I had an absolutely fantastic heritage day yesterday.  Some of these will be open today.

First to Christchurch in Tackett Street, which is an incredible version of early Victorian Gothic mixed with iron pillars that could fit in a railway station.  Because it is next to Saint Pancras I pass this church every Sunday, but I’ve been inside about three times.  The congregation (or congregations as they have at least two, both baptist and congretationalist) ran an interesting tour of the church.

Then it was St. Peter’s, which had some people from the Ipswich Hospital band manning the exhibits, and playing live music.  They’ve got the fantastic local history display, which I’ve been told is only partly as a result of the efforts of the Over Stoke history group – not as I’d previously reported all of the exhibition.

Then there was St Mary Stoke, near home.  The Over Stoke history group had a brilliant display, as well as an exhibition from one of the church members about the architect, William Butterfield.

Then to the Custom House, where the Ipswich Maritime Trust had a really interesting exhibition about sailing ships (they have a window exhibition opening today as well) and rope making.

One thing that I thought of was that these were all manned by volunteer groups.  The government seems to have a desire to belittle these groups (for example the desire to charge all adult volunteers £64 if they may ever work with children).  The little battallions are not just more efficient but they actually do what is wanted and not what is dictated by the latest bureaucratic fad.

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.