No. 121 May 2013

PROGRAMME

Saturday 8th

June 2013.

East of England Regional Industrial Archaeology Conference.

Held this year at Maldon, Essex, with visits to the Museum of Power & Beeleigh Mill.

Further information and a booking form are included in this Newsletter.

Wednesday 12th

June 2013 at 7.30pm.

Visit to Ipswich Transport Museum, Cobham Road, Ipswich. Located off Felixstowe

Road, Ipswich, a couple of miles out of the town. Follow the brown tourist signs.

Parking and entrance via the yard at the rear of the museum. Cost £5.00 per head.

Guided by Bob Mellor, a chance to see the recent changes at the museum, and to

inspect the recently-completed Ipswich Corporation electric tram, the almost complete

Ipswich trolleybus number 105, and the Cambridge horse tram, presently undergoing

restoration.

Wednesday 17th

July 2013 at 7.15pm. (Note the earlier start time).

A guided walk around the Ipswich suburb of California. Meet at the Co-op store on

Cauldwell Hall Road, Ipswich, close to the cross roads with Spring Road. Our guide

will be Margaret Hancock, archivist of the Ipswich Building Society. The suburb of

California was developed from 1849, the year of the Gold Rush in that western state

of the USA; a similar rush to acquire plots in east Ipswich at the same time gave the

area its name. The Freehold Land Society, a fore-runner of the Ipswich Building

Society, bought the land, split it into plots, and then auctioned them off to savers with

the Society. This allowed working men to buy their own homes and also gain their

political voice.

Wednesday 11th

September 2013 at 7.30pm.

David Eddershaw Pakenham Water Mill.

David is the curator of the mill, operated by the Suffolk Preservation Society. This

meeting has been rescheduled from last January.

Wednesday 9th

October 2013 at 7.30pm.

To be arranged.

Wednesday 13th

November 2013 at 7.30pm.

Annual general Meeting.

To be followed by:

Robert Malster Maritime Norfolk.

Bob’s latest book on this subject has been well received, and should have been joined

by part 2 of the work by the time of our meeting.

Wednesday 11th

December 2012 at 7.30pm.

To be arranged.

Venue: All indoor meetings are held at the Ipswich Transport Museum, Cobham

Road, Ipswich. Parking and access is via the rear of the museum.

RECENT PLANNING APPLICATIONS

Babergh District Council

B/12/01502/FUL/AK Change of use of Freston Water Tower, Holbrook Road,

Freston, to holiday accommodation and insertion of four

windows.

Ipswich Borough Council IP/13/00156/FUL Continued use of land as temporary car park at Shed No. 8,

Orwell Quay, Duke Street.

IP/13/00292/FUL Change of use from car park to car workshop at The Factory,

Star Lane.

Mid Suffolk District Council 0022/13/LBC Installation of 10 no. photo-voltaic solar panels to rear roof,

The Old Forge, Church Road, Wilby.

0397/13/FUL Proposed change of use of redundant pipeworks to dwelling,

including demolition of redundant prefabricated buildings.

The Pipeworks, Eye Road, Hoxne.

0581/13/FUL Use of brewhouse as residential annex at Tudor Grange,

0583/13/LBC Main Road, Nettlestead.

Suffolk Coastal District Council

C/13/0323 Change of use from studio to storage to granary annex (sic)

C/13/0324 at the Old Granary, Peasenhall Road, Walpole.

C/13/0600 Removal of fixtures and boarding up of outhouses at

Lighthouse, Orfordness.

THE NEWSLETTER

The Newsletter is produced four times a year by Suffolk Industrial Archaeology

Society. Contributions from members are welcomed. Acknowledgements this time

must be given to Suffolk Local History Council’s Newsletter for the Stowmarket

Explosion Memorial details.

Chairman: S.Worsley, 24 Abbotsbury Close, Ipswich, IP2 9SD (01473 405116).

Secretary: Position currently vacant.

Treasurer: Position currently vacant.

Newsletter distributor: John Jones. Those wishing to receive the Newsletter

electronically are urged to contact John at joneshines@btinternet.com. To cut costs,

all who are able to receive their Newsletters in this way are encouraged to make

arrangements to do so.

Website: We do not presently have our own website, but we do have a presence on

the River Gipping Trust’s site (www.rivergippingtrust.org.uk).

ABSTRACTS

Journals of other Societies frequently arrive on your Chairman’s doormat; in order to

give members some idea of what these contain, we reproduce the contents below. If

anything sounds to be of interest, please contact the Chairman and he will arrange for

photocopies of the relevant article to be made.

.

The Local Historian, Vol. 43 No. 1 February 2013.

‘The Devouring Element’: The Fire Hazard in Newcastle upon Tyne 1720 – 1870 by

Michael Barke.

Women’s Experiences of Combining Childcare and Careers in Postwar Oxfordshire,

c.1940 – 1990, by Angela Davis.

Piety and Charity 1480 – 1580: The Evidence of Probate Records from Four Surrey

Parishes, by Alan G. Crosby.

A Compassionate Community? Poor Relief in Westbury-on-Trym 1656 – 1698, by

Michael Heery.

Record Office Online Catalogues: an Appraisal, by Dorian Gerhold.

Industrial Archaeology News, 164, Spring 2013. Giving Your Photos a Future, by Ken Howarth. (The Heritage Photo Archive).

East Peak Regional Route of Industrial Heritage.

Comfort and Convenience in the Country House, by Marilyn Palmer and Ian West.

(the Country House Technology project of the University of Leicester).

E-Faith London Conference October 2012, by Robert Carr. (European Federation of

Associations of Industrial and Technical Heritage).

South & North – A Tale of Two Bus Stations, by Robert Carr. (Slough & Preston).

Regent’s Canal 200, by Robert Carr.

Suffolk Review, New Series 60, Spring 2013.

Catherine Tollemache, in Marriage and in Memoriam, by Moira Coleman.

Jacob John Whittington: the Man Who Almost Stopped the Erection of Downing

College, by Bouwe Postmus (University of Amsterdam).

The History of Chantry Park, by Gill Ashpole.

Tuddenham: An Experiment in Farming Charity Land (1819 – 21), by Michael Stone.

IPSWICH MEMORIAL?

Suffolk Aviation Heritage Group, who members will recall from last year’s meeting

on the subject of Edith Cook, presented by Martin Atkinson, is seeking to provide a

memorial to her. Edith was the first woman in the country to fly solo in an aeroplane,

as long ago as 1910, but remains largely unknown. The Group have been raising her

profile through the medium of exhibitions, talks, etc., and have been collecting

donations in order to fund a statue. This will be created by ‘Coach’, Sean Hughes, the

sculptor who will be well-known from his Bobby Robson and Alf Ramsey statues in

Ipswich and Captain Mainwaring (Arthur Lowe) statue in Thetford. A planning

application has now been submitted to Ipswich Borough Council; hopefully this will

be successful and be followed by the commissioning of the memorial statue. The

proposed location for the memorial is the amenity land at the Long Street/Fore Street

junction; Cook was born nearby on Fore Street.

THE STOWMARKET EXPLOSION MEMORIAL

Stowmarket Local History Group have been campaigning for several years for a

memorial to those who died in the Guncotton factory explosion of 1871, and have

now raised the £1,200 which was quoted for an engraved stone. It is hoped that this

will be in position by the end of the year, to coincide with the publication of a book

which Mike Durrant is presently researching.

Guncotton, an explosive, was invented in 1846 and first manufactured in this country

at Waltham Abbey and Stowmarket in 1863. The Stowmarket works was established

by the Prentice family, who also had an artifical fertilizer manufacturing plant in the

town. An explosion in 1864 had killed two, but this was of a minor nature compared

to those (there were two, the second resulting from the first) on 11th

August 1871.

These not only completely destroyed the works but also resulted in the deaths of 27,

including two of the owning Prentice family, who had rushed to the works on hearing

the first explosion.

Few of the dead were provided with any gravestone at the time, and so the

Stowmarket Local History Group felt it was time to give them a permanent memorial.

THE STORY OF PAKENHAM WATER MILL

This is the title of a newly-published book by David Eddershaw, published by the

Suffolk Building Preservation Trust. No doubt David will have copies available for

sale on the occasion of his talk to our Society on September 11th

. The research David

carried out for his book on the history of the mill will also inform his talk to us, whilst

the practical skills he has developed in his position of curator of the mill will also no

doubt illuminate the presentation. Buy the book now to have some idea of his talk, or

wait until you have heard him speak, but whichever, this is a very attractive and

informative production.

WHAT’S BREWING?

The new microbrewery at Isaacs on the Quay in Ipswich’s docklands, is due to begin

production shortly. Under the name of the Briarbank Brewing Company, the former

Lloyd’s bank on Fore Street is to house the brewery, with a bar on the first floor.

Restored machinery in Isaacs machinery room, visited by the SIAS a few years ago, is

to be used in the brewing process. The products are to be sold in two outlets in the

town, in addition to Isaacs. Not too far away, The Dove Street Inn started brewing

just across the road from the pub a couple of years ago, in May 2011, and is now well

established. Their products are generally available only in the Dove Street Inn. Also

in the Waterfront area, planning permission has now been granted for the re-

development of the former Tolly Cobbold Cliff Brewery, which was the town’s last

surviving traditional large production brewery until its closure. The building has been

deteriorating since then, so its re-use will at least allow the building to continue as a

landscape feature, if no longer in industrial use.

WINGS ON WAVES

2013 sees the centenary of the opening of the Felixstowe seaplane station. In 1913,

the Admiralty, having surveyed the area of the Haven Ports, issued instructions to set

up a seaplane base in Harwich Harbour. The Essex shore was occupied by Harwich,

Dovercourt and Parkeston, whilst Shotley, in the angle of the Stour and Orwell, was

the location of the Naval training base, HMS Gangees. This left the relatively-little

developed area to the north of the Orwell, where the small Felixstowe dock offered a

considerable area for expansion. The base was commissioned on 5th

August 1913.

During the First World War, marine aircraft from Felixstowe patrolled the North Sea

seeking U-Boats and Zeppelins, and by 1919 it formed the largest such station in the

world. In 1924, it became the base for the Marine Aircraft Experimental

Establishment, and between then and 1939 more than 250 types military and civilian

seaplanes were tested here. Between 1927 and 1931 Felixstowe was the base of the

High Speed Flight, the pilots seconded here flying in the Schneider Trophy contests

and winning the Trophy for the United Kingdom, flying at the fastest speeds then

attained. However, with changes in aircraft design resulting in less use being made of

seaplanes, the MAEE was disbanded in 1956, and RAF Felixstowe closed in 1962.

To celebrate the centenary, the ‘Wings on Waves’ event is to be held in the resort on

Sunday August 4th

. An air display is to be held at 3.00pm opposite the Town Hall, the

Promenade, Undercliffe Road West and Wolsey Gardens being designated viewing

areas. The Science Museum has been approached in the hope that the loan of the

Schneider Trophy can be arranged. The Felixstowe Museum are holding a Naval

Aviation Exhibition over the summer as part of the celebrations.

HERITAGE NEWS

Demolition of what are believed to be Suffolk’s last prefab dwellings, in Inverness

Road and Humber Doucy lane in Ipswich, has been suggested by an opposition

councillor. The ruling Labour Party have denied that plans for their removal have

been considered.

Woodbridge Tide Mill volunteers are learning the craft of milling after refurbishment

of the water wheel allowed the mill to function after many years inactivity, Once

Suffolk Coastal District Council give their approval that the flour is fit for human

consumption, sales of the flour to visitors will be permitted.

Public consultation over the future of the Whisstock’s Boatyard and Nunn’s Mill sites

in Woodbridge has been carried out. It is proposed to develop the sites with a

working boat shed, a building for Woodbridge Museum, community space, restaurant,

café, shops and fourteen holiday homes. The proposals met with the disapproval of

locally-based architectural critic Jay Merrick, who described the scheme as ‘standard

issue’.

The Friends of Trimley Station, who aim to restore the unused station building for

community use, have been granted charitable status. This is vital if grant aid for the

£250,000 project is to be attracted.

RECORD OFFICE AND MUSEUM PLANS

Yet again, proposals to celebrate Ipswich’s Saxon origins with a permanent museum

are being aired locally. A Millennium scheme which failed to gain funding was the

‘Gipeswic Centre’, an equivalent of York’s ‘Jorvik Centre’, which it was hoped

would bring tourists in their thousands to the town. The County Council’s cabinet

member with responsibility for planning, Guy McGregor, has suggested that the

museum idea be revisited as part of a Heritage Hub in the Waterfront/University area,

coupled with the new record office. The County is keen to reduce the three county

record offices down to just one, and Ipswich or Bury would seem to be the favoured

locations of the new facility.

However, a rival scheme would see the archives located in a new building at the Tolly

Cobbold Brewery, outline planning permission for which was granted in March. The

developers of the brewery envisage a mix of uses – hotel, supermarket, and new

homes – together with new uses for the restored brewery. The planning authority

require community elements to be provided by the developers, and the record office

and Heritage Hub could well be seen as meeting this requirement.

Across town, the established museum on High Street is to submit a £10million bid to

the Heritage Lottery Fund, and is also bandying the term ‘Heritage Hub’ about, this to

be based on the museum, the Ipswich Art School building, the High Street Gallery

and the Wolsey Studio Theatre. The proposed lottery bid will take several years to

complete. In the short term, Colchester and Ipswich Borough Councils have made

one-off payments of £67,000 each to the museum service to counter the lack of

external grant funding and a difficult preceding financial year. 2012 saw the

promised ‘Olympic Effect’ fail to materialise, as visitors to the UK surprisingly

stayed in London to watch sports.

Against a background of debate over where the Heritage Hub should be, and what

form it should take, the Ipswich Society joined the discussion by calling for the

profile of the town’s industrial heritage to be raised, not just its Anglo-Saxon origins.

SIAS members will be well aware of the town’s importance in the fields of

agricultural engineering and clothing, and may well feel, as evidently do the Ipswich

Society, that it is this which should be celebrated and its artefacts preserved in a

Heritage Hub.

ANOTHER LOCAL FIRM CLOSES

After 145 years of trading, Bayley’s Printing Company of Ipswich was wound up

earlier in the year. Founded by Maurice Parker in 1868, the company was based in

Falcon Street, having passed through a number of ownerships over the years. Major

General Sir John Drummond Inglis bought the company in 1949, at which time David

Routh, who had joined the firm as a 16 year old four years earlier, was learning the

printing trade. When the company, which had employed 30 people in the 50s and

60s, went into administration in 1985, David Routh took control of the firm. The

growth of the personal computer and desktop publishing reduced orders from the 80s,

and economies put into place included the closure of the Falcon Street offices in 1990,

David continuing the business from home. Now, at 84 years of age and after 68 years

with the company, David has finally retired.