Entries Tagged 'local history' ↓

I’m tired of the election coverage, here’s a BBC story about the Stoke Hall Vaults. There’ll be more about the election, but old cellars are more interesting.

My post on the Ipswich underground railway seems to be one of the biggest attractions for Google searchers.

In the hope that I can actually provide some genuine history to my readers, including those through Google, there were some rails through Bridge once, in the tram system, including Wherstead Road and Vernon Street.  (This is a Google cache, so please let me know if it stops being fresh).

St Mary Stoke was defined by the fact that until the Reformation it was owned by Ely Abbey, unlike the riff-raff over the river.  I’m rereading Robert Malster’s “A History of Ipswich” and it says on page 10 that it was likely that the whole of Ipswich was owned by Ely Abbey.  Then the Vikings came along and disrupted everything.

When the dust settled and the kings of East Anglia were finally persuaded to give the abbey its’ lands back, however he only gave the best bits back to the monks and the King kept the scraps on the other side of the river – which would later become the borough of Ipswich.

So rather than Stoke being a part of Ipswich, we should really say that the borough of Ipswich is an outgrowth of the more ancient and venerable parish of St Mary Stoke.

I’ve said before that the patron saint of Old Stoke should be Saint Ethelreda.  Well here’s something that was written about the St. Ethelreda’s church in Wherstead Road.

Right at the beginning of April 2007, intrepid local historian Simon Knott (of the Suffolk Churches website) decided to build a site devoted to the Ipswich Railway Station.

There are pictures of Halifax Quay, which is near the Bourne Bridge on Wherstead Road:

I do think Simon made one mistake, which was to ascribe the following to St Matthew’s underground station rather than the EUR public house in Croft Street, which closed a couple of years ago:

If you are wondering why it no longer exists, indeed why so few people talk about it the answer is in this link:

Simon Knott we salute you!

This website covers the whole of Ipswich but is based on Old Stoke:

http://www.ipswich2006.com/

It has done an immense job of putting old photographs from the Stoke Park area.  It is definately worth browsing, but be warned, it is addictive.

Bridge Ward doesn’t have a patron saint, but if we did it would be Saint Ethelreda or as Æthelthryth, whose feast day is today.  A royal princess, protege of the superstar Saxon bishop Saint Wilfrid and founder of the abbey at Ely (which became Ely Cathedral), her link to our side of Ipswich stems from the fact that from Saxon time Old Stoke belonged to and was built up by the Abbey at Ely.  St. Mary Stoke, or at least the bit that wasn’t built in the Nineteenth Century, was built by the same abbey.

The church that stood in Wherstead Road was dedicated to Saint Ethelreda, and Saint Mary at Stoke still displays a banner for her.

So happy Saint’s day one and all.

There is a fantastic piece about the history of the Old Stoke area on, of all things, the BBC website.  It features the Over Stoke history group which has been run by Jill Freeman, who has also co-ordinated a fantastic display in St Peter’s church of the history of the area.  If you haven’t seen it, I would really recommend it.