St Helens Street
Tramways, Constantine Power Station, Quadling Street, Public transport in Ipswich

The Railway Hotel itself is threatened with demolition to be replaced by housing. Electrification of the tramway eventually led to the use of trolley buses and then the internal combustion engine omnibus. Some of the cast iron posts which used to carry overhead power cables for public transport still survive in Ipswich. They have since been used for BT phone lines. See below for a short history of tramways in Ipswich.

Above: St Helens Street looking westwards. The tramline track between Major's Corner and the Church of St Helen, to the right of this 1907 postcard, was not made double until after the First World War. If two tramcars had to pass each other, they could only do so on the double loop of rail at this point. The projecting signboard just beyond the church railings advertises the wares of Goffin the grocer. Immediately behind the cast iron post in the left foreground is the junction with Regent Street with a H.M. Stanley, Provision Merchant on the corner with 'BOVRIL' and 'OXO' signs and what looks like 'ALES & STOUT. Tolly COBBOLD'S' lettering on the gable.

St Helens Street in the mid-1930s. The Church entrance is to the left, 'Tram Way Place' is by the cast iron tram power-line pole – still there in October 2014 (but due to be removed – see Update 29.10.14, below), the entrance to Jefferies Road to the far right.

Tramway posts
On the juction of St Helens Street and Jefferies Road is an odd little junction box. At first we thought that it might be connected to the tramway power. See our Street furniture page for British Relay TV.

  

Below: with the Zoar Baptist Church in the background, we see the former tramway post on the corner of Palmerston Road (number 4 on the table below). Carrying telephone lines and a street lamp and with a pointed finial on top, the post is cluttered with trunking and electrical gubbins. They carry lettering, probably the manufacturer names, which have become rusted and encrusted to create a sort of art installation.
  
On the rectangular box is the relief lettering:

  
From the Palmerston Road corner looking up St Helens Street towards the Grove Lane junction we see three further rusty posts with a variety of finial tops. There are further surviving posts close to 'Tram Way Place' and The Regent at the town end of the street.


Here's a photographic survey of 14.8.2014 of all the tramway posts which stand in St Helens Street from close to  'Tram Way Place' up to the Grove Lane/Warwick Road junction. The subsidiary close-ups show the finials atop the poles. There is talk of the removal of these strange survivors of a past transport age, perhaps to go to one of the transport museums, so we document them here.

by McNamara Court; 7. by 163 St Helens Street; 8. by 196 St Helens Street.
2014 image
[UPDATES 29.10.2014: All the tramway posts shown above have had modern street lamp standards erected near them and have been marked with the prominent hand-painted sign: 'REMOVE'.
21.11.2017: All the poles have now been removed and two wooden telegraph poles erected to carry cables.]

'Grove Bakery'
2000 image
The decorative shop front of 198 St Helens Street was renovated by a tool hire business, then it was a Halal store. Its original use is proclaimed on the dated plaque above:

IPSWICH CORPORATION TRAMWAYS
Horse trams running from Cornhill to the railway station started in 1880. 1881 brought the Ipswich Tramways Act to establish the Ipswich Tramway Company, a private enterprise. The tramway was extended from Princes Street, along Portman Road and the upper stretch (then called Mill Street, presumably because of the site of windmills at the top of the hill) to Barrack Corner on St Matthews Street. This stretch was abandoned after only a few years. There were also extensions from Cornhill along Westgate Street and from Cornhill to Major's Corner, St Helen's Street (the site of our 'Tramway Place 1884' plaque shown above), Spring Road, St John's Road, Cauldwell Hall Road to Derby Road railway station. The stretch of tramline track from Major's Corner to St Helen's Church was not made double until after the First World War. If two tramcars had to pass one another, they could only do so on a double loop of rail in St Helens Street at the junctions with Grove Lane and with St Johns Road. The tracks at Derby Road station were extended down into the station yard to serve special rail excursions to Felixstowe. As mentioned above, stabling for tram horses seems to have been provided beside the Railway public house in Foxhall Road. Cross-town links meant a total route mileage of 4.4 miles. Interestingly, the initial stock, which consisted of three single-deck and six double deck cars, were believed to have been built by the Starbuck Car and Wagon Company of Birkenhead. Many of us might have imagined that this very American-sounding trade name was an invention of a certain modern coffee shop chain. Motive power was provided by a stud of 27 horses: one for a single-deck and two for a double-deck car.

Power Station, Constantine Road
In 1900 Ipswich Town Council took over the company for £17,552 with the aim of introducing electric trams and electric lighting to the borough. By 1902 work had started on the site of a tramway depot and power station at Seven Acre Field (now Alderman Road/Constantine Road). Due to very swampy conditions in this area of the borough close to the River Gipping, a bed of concrete 40 feet square and 40 feet deep was necessary to support the stack. This astonishing fact reminds us that, like the massive Wet Dock before it, the very large hole would have had to have been dug out by hand, using pick and shovel.
2013 images
When we look at today's Constantine House - the home of the original power station (later Eastern Electricity and now housing Customer Service Direct offices which have provided Suffolk County Council and Mid-Suffolk District Council with I.T. and other services) and the next-door Ipswich bus depot, it's sobering to remember that they are built on an enormous sugar cube of concrete. The photographs above show some of the decoration on the building which is, perhaps surprisingly, unlettered. The 21st century development of SCC's Endeavour House, Grafton House: the Ipswich Borough Council Offices (both in Russell Road) and Constantine House has led to the erection of an unsightly car park block very visible from West End Road. What appears to be a small, attractive tram shed can still be seen from Sir Alf Ramsey Way – formerly Portmans Walk – adjacent to Alderman Road Recreation Ground and Bibb Way.

The attractive power station fascade (sadly lacking any lettering), now Constantine House, was designed by London architect C. Stanley Peach. The powered trams began work in 1903. £11,000 had been spent on tramways and £43,000 on street widening which changed the face of Ipswich in certain locations (presumably the area opposite The Great White Horse in Tavern Street and at the top of Upper Brook Street were opened up as part of this process. A narrow tramway guage (and, logically, narrow tram car fleet) was chosen because of difficulties in accomodating other traffic (pricipally horse-drawn carts and perhaps a very early motor vehicle) either side of the tracks on the narrow roads of old Ipswich.
[UPDATE 24.9.2017: "Hallo Borin. I lived in Ipswich for 35 years, then retired and moved to Diss. I come to Ipswich every couple of weeks to meet friends for coffee or lunch and, interestingly, I now see Ipswich with a visitor's eyes and I walk around a lot exploring the architecture etc. Recently I started coming on the train (a great pleasure!) and was walking back to the station from Westgate Street. I meandered past Portman Road and past the incredible Constantine House, which I had never seen before. Searching for it on the internet I came across your website and got all I wanted – and much more. It's incredible and wonderful! So, many thanks for a cornucopia of leads to be following up in my visits. Yippee . . . All the best, Trevor Ault.  Many thanks to Trevor for the encouragement.]

  
See our Lloyds Avene page for more on the Electric House showrooms.

This aerial view of the Constantine Road Tram Depot and Power Station, Ipswich, 1933 is from the excellent Britain from above resource (see Links):

This dramatic view shows a circular lagoon on the River Orwell/Gipping (marked 'Bathing place' on a 1930 map of Ipswich) surrounded by an 'S' shaped meander; nearby is the peninsula which is now home to the Voyage tower block.
See our Ipswich in 1912 PDF for a photograph of this bathing place on page 33; see also our Water in Ipswich page for more on bathing places.
The Reavell 'Ranelagh Works' are over the river with its railway line bridge crossing Ranelagh Road to join the main line near the top of the image with Gippeswyk Park, gift to the town from Felix Thornely Cobbold, above that. The Constantine Road power station with its tall chimney stands in the countryside with a meadow where today we find the Ipswich Town practice ground, fields and gardens where SCC's Endeavour House and IBC's Grafton House now stand, little sign of West End Road along the riverside and the Alderman Road public park more-or-less as it is today (inevitably smaller). Portman's Walk, as it used to be called (now Alf Ramsey Way), appears from the bottom of the frame and travels up, then curves sharply round the site of the modern recycling centre ('dump').

The system consisted of about a mile of double track through the town centre (Barrack Corner to Major's Corner) and the remainder was single track with passing loops. It was extended as follows:-

• - from Barrack Corner up Norwich Road, passing under the 'Ferodo bridge' (with its 'Keep your head down' sign) to Whitton. There was an extension from Major's Corner down Upper Orwell Street, Fore Street, Fore Hamlet and up the steepest gradient in the town, Bishop's Hill (where it is understood cars needed assistance to ascend - perhaps horse power?) to the Royal Oak public house on Felixstowe Road (this was only a few hundred yards away from the Derby Road station terminus, so that trams could have continued in a loop around the east of the town in the way of some modern bus routes; however, had it ever been suggested it was probably discounted because the trams and trackbed  would have been too heavy to cross the Derby Road bridge over the railway);
• from the Princes Street/Queen Street junction down St Peter's Street, Bridge Street, crossing the Wet Dock tramway (still partially in existence), over Stoke Bridge (the steel structure, which replaced the old wooden bridge, must have been strong enough to carry it), Vernon Street, under the tramway bridge which crosses Wherstead Road close to Cowell Street - where the road had to be lowered by two feet for clearance of cars and power lines - you can still travel down the dip in the road today - and down to Bourne Bridge;
• from Stoke Bridge round to Burrell Road and the railway station, with an additional short spur from Wherstead Road down Bath Street to Griffin Wharf on the west bank of the Orwell; apparently these two were intended to convey passengers between the railway station and the quay where Great Eastern Railway paddle steamers embarked for trips down the River Orwell to Felixstowe;
• from the passing loop in Princes Street, just south of the junction with Portman Road - the section between the present fire station and the Royal Mail sorting office - a spur extended to the corner of Cecilia Street and Quadling Street, which doubled as it entered a car shed there;  these rails were visible in the yard behind locked gates in Quadling Street long after all other traces of Ipswich tramway had disappeared and were eventually swept away during the rather dubious Cardinal Park development in the 1990s. The street was named after Quadling & Company, a coachbuilding business producing rolling stock for the Eastern Union Railway; incidentally, this business was linked to the dockside tramway by a curved siding, the trackbed of which survived as a footpath until about 1980...

Quadling Street

Above: the modern street nameplate marks the slightly odd route of the street through 'Cardinal Park' today.

This photograph shows the timber-built horse-tram depot in Quadling Street (on the corner of Cecilia Street) from the 1980s. Although closed down in June 1903 and the nine tramcars sold off as chicken sheds  etc. and all 27 horses auctioned to new owners, the depot was used by a building firm until shortly before its demolition. You can see the tramcar rails entering the building. The remainder of the rails had to be lifted and replaced as they were too light for the electric trams.
1902 map
The 'Tramway Depot' is shown in purple – west of the 'Grey Friars Works (Iron)' of E.R.&F. Turner – with tracks running into Quadling Street and west into Princes Street. The tramway tracks within the Turner foundry are divorced from those running up Commercial Road (now Grafton Way) from Bridge Street which run into the 'Coal Yard'. Perhaps they once continued along the curving lane/passageway still evident on the map to serve the foundry.

PUBLIC TRANSPORT IN IPSWICH: a summary timeline
13.10.1880     First (privately owned) horse-drawn tram service started: Cornhill to Railway Station.
1881           This tramway was taken over by the Ipswich Tramways Company; services were extended to Brooks Hall, Norwich Road.
1883           Horse-drawn tram services were extended from Majors Corner via St Johns Road to Derby Road railway station.
c.1898        Horse-drawn tram services were extended to The Whitton Crown, Norwich Road.
1898           Privately owned horse-drawn omnibuses were introduced services to Bramford Road (Red Lion?) and to Wherstead Road.
c.1899        Horse-drawn tram services were extended down St Nicholas Street to Vernon Street.
c.1900        Horse-drawn tram services were extended to Wherstead Road.
1901           The horse trams were taken over by Ipswich Corporation Transport (ICT).
1903          All horse-drawn services were replaced by electric trams. Major works included replacement of existing 3 feet 6 inches tramway rails by heavier duty rails; also cast iron poles to carry the overhead electric current were installed. New services to Lattice Barn and Felixstowe Road were introduced. Services were extended to Bath Street in Over Stoke and to Spring Road (beyond St Johns Road).
1904          Electric tram services were extended to Bishops Hill and The Royal Oak, Felixstowe Road.
1919          Motorbus services were introduced by the Eastern Counties Road Car Company (ECRCC) on town roads not served by the trams: Foxhall Road, Woodbridge Road, London Road, Hadleigh Road, Henley Road, Westerfield Road and Tuddenham Road.
1922          The ECRCC Introduced local services within Ipswich. Some (e.g. Cemetery Road) were short-lived; others (e.g. Constable Road) lasted to the 1970s.
1923-1926    Ipswich Corporation replaced its electric trams by trolleybuses (1926 trolleybuses had chassis manufactured by the Leiston engineering firm of Richard Garrett & Sons, with motors made by Bull Motors, formerly E.R & F. Turner). As the town grew services were extended along London Road, Woodbridge Road, Sidegate Lane, Foxhall Road, Nacton Road and to the Gainsborough estate. From 1926 to 1950 the Corporation ran only trolleybuses on their public transport services.
1924-1940    The Ipswich engineering giant, Ransomes Sims & Jefferies, manufactured trolleybuses and supplied many to Ipswich Corporation.
1931         The ECRCC was incorporated in the newly-formed Eastern Counties Omnibus Company (ECOC).
1948         The ECOC was nationalised.
1950         The Corporation introduced motorbus services, gradually replacing trolleybus services from 1953 to 1963. Motorbuses were used on new services to the new fringe estates: White House, Maidenhall, Castle Hill, Chantry, Broke Hall and Stoke Park.

[The above is based on the information in Bob Markham's 1980 book 100 years of public transport in Ipswich, a pictorial survey (see Reading list).]

Some of the cast iron poles which carried power lines for the trams were still in place in the town until 2017 (see St Helens Street Tramway posts, above), a number being reused to carry street lighting and BT telephone cables. These posts are often seen in old photographs of Ipswich with their horizontal bars carrying insulator-protected power cables, sometimes in complex networks at termini and junctions. What happened to the tramway? The system was difficult to keep running during the shortages of the First and Second World Wars and some tramcars had the ignominy of being painted grey, as the traditional Ipswich Corporation Tramways livery couldn't be maintained. The track and trackbed suffered damage from iron cart wheels and other heavy vehicles and the whole system became uncomfortable (especially as the upper deck was open to the elements), unreliable and unpopular. All rails were lifted in the town except those outside the Police Station near Cornhill which were covered over and remain intact today. Later, power lines were largely kept in place to enable electric trolley buses to replace trams. Ipswich was probably the last municipal authority in the country to convert, in 1950, to the more popular internal combustion motor buses. The last trolley bus entered the depot at Constantine Road in 1963. In the circular way of things, anyone visiting the East Anglia Transport Museum in Carlton Colville near Lowestoft in the north of the county will be struck by the 'nearly silent' operation of the trolley bus used for visitor rides in a world where we are all to used to the roar and chug (and fumes) of the diesel engine universally used in 21st century heavy vehicles. Yet we are delighted and amazed the first time we travel silently in an electric car... Nothing changes.

[Much of the above information came from 'Tramways of East Anglia' by R.C. Anderson; see Reading List.]

See also the Suffolk Mills Group document on Windmills in the Borough of Ipswich (click to open the PDF).