrack Corner/Lane.
Parade Road: between Belvedere and Brunswick Roads, derives from the temporary Napoleonic military barracks at the top of Albion Hill, off Woodbridge Road. Parade Field Terrace still exists and the road (formerly Parade Terrace) has become extended past Belvedere Farmhouse (still standing) into Belvedere Road which circumlocutes through the cemeteries and down to Tuddenham Road. See also: Hutland Road, Khartoum Road, Militia depot, Barrack Corner/Lane.
Patteson Road: linking the eastern quays with Myrtle Road roundabout, commemorates the connection between the Cobbold and Patteson families, and several of the Cobbolds bore Patteson as a second name. John Coleridge Patteson, the first Bishop of Melanesia and grandson of the Rev. Henry Patteson of Drinkstone, Suffolk was killed on a Pacific island in 1871, the result of trouble caused by Englishmen still engaged in slave trading. There is a large memorial cross to him in St Mary-Le-Tower churchyard.
Pauls Road: it is probably named after W.F. Paul, Mayor of Ipswich 1900 (see tablet on Girls' Ragged School) who also appears in the Rosehill case study as a benefactor of the library. He is commemorated by a number of lettered buildings of the W.F. Paul Tenement Trust. This small elbow of a road runs from Ranelagh Road to Crane Hill, by Ranelagh School. [requires confirmation]
Pearce Road: runs between Derby Road and Orwell Road and is on land developed by the Ipswich Freehold Land Society, of which Joseph Pearce was secretary 1850-1876.
Portman Road: Portman (originally Portman's) Road was built in the mid-19th century at the same time as Princes Street, running from Handford Road across the Corporation Marshes (including Portmen's Marsh) to a junction with Railway Station Road, later to become part of Princes Street. In the 1940s the continuation of the upper part of Portman Road north of Handford Road and running up to Barrack Corner was also called Portman Road (formerly Mill Lane and later Mill Street). Under the Charter given to Ipswich by King John in 1200 the government of the town was placed in the hands of two bailiffs and four coroners who were elected at a meeting in the churchyard of St Mary-Le-Tower on 29 June 1200. At that meeting the inhabitants decided to elect twelve 'capital portmen' reflecting the importance of Ipswich as a port. The name is known nationally and abroad because it is home to the Ipswich Town Football Club ground. See also Portman's Walk.
Portmans Walk: running westward from the junction with Portman Road, this is now known as Alf Ramsey Way to commemorate the famous Ipswich and England football manager whose statue stands near the junction. Historians might regret the loss of the original name which was in use for 300 years. The first Portmen of Ipswich were granted a meadow named Odenholm or Oldenholm – possibly the source of 'Alderman Road'? – (later Portmen's Marsh) on which to keep their horses. See also Portman Road.
Pretyman Road: Captain Ernest George Pretyman, an officer in the Royal Artillery (1860-1931): Secretary of State to the Board of Trade, Civil Lord of the Admiralty (1916-19), MP for Woodbridge and for Chelmsford. He inherited Orwell Park (now the public school in Nacton) from his cousin, Colonel George Tomline in 1899. The Orwell Park Observatory website states that: 'Pretyman Road in Ipswich is named after him'. There is also a Pretyman Road at the Landguard end of the sea front in Felixstowe. At least one Ipswich street map mis-spells the road with a double 't'. See also Tomline Road.
Princes Street: named after Queen Victoria's Consort, Prince Albert, it was developed in several sections. Originally intended to link Cornhill with Friar's Bridge (the site of today's Greyfriars junction, formerly roundabout), it cut diagonally and brutally through buildings, gardens (see Coyte's Gardens), streets and lanes. It was still unfinished when the second Ipswich railway station opened, once the Stoke Hill tunnel had been constructed (see Eastern Union Railway page) and Railway Station Road was built down to Friar's Bridge, where a timber bridge was built to connect to the town centre. Eventually Princes Street took over the upper part of King Street below Cornhill and now runs all the way to the station. See our Friars Bridge Road for further detail.
Purplett Street: it is named after a benefactor of the town's charities, but should really be 'Puplett' after Richard Puplett who was a bailiff during the rule of Oliver Cromwell (1653-1658); G.R. Clarke (see Reading list), lists him as bailiff in 1653. In the London Gazette of 1867, a bankrupt baker is said to be "then previously of Puplett Street, Ipswich", so the alteration in spelling happened at some time up until 'Purplett Terrace, 1884' was built (and the cast iron Purplett Street nameplate was ordered by the Borough). The memoirs of Nathaniel Bacon (see our Plaques page) describe "this very ancient family" of Puplett or Purpett "was seated at Newborne, in Carlford Hundred, until Edward Purpett sold the estate to Sir Richard Broke, of Nacton." Note that the famous Ipswich merchant Henry Tooley married, and was survived by, Alice Purpet (d. 1556), daughter of John Purpet, "Yeoman of Ipswich" – presumably the same family (see also Cutler Street, Tyler Street and Felaw Street). See the Purplett Street page for a dissection of the name and its suggested geographical/geological source on the Shotley peninsula. [UPDATE 2.3.2018: 'You say "The memoirs of Nathaniel Bacon describe "this very ancient family" of Puplett or Purpett "was seated at Newborne, in Carlford Hundred, until Edward Purpett sold the estate to Sir Richard Broke, of Nacton.". But actually this is a footnote by the editor Richardson, so it's not really in Bacon's document. Keith Briggs. Many thanks to Keith for his clarification.]
Quadling Street: sounding a little like a piece of printer's vocabulary, this road is actually named after the coach builder Edwin Quadling; the company is mentioned on our page on Ipswich tramways with a 1902 map showing the street. More on the varied successes and failures of this coach builder can be found in Moffat, H. (see Reading List).
Queen Street: there was an establishment called The Queen's Hotel at the top of this short street at nos. 7(?)-11 which was demolished in 1972. However, the proximity of King Street (q.v.) may suggest another source of this name. Sometimes hotels and public houses are named after the street, rather than the other way round.
Ranelagh Road: runs between London Road and Burrell Road. The original Ranelagh Gardens in Chelsea was built on the site of Ranelagh House, the London home of the Jones family, who took their title (Earls of Ranelagh) from lands in County Wicklow on the south side of Dublin in Ireland, which had belonged to Fiach McHugh O'Byrne sometimes described as Lord Ranelagh, because he was head of the Gabhal Ragnaill branch of the O'Byrne clan. The euphonious name 'Ranelagh' has been used in towns and cities in other parts of the world.
Rands Way: probably named after F.E. Rands, Mayor of Ipswich in 1912 (see tablet on Girls' Ragged School). One of the roads radiating out on the 1930s Gainsborough estate. [requires confirmation]
Ransome Road: runs between Felixstowe Road and Nacton Road (also other Ransome street names) and marks the major role played in the town by Ransomes engineering works. See also Jefferies Road, Rapier Street.
Rapier Street: a recent, short thoroughfare off Wherstead Road commemorating the industrialist Richard Rapier who, in 1862, became manager of Ransomes railway engineering department. This evolved into the new company of Ransomes & Rapier in 1869, formed by Rapier and Robert James Ransome. It provided much of the equipment for Welsh narrow gauge railways, built railways on sugar plantations, also the Shanghai and Woosung Railway in China and lines in India. They also provided sluices for the Aswan Dam project (probably the Aswan Low Dam built 1898-1902). Rapier Street appears as a short road running from Wherstead Road to the rear of the Cocksedge Engineering works on the 1973 Wet Dock map. Graham Day: 'The only clue which exists is in the name Rapier Street; a cul-de-sac off Wherstead Road, where the main entrance to Cocksedge engineers was, not Ransomes & Rapier. The area where the huge building where walking draglines were built is now the IP City Centre [1 Bath Street].' See also Jefferies Road, Ransome Road.
Reavell Close: founded in 1898 as Reavell & Co Ltd Engineers by Sir William Reavell on Ranelagh Road in Ipswich, the organisation specialised in steam engines and quadruplex compressors. In 2005 Compair [compressed air] Reavell moved from the 'Ranelagh Works' site, which was developed as housing and a hotel; Reavell Place (as well as nearby Compair Crescent and other local names) commemorates the company which occupied the site for over 100 years. A spur from the main line ran over Ranelagh Road and into the Compair Reavell site, providing rail transport for materials and products.
Redan Street: between Orford Street and Oban Street was initially to be named John Street, we hear. It is probably named after the storming of the Redan at Sevastopol during the Crimean campaign in 1855 when the British captured a Russian-held fort, or redan. It was conquered only after nearly a year of attrition, in which deaths totalled more than 20,000 British and 80,000 French soldiers. The word 'Redan' is now part of the English language, and the definition given by the O.E.D. is: 'Fort—a work having two faces forming a salient towards the enemy'.
Ringham Road: off St Johns Road, commemorates Henry Ringham (1806-1866), a wood-carver of national repute: he was acclaimed by many of his contemporaries as the greatest church-restorer of his day. His determination to preserve every possible fragment of ancient woodwork was matched by an unsurpassed skill in carving. He was involved in restoration work in over eighty Suffolk churches and he built and lived in Gothic House (1851-7) situated nearby at 5 St Johns Road. It is Listed Grade II: 'timber-framed in Tudor-bethan style reusing old materials and copying details from Tudor buildings in Ipswich... Richly carved corner-posts with lion brackets (copied from those on the Ancient House, Ipswich) carry enriched bressumer with date 1634 of jetty. Transom and mullion windows with leaded lights and oriels to front and side gables (copied from the Neptune, Fore Street Ipswich)... Rear door with intricately carved panels, probably sample specimens from the 1844 House of Lords competition.'
Rivers Street: short street running between Woodbridge Road and Parade Road (q.v.) and about half a mile from Caudwell Hall; It is probably named after the Rivers family. In 1775 William Rivers took out a loan of £3,000 from Tobias Rustat, Rector of Stutton to buy the 550 acre Cauldwell Hall estate using the estate itself as security. See our California page for more information. Earlier still, the name appears with John Rivers of Ipswich (presumably an antecedent); his daughter, Anne Rivers, married Sir Thomas Rush (or Russhe) (1490–1560), merchant and sergeant-at-arms to Henry VII and Henry VIII at the time of Cardinal Wolsey and later Thomas Cromwell. Rush has left traces at the Church of St Stephen; oddly, Rush doesn't have a road named after him (see, for example, Felaw Street, Smart Street, Tooleys Court). [requires confirmation]
Rose Lane: named after The Rose Hotel on the corner of the lane and St Peters Street. See also Bell Lane, Eagle Street, Black Horse Lane.
Rope Walk: this is the name for a rope and cord manufactory, central to the shipbuilding and maritime industries of Ipswich. Frank Grace in Rags & Bones (see Reading list) gives a full story of this street in the Potteries area, east of Ipswich town centre. Rope(s) Lane ran parallel with, and north of, the original rope walk (the site of today's Woodhouse Square), where ropemakers needed long spaces to spread out the ropes. Today's Rope Walk is probably close to the old Rope Lane; today the name encompasses East and Curve Streets shown on the O.S. 1902 map as it joins St Helens Street at the east end.
Rosehill Road: Owen Roe is described as ‘Farmer of Rose Hill, Ipswich’ (1770-1825). The label of ownership on an 1812 map of the area is ‘Roe’; the origin of the local name was “Roe’s Hill”, which soon became verbally modified into “Rosehill”. His daughter, Ann Roe, married into the Cobbold family and her only son was Alan Brooksby Cobbold (see Alan Road). For a fuller explanation, see our Rosehill case study.
Rotten Row: the old name for St Margarets Street. Route du Roi, French for Kings Road is the derivation, as in the well-known horse-riding avenue established by William III by Hyde Park in London. See also our Bethesda page for the 1778 map of the area.
Roundwood Road: see Nelson Road.
Ruskin Road: off Foxhall Road; named after John Ruskin who was born in London on 8 February 1819. He was one of the greatest figures of the Victorian age: poet, artist, critic, social revolutionary and conservationist. Ruskin's range was vast. He wrote over 250 works which started from art history, but expanded to cover topics ranging over science, geology, ornithology, literary criticism, the environmental effects of pollution, and mythology. Ruskin can also be argued to have had unjustifiable power as an arbiter of Victorian artistic taste. Ruskin House, a former post office/shop appears on our Blooming Fuchsia page. A clutch of streets named after eminent Victorians is to be found here: Darwin Road (q.v.), Faraday Road (q.v.), Gladstone Road (q.v.), Wellesley Road (q.v.).
St Davids Road: 'We have heard a local rumour that the two adjoining roads above were named after Leonard David Bloom – the local builder – who built many of the houses there… Mervyn Russen.' Can anyone confirm this? St Davids and St Leonards Roads lie between King Edward Road and Ransome Road south of the Racecourse end on Felixstowe Road.
St Georges Street: the long-disappeared, pre-Conquest Chapel of St George stood opposite Salem Chapel in the street which today bears its name. It was known at one time as Globe Lane in the 19th century and on Ogiby's 1674 map as Great Bolton Lane – see our Christchurch Park page, under The story of Christchurch Park' for references to Bolton fields. You can identify the Chapel of St George, marked 'B', to the north-west on Spede's map of 1610.
St Leonards Road: see St Davids Road.
St Peters Dock: the street nameplate by Stoke Bridge names the short road running from Bridge Street to Foundry Lane 'St. Peters Dock' (after the ancient lagoon formed by the River Orwell before it flows into New Cut: an ancient dock outside the Wet Dock). However, the Ipswich Maritime Trust (see Links) Newsletter, August 2019, tells us that the trust has successfully sought to change the name to 'St Peters Wharf'.
Salthouse Street: cut through in 1878 from Common Quay (The Custom House) to Fore Street, it commemorates the importance of the salt trade and of a salt house (Salt Office) on the dockside where evaporated seawater salt from Newcastle and rock salt mined in Cheshire were imported and sold as cattle licks and to the tannery trade. More prominent than the short, S-shaped street, the name lives on in The Salthouse Harbour Hotel (formerly John Good & Sons) on the Wet Dock, although it stands on a nearby but different site to the Salt Office. See our Isaac Lord page for an undated plan of the area showing the Salt Office.
Schreiber Road: runs between Woodbridge Road and Rushmere Road. We have found a number of Schreibers and it is probably named after (a) Captain William F. Schreiber who lived at the nearby The Roundwood from 1822 (see Nelson Road) and around the mid-1840s he seems to have purchased the Toll-house – erected by the Ipswich and South Town, Yarmouth Turnpike Trust – which was wound up in 1872 (see Mileposts) – at the junction of Rushmere Road and Woodbridge Road (later Barclays Bank) and it became the home of his gardener; the house was sold at auction in 1899. (b) Capt. Arthur Thomas Schreiber was Chief Constable of Ipswich and was awarded an OBE and Companion of Honour (1920) – see also Brooks Hall Road. (c) Major Richard Shuldham Schreiber, retired army officer who lived at 1 Woodbridge Road. He was in the Coldstream Guards from 1926 to 1951; was A.D.C. to the Governor General of South Africa 1933 to 1955; he was also Commissioner of the St John's Ambulance Brigade [Information from Who's who in Ipswich 1959]; (d) Lieutenant-Colonel James Alfred Schreiber who was of Irish descent, captain in the Dragoons Guards. He died at Melton, Suffolk in August 1840; also (e) his son Charles Schreiber was born at Colchester and became a Conservative MP (but not for Ipswich). At the beginnning of the 20th century, the land belonged to Mrs Rosa Alexandrina Schreiber. Mrs Scheiber’s land was sold by auction in May 1901 and subsequently conveyed to The Ipswich & Suffolk Freehold Land Society in June. Over the next four years FLS built over 50 houses on the land which were balloted to FLS members. The corner shop on the east side of Schreiber Road and six houses along Woodbridge Road were included in the development. Information from Margaret Hancock.
Shafto Road: a family name connected with the Adair family of Flixton Hall, Bungay, one of whose members, Hugh Edward Adair, was MP for Ipswich 1847-1874. See also Adair Road.
Sharp Street: see Abolitionists (slavery).
Sherrington Road: commemorates Sir Charles Scott Sherrington OM (1857-1952) who attended Ipswich School 1871-1876 and later married into the Wright family of Preston Manor, Suffolk. He discovered the physiology of the brain, for which (jointly with Lord Adrian) he received a 1932 Nobel Prize; it was the same year that Heisenburg won for the discovery of quantum mechanics and Galsworthy won for literature. He rose in his profession to become President of the Royal Society. "Ipswich's second most famous son" according to an Ipswich Society lecturer on Sherrington in January 2012. Guess who the "first most famous son" is.... [see Wolsey entries]. Sherrington's work is marked by a blue plaque on Ipswich School. HOWEVER...
"Great website. REALLY great. Useful and enjoyable. Just one nitpick: you say that Sherrington Road is named after Charles Sherrington the Nobel prizewinning neurologist. I believe the land belonged to his brother George, who was a lawyer and part of a property consortium which sold the land for housing. He was also, incidentally, the captain of Ipswich Football Club. So why would the road be named after his brother, who had left Ipswich decades before the land was sold, and who was not particularly famous at that time. Do you have any documentary evidence that it was named after Charles? Anna Cordon (great great niece of the Sherrington brothers)." Thanks to Anna for the contribution: research continues.
Sidegate Lane: runs from Humber Doucy Lane to Woodbridge Road. This erstwhile country lane was used by some travellers to avoid tolls charged by The Ipswich to South Town and Bungay Turnpike Trust at the Side Gate at the junction of Rushmere and Woodbridge Roads (the tollhouse is now Barclays Bank and flint walling can still be seen at the base of the wall in Rushmere Road). To avoid loss of revenue the Turnpike Trust erected a second Side Gate at the junction with Woodbridge Road, thus giving the lane its name.
Silent Street: there are two commonly-believed sources of this name. 1. The street became unnaturally quiet due to the large number of deaths from plague in 1665-6 (one week 34 out of 64 burials were deaths from plague). 2. More probable explanation is that straw was laid down on the street to deaden the noise of passing horses and carts when Curson House (known as the King's Hospital from 1666 – the building no longer exists) was used as a hospital for sick and wounded seamen during the Dutch wars of the 1650s, 1660s and 1670s. However, Robert Malster's 'A-Z' book (see Reading List) points out that the first recorded use of 'Silent Street' as a name wasn't until 1764; so both explanations are flawed.
Silk Street: the modern housing development in Orchard Street and Woodbridge Road around the former corner public house, the Mason's Arms, was named after the silk factory clearly shown on White's map of 1867 which stood behind the back yards of the terraced housing on the west side of Orchard Street. The arcane process of silk manufacture by unwinding the cocoons of the silk moth was an industry established in Suffolk, notably in Sudbury where a silk mill survives to thre present.
Siloam Place: one of the streets built in the 1990s on the site of Ransomes Orwell Works (including Tye Road, Isham Place, Hope Court, Siloam Place). Siloam is a biblical spring and pool in Jerusalem where Christ cured a man of his blindness. See also Tye Road.
Sinclair Drive: see Bromley Close.
Sirdar Road: runs north-south between Bramford Road (becoming Surrey Street at about half-way) and London Road. Sirdar, a variant of Sardar, was assigned to the British Commander-in-Chief of the British-controlled Egyptian Army in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The Sirdar resided at the Sirdaria, a three-block-long property in Zamalek (an affluent district of western Cairo) which was also the home of British military intelligence in Egypt. So, probably nothing to do with a knitting-yarn company then. There is also a Sirdar Terrace off FLS houses in Hatfield Road. [requires confirmation]
Slade Street: the tiny street running between Star Lane and Salthouse Street named in the 20th century after Sir Thomas Slade, surveyor to the Navy and designer of Nelson's flagship The Victory. Early in his career, he was surveyor of several naval ships built in Ipswich, married an Ipswich woman and was buried in nearby St Clement churchyard (the grave now lost) in 1771. There is a plaque on a plinth to commemorate him near the west door of St Clement Church.
Slavery abolitionists, see Abolitionists (slavery)
Smart Street: home of Smart Street School. William Smart (more correctly Smarte) is one of the best known merchants of Tudor period Ipswich. He is better known for being the founder of the Town Library bequeathed to Ipswich at his death in 1599 (it is currently housed at The Ipswich School). However, he has also made great contributions to the Tooley Almshouses by expanding the structure. See also Tooleys Court. Smart(e)'s name is mentioned in connection with Tyler's as philanthropists who left bequests to the Grammar School to fund poorer pupils at the school. See also Tyler Street, Purplett Street, Felaw Street, Cutler Street and Tooleys Court.
Soane Street: was likely to have been an extension of the Old Bar Gate (nearby North Gate to the old town) and formed the entry to the Priory of the Holy Trinity (where Christchurch Mansion now stands) and St Margaret's Church. The 19th century naming after Sir John Soane (1753-1837), the noted architect and collector, suggested in a number of sources is clearly wrong (see our Soane Street page for details from Dr James Bettley and Eve Hewing).
Spring Road: originally Great Wash Lane, named after the many natural springs in the Cauldwell/'Cold stream' (q.v.) area which fed through to Major's Corner, then down The Wash (Upper & Lower Orwell Streets) and eventually into the River Orwell. On Freehold Land Society maps of ballotted house plots (1863) the part of Spring Road from Grove Lane to Cauldwell Hall Road is labelled 'Trafalgar Road', after the Trafalgar public house – now housing – opposite Trafalgar Close. More about Water in Ipswich.
Star Lane: a tiny lane which became a major dockland traffic thoroughfare in 1973. Muriel Clegg (see Reading List) suggests that the name came from its nearness to St Mary-at-the-Quay church sometimes called 'Stella Maris' ('Our Lady, Star of the Sea'). For a map of Star Lane in 1902, see our Turret Lane page.
Stanley Avenue: runs off Derby Road, close to the railway syation. In January 2018, Phil writes: 'I have heard it was named after the station master of Derby Road station.' [requires confirmation]
Stepples Street: the current 'Orwell Place' is a meagre name for such an interesting street. The waters rising from the town's natural springs which flowed downhill towards the river were often of such volume that stepping stones were needed for pedestrians to be able to cross at the present junction of Eagle Street and Orwell Place without getting their feet and legs wet. 'The Stepples' were recognised in the original street name. Home to The Unicorn. See also The Wash, Brook Street. More about Water in Ipswich.
Stoke Hall Road: this tiny road off Belstead Road marks the site of Stoke Hall and its mysterious tunnels.
Stoke Park Drive: named in the 1960s after the mansion of Stoke Park built by Peter Burrell (see also Burrell Road), later Lord Gwydyr. For more on Stoke Park mansion see our Bourne Park page.
Sturdee Avenue: close to Badshah Avenue (q.v.) is probably named after commander and Admiral of the Royal Navy, Sir Frederick Charles Doveton Sturdee, 1859–1925, famous for the triumphant Battle of the Falkland Islands in 1914. This attribution is supported by the nearby Collingwood Road (probably named after Royal Navy Admiral Cuthbert Collingwood, 1st Baron Collingwood, 1748-1810) and Howe Avenue (probably named after Admiral of the Fleet Richard Howe, 1st Earl Howe, KG, 1726-1799). [requires confirmation]
Tacket Street: the relatively short street linking Stepples Street (q.v.) and Dog's Head Street bears an enigmatic name. It would be easy to assume that the name Tankard Street was named after the public house the Tankard, once the home of Sir Humphrey Wingfield (see also Wingfield Street) and that 'Tacket Street' was a later corruption of the name. However, things aren't so straightforward. Carol Twinch points out in Ipswich street by street (see Reading list), that it was Tankard Street between 1700 and 1780 and that it gave its name to the Tankard Inn, rather than the other way round. It was Tacket Street before and after this period, reverting to the original name under pressure from the members of The Tacket Street Congregational Church (today Christ Church URC/Baptist), who thought that 'The Tankard Street Congregational Church' gave out the wrong message. 'Tacket' could be a derivation from 'tack' or 'tackle' maker, describing those who worked in the shipyards or worked as maintenance men on ships. Certainly Tacket and Stepples Streets were regular watering-holes for sailors and ship-builders. Dr J.F. Taylor in In an about ancient Ipswich, 1888, states: "Tacket Street is now almost a plain street, but here were formerly situated, perhaps, the grandest mansions in the town. The merchant princes of Ipswich lived near their warehouses and shipping; they built their houses where they conducted their businesses...". The archetypal surviving example of this is, of course, the Isaac Lord complex in Fore Street.
Tavern Street: it is tempting to say that this street, so well-known tor residents and visitors, was named after the large number of inns and taverns to be found there. However, parts of the street were for a long time named after the specific produce traded on market stalls there: 'le Fleshmarket' or 'meatmarket' . Tavern Street is a relatively recent name – probably common from the late 1700s. As a continous thoroughfare from Cornhill to Brook Street, it has been called Silver Street (1609) and, perhaps more understably, Whitehorse Street (1711) after The Great White Horse inn at the east end, or Mitre Street after another inn (1764).
Tokio Road: many will have pondered on the name of this short residential hill running between St Johns Road and Marlborough Road. The Ipswich Society Newsletter, October 2003, has a theory: 'In February and March 1905, a Mr Arthur Warne was evidently planning to develop land between these two roads. He submitted layout plans to the relevant Borough Committee – Paving and Lighting – for three new roads and proposed for them the names of Weymouth, Tokio and Geisha, which were agreed to by the Committee. But in May 1908, he asked its approval to a change of name of "one of his proposed roads" from Geisha to Lansdowne Road. This now forms the extension of Tokio Road across Marlborough Road. One can't help but wonder why one of these names of obvious Japanese association should have been abandoned like this. Surely it couldn't have been that the choice of the name Geisha upset the sensitivities of some of Mr Warne's Ipswich fellow citizens?' The developer picked 'Tokio' (an Empire-era spelling of Tokyo which appears on old maps, originally Edo: the capital of modern Japan), Geisha (a Japanese hostess or courtesan) and Weymouth (a seaside resort on the south coast of Britain). The apparent new name for Geisha was Lansdowne: a title from the British peerage; Lord Lansdowne at the time of the renaming of the road was Henry Charles Keith Petty-FitzMaurice, 5th Marquess of Lansdowne (1845–1927), a leading Conservative politician and statesman.
Toller Road: tiny road linking Cliff Road and Holywells Road; commemorates Richard Toller, head brewer and manager 1896-1922 at the nearby Tolly Cobbold brewery. He lived in the nearby 'Cliff Cottage'.
Tomline Road: named after George Tomline (1813-1889), referred to as Colonel Tomline, was an English politician who served as an MP, was a keen amateur astronomer who built an observatory at his mansion: Orwell Park, Nacton (built by Admiral Vernon – see Vernon Street – now a public school). He was founder and chairman of the Felixstowe Railway and Pier Company which built the Felixstowe Branch Line – he had his own personal station – and established the Port of Felixstowe. Tomline Road in Ipswich runs parallel to the railway line between Foxhall and Derby Roads (see the 1882 map). Incidentally, Tomline never married and didn't, as far as we know, have any illegitimate offspring; his cousin, Cpt. E.G. Pretyman, inherited Orwell Park. Tomline was not, in fact, a military man: 'Colonel' was an honorary title of the North Lincolnshire Fusiliers.
Tooleys Court: named after the wealthy 16th century merchant Henry Tooley, benfactor of Tooley's Almshouses in Foundation Street. Died in 1551. Not quite a street, really a courtyard behind the main almhouse entrance on Foundation Street.
Tovells Road: off Nelson Road (q.v.) is probably named after George Tovell who ran a cement works on the Island and who was also an early Dock Commissioner. There were originally no quays between the Wet Dock and New Cut, the majority was taken up by a 'mill pond' which apparently provided a head of water used to operate George Tovell's roman cement works. The pond, later used for storage of timber, became a branch dock, but was filled in during works on the Island in 1923-5. Tovell's Wharf was constructed on the north side of the Island. It is assumed that the Freehold Land Society chose the name for this residential road on the Cauldwell Hall estate because of the prominence of George Tovell as a Dock Commissioner. Requires confirmation. Incidentally, on the FLS map dated 1860 this road is labelled 'Tovells Road South', Holland Road is 'Tovells Road North', Caulwell Avenue is 'Tovells Road West' and Nelson Road is 'New Foxhall Road'.
Tower Ramparts: The name is a reminder of the time when part of the town bank (an earthen rampart, probably topped by a pallisade, with an accompanying ditch from which the earth was dug) was here, dating from around the 1203. The roadway on the inside of the rampart was once called Tower Ditches; the road outside was Clay Lane (Crown Street). In the mid 1930s the last part of the old town defences were removed along with houses on the top of the bank. The town rampart originally continued on a line along what is now Old Foundry Road (formerly Margarets Ditches q.v.) to Majors Corner, along Upper Orwell Street and Lower Orwell Street to the River Orwell. In the other direction from Tower Ramparts the defences extended to Lady Lane and on to the town marshes, close to where the Ipswich Town football ground is now. We still have the Northgate and Westgate street names to remind us of the openings in the town bank. The houses built on top of the rampart on the site of today's bus station (see the photograph on our Carnsers page) were demolished and the last vestigesof the defences removed in the 1930s. See also Tower Street. See also our Bethesda page for the 1778 map of the area.
Tower Street: an obvious derivation of this name is from the nearby St Mary-Le-Tower Church. However, as Carol Twinch points out in Ipswich street by street (see Reading list): 'it is by no means certain that the church was not named 'le Tower' to distinguish it from other churches dedicated to St Mary and that it took its name from a nearby tower. There might have been another tower existing in close proximity to the church, perhaps as part of the rampart, though there is no record of any such lookout or defensive tower. Historians over the years have discounted thoughts of 'le Tower' being that of the Norman castle, which was more likely to have been at St Mary Elms/Elm Street. In the days of medieval markets the junction of Tower and Tavern Streets was known as the Hen Market. Documentary evidence places it there in 1327.' See also our Bethesda page for the 1778 map of the area.
Tudor Place: off Woodbridge Road near Christchurch Street, was named as it led to Tudor's Circus which was held for many years on the meadow which stood adjacent to the Mulberry Tree (once The Milestone, The Beer House etc.). The circus closed in 1904 and the Drill Hall was subsequently built on part of the site. This later became the ICA, now demolished. Tudor Place has largely disappeared as car parks and a housing area. It would have been accessed via Cobden Place, probably named after Richard Cobden (1804–1865) of the Anti-Corn Law League.
Turret Lane/Green: take their name from Turret House which once stood nearby, though in 1582 the northern part which turns through a right-angle to join Lower Orwell Street was named Orford Lane. Shown on the Joseph Pennigton map of Ipswich dated 1778, Turret House is shown as being occupied by Mrs Sparrow (possibly related to the Sparrows of The Ancient House?) and it was surrounded by gardens. The house was gone by 1844. See our page on Turret Lane.
Tye Road: the 16th century mariner and merchant John Tye is buried in the St Clement churchyard. A proposed road which was to be an extension of Waterworks Street, due east across Grimwade Street, into the college car park, then curving down to Duke Street, to end in the Waterfront car park. A proposal that this road (connecting St Clements with the Waterfront and reconnecting John Tye with his adopted home) should be called Tye Road came to nothing when the road wasn't built. Eventually, the name was used for the easternmost road leading off Duke Street, which is part of the network of streets built in the 1990s on the site of Ransomes Orwell Works (the others are Pownall Road, Isham Place q.v., Hope Court, Siloam Place q.v.).
Tyler Street: now little more than a row of small houses since the reshaping of Vernon Street (q.v.) and Hawes Street, it is named after William Tyler (died 1643), benefactor of the town's charities (see also Cutler Street, Purplett Street and Felaw Street). Tyler's name is mentioned in connection with William Smart(e)'s as philanthropists who left bequests to the Grammar School to fund poorer pupils at the school (see our Tyler Street page for more details). Tyler is an English (old English) word which means door keeper of an inn. It is also thought to be a derived occupational name derived from “tiler”: one who makes tiles. Among the earliest recorded use of the surname is from the 14th century: leader of the 1381 anti-poll tax Peasants' Revolt, Wat Tyler of Kent.
Upper & Lower: see Brook Street or Wash, The (Orwell Street).
Vernon Street: in Over Stoke was cut through to Stoke Bridge in the mid-nineteenth century, named after Admiral Edward Vernon (1684-1757) who had Orwell Park in Nacton village built for him (see also Tomline Road for Colonel Tomline, later owner of Orwell Park – today, a public school). He was MP for Ipswich (1741-1757). Vernon was known as 'Old Grog' after the grogram material of which his cloak and breeches were made, and in 1740, in order to reduce drunkenness amongst his men, he caused their rum ration to be diluted with water; this became known as 'grog'. It may be difficult to believe, but the narrow Bell Lane running up the side of The Old Bell public house was the original feeder road for traffic over Stoke Bridge (it's still more-or-less on a line with the original bridge), via Austin Street and into Wherstead Road. Vernon Street was home to the first Co-operative store in Ipswich: it's still there, when many others aren't...
Victory Road: see Nelson Road.
Virginia Street: part of an early 21st century housing development on the West Bank of the Orwell (formerly Griffin Wharf). The street names celebrate the voyages of early settlers from the Ipswich area to establish a colony on the east coast of America. The small estate includes Jamestown Boulevard, Discovery Avenue and Brownrigg Walk. Three ships full of men and boys left Blackwall in East London in December 1606: the Susan Constant was captained by the Admiral of the fleet, Christopher Newport from Harwich. Bartholomew Gosnold of Otley Hall (the Vice Admiral of the trip) took charge of the Godspeed, while the crew of the smallest ship, the Discovery were led by John Ratcliffe (real name John Sicklemore). Jamestown was the first successful British colony of Virginia that gave rise to modern day America. Early settlers found an outlet to the Chesapeake Bay which they named the James River in honor of King James I of England, thus the first permanent settlement was called Jamestown. The venuture was sponsored by The London Company (also called the Charter of the Virginia Company of London – otherwise 'The Virginia Company') was an English joint stock company established in 1606 by royal charter by King James I with the purpose of establishing colonial settlements in North America. See also Brownrigg Walk on the 'Jamestown housing estate' for a possible source of the name.
Wallace Road: running between Bramford Road and Bramford Lane, it commemorates Sir Richard Wallace of Sudbourne Hall, founder of the Wallace Collection in London. He was appointed High Steward of Ipswich in 1883 and was President of Ipswich Museum 1876-1885.
Warwick Road: probably named after the Earldom of Warwick which dates back to 1088. However, on Freehold Land Society maps of ballotted house plots (1863) Warwick Road is labelled 'Water Lane' referring to the flows of spring water in this area (see also Spring Road, The Wash). More about Water in Ipswich.
Wash, The: the currently named Upper and Lower Orwell Streets were known as The Upper and Lower Wash because of the water which flowed from the natural springs around Spring Road, down St Helens Street and from Majors Corner down to the River Orwell. The name may also refer to the area of the Common Wash where the washing of clothes was allowed (being banned by bye-law at the conduit in Tavern Street). Given the use of flowing water and open sewers in the crowded streets of poor housing, one would have to choose one's time very carefully to wash one's clothes. Some people still call this area The Wash in the 21st century. See also Stepples Street, Brook Street, Spring Road, Cauldwell Hall Road. More about Water in Ipswich.
Waterworks Street: a bit obvious, but there was Ipswich Corporation Waterworks just north of St Clement Church, as shown on Edward White's 1867 map. The original Back Street was renamed 'Waterworks Street' and, as it crossed Eagle Street/Rope Walk, eventually linked up with an extended and widened Bond Street (off St Helens Street). More about Water in Ipswich.
Wellesley Road: off Foxhall Road; named after Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington (1769-1852) notable national military hero and Conservative politician. There is a railway bridge between Wellesley Road and Marlborough Road. A clutch of streets named after eminent Victorians is to be found here: Darwin Road (q.v.), Faraday Road (q.v.), Gladstone Road (q.v.), Ruskin Road (q.v.).
White House Road: named after The White House (accessed from Limerick Close), Listed Grade II which still stands on the border of White House Park, which also boasts a gate lodge on Norwich Road. Built as small country house in the late 17th century and altered early 19th century with late 19th century additions. It retains its complete 17th century roof structure. It was used for many years as local government offices.
Wilberforce Street: see Abolitionists (slavery).
Willoughby Road: a hill linking Burrell Road with Belstead Road, it is named after Lord Gwydyr (Peter Burrell)'s son Willoughby Burrell, as is Willoughby Terrace on Burrell Road. See also Burrell Road.
Wingfield Street: now a short elbow of a by-way from Foundation Street (q.v.) to Tacket Street (q.v.), this was once much bigger (as shown on our second Courts & yards map). Sir Anthony Wingfield KG (b. 1488, also listed as 1485 - d. 1552) represented Suffolk in parliament; he was friend, Vice-Chamberlain and executor to King Henry VIII, and lived in a house in nearby Tacket Street which he inherited from his uncle, Sir Humphrey Wingfield, who was great friend to Henry Tooley. Although a little smaller than Curson House in Silent Street, the Wingfield residence was grand, the great parlour measuring 27 feet by 17 feet. Wooden panelling from Wingfield's house is now in the Wingfield Room of Christchurch Mansion, having been removed to a private house in 1870 and then acquired by the museum in 1929. It was during Sir Humphrey's occupation that the panelling was executed; the initials 'H' and 'A' appear intertwined standing for Humphrey and his wife Anne. Dramatic redevelopment in Wingfield Street in 1962 resulted in the loss of the packed, tiny houses and The Phoenix public house, to be followed by the building of the Foundation Street multi-storey car park in the 1980s which truncated the street. Wingfield also owned the Brooks Hall estate to the west of the town – see also Brooks Hall Road.
Withipoll Street: (featured on our Bolton Lane page) Christchurch Mansion, was built between 1549 - 1550 by Edmund Withipoll [Withypoll] on the site of the Augustinian Priory (Holy Trinity, demolished in 1530). There has been a claim that some of the walls of the Mansion we see today could have been those of Holy Trinity Priory. The Withipolls sold the Mansion 100 years later to the Devereaux family (see also Devereaux Court) and they, another 100 years later, sold it to the Fonnereaus (see also Fonnereau Road), a well-to-do Ipswich family. In 1892 Felix Thornley Cobbold (see also Cobbold Street) bought it from the Fonnereau family and presented it to the town (gently twisting the Borough's arm to save the surrounding parkland from housing developers). See our Plaques page for more on Felix T. Cobbold.
Wolsey Street: among other addresses with the name Wolsey (also nearby Cardinal Street), this small street behind the Greyfriars tower block owes its name to the most famous Ipswich historical personality. He was born near St Mary-Elms, probably on the site of the The Black Horse. Son of an Ipswich butcher and innkeeper, Thomas Wolsey lived in St Nicholas Street not far from the short street which now bears his name (and a place from 2011 which is home to a fine seated sculpture of Cardinal Wolsey). He rose to become the Lord Chancellor, a hugely powerful role, of Henry VIII for fourteen years. See also College Street. The other Ipswich Lord Chancellor was Sir Christopher Hatton, see also Hatton Court.
Wykes Bishop Street: The Bishop's Wick, or Wicks Episcopi as it was sometimes called, was one of the four hamlets of the ancient town (Wykes Bishop, Wykes Ufford – see our St Clement Church page for a passage on this by G.R. Clarke – Stoke and Brookes). It is the area to the south of Felixstowe Road which now includes Bishops Hill, extending to the river and including Holywells Park where the residence of the Bishop of Norwich stood within the extensive moat (fed by the local springs) which is still to be seen. Wykes Bishop continued in the hands of successive bishops from 1235 until the properties of the diocese were exchanged for those of St Benet's Abbey by Henry VIII. Wykes Bishop Street used to reach up to Bishops Hill when the area was packed with very poor housing (see our Courts & yards page for more information and our Ransomes page for a map), but has been truncated.

There are more derivations to be found. We welcome contributions, additions and corrections here.

The above list has been built on one in The Ipswich Society Newsletter, April 2004 (Issue 155). The original information is based on The Lewcock Collection: Ipswich memorabilia and notes compiled and collected by Edward Hussey Lewcock including notes on Ipswich street names, 1960... which is now held by the Suffolk Record Office. See the Links page for the Ipswich Society's website and Image Archive of old Ipswich photographs.
See also: our Historic maps page for placename derivations in the town, including 'Ipswich' itself.

Related pages:
House name plaque examples: Alston Road; Bramford Road; Cauldwell Hall Road; Cavendish Street; Marlborough Road; Rosehill area;
Ipswich & Suffolk Freehold Land Society (F.L.S.); California
Street index; Streets named after slavery abolitionists;
Dated buildings list; Dated buildings examples;
Named buildings list; Named (& sometimes dated) buildings examples.
Street nameplate examples; Examples of Street nameplates (Parliament Road etc.);
Brickyards; Ropewalks

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