Bob Blastock who, as well as being active in a bewildering variety of other local groups, is one of the leading lights in the Over Stoke History group, has told me that the rectory that Rectory Road was named after is actually where the Bridge Ward Social club is now, and that Rectory road was actually built on the grounds of the old rectory.  He also pointed out, and this is far better known, that the station that Station Street was named after was actually on Croft Street where the EUR (Eastern Union Railway) pub kept the memory of the station until entertainment licences, smoking bans and the other nannying dictates of our modern state shut it down like so many other pubs.

Does anyone know of any other road names in the ward with an odd history?

One of the subject that comes up on the doorstep, and in general conversation is that the pubs are closing.  The EUR, the Live and Let Live and the Silver Star are three that I can think of on the top of my head.

We all know that this is happening across the country, but did you know that across the country six pubs a day are closing?  This fact comes from a Conservative Party campaign to Save the Great British Pub.  They believe that this is because low alcohol drinks such as beer are taxed too much while high alcohol content drinks are taxed too little and not enough targetting of the anti-social drinkers who swarm around Ipswich town center on a weekend.

Perhaps, but the smoking ban didn’t help, either.  As a non-smoker it’s nice to be able to not have to choose your pub carefully (or put up with tobacco smells) but it’s hard to deny that this killed off otherwise viable pubs and social clubs.  Conservative Central Office seem to have missed that one.

Any way, they may be a bit too politically correct to go to the root of the problem, but it’s a step in the right direction.  You can sign the petition here.

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!