Borin Van Loon: Ipswich Historic Lettering: Cornhill 1

3. 'THIS PLAQUE WAS LAID BY
THE MAYOR OF IPSWICH
COUNCILLOR W.A. QUINTON
ON THE 15th NOVEMBER 1988
TO MARK THE COMPLETION OF
THE TOWN CENTRE PAVING SCHEME'

This plaque, set into the paving in front of the Town Hall steps, also bears the Ipswich coat of arms at the upper right. A larger image is shown on that page. During the repaving of the Cornhill in 2018/19 this plaque seems to have disappeared.

The Cornhill in history
John Speed’s map of Ipswich, 1610, is the earliest known plan of the town with any degree of accuracy. It shows, to the north-west of the geographical town centre, an open rectangular area with the thoroughfare we know today as Westgate Street and Tavern Streets. This east-west highway is known to be of Roman origin. The rectangular area features the Market Cross (originally probably a preaching cross) which was paid for by Wolsey’s uncle, Edmund Daundy (1468-1515). The Cross was a feature of the Cornhill for 300 years. Also depicted: a building where today’s ‘Post Office’ stands which must be the original Shambles and, finally, a church – presumably St Mildred – which is thought to have existed in Anglo-Saxon times. The map’s key labels this number 8: ‘Corne hill’.

At the time of the map’s publication Elizabeth I, the last of the Tudors, had been dead for seven years and James I (of England), the first of the Stuarts, was on the throne.
Ipswich Historical Lettering: Cornhill 1790

Ipswich Historical Lettering: Cornhill 1790

pre-1790
Above: a watercolour of the Cornhill before 1790 showing the Shambles building to the right centre and Tavern Street at the left. The prominent Market Cross is topped by ‘Justice’. The building on the extreme right is the Three Tuns Inn which later became the Corn Exchange Tavern. The tower of St Lawrence Church is in the background.

This area is much older than the map, of course. This is the place where corn brought in from the countryside was laid out for sale; thus the Cornhill is intrinsically tied to a market in Ipswich. Markets (as well as fairs) were historically of great cultural, legal and economic significance throughout the land. To some extent, they continue to be so. Medieval towns often grew up around crossroads and river crossings – particularly if a church was nearby – where people brought their wares to sell on a specific day of the week. Taverns, craft workshops and eventually housing were often found at or near the same spot.

Bob Malster tells us: ‘It is possible that in the early Anglo-Saxon times the Wuffinga kings of East Anglia had a royal residence on the Cornhill alongside St Mildred’s Church, which later became the town hall... St Mildred was the daughter of Merewahl, the 7th century ruler of the area of south Shropshire and Herefordshire. She died about AD 700 and it is likely that the East Anglian king of that time, Adwulf (who was Mildred's grandfather's nephew), dedicated the Ipswich church to her.' After centuries of corn trading on the hill a Corn Exchange was built, initially in 1812 on the site of today’s ‘Post Office’ and replaced in 1882 by the building we know today, for decades a busy place of trade. Over time it has become an entertainment centre: the Grand Hall, cinemas, bar and – until recently – art gallery which sits south of our Town Hall, fronting King Street.

The long-standing, timber-built Shambles once stood on the south-east corner of the Cornhill. Arched and open to the air at street level, it was home to the butchers’ market. The area in front of the Shambles (around the location of the two trees which grow in front of the ‘Post Office’ today*) was the focus of two activities: bull-baiting and martyr-burning. The former was based on the belief that terrorising cattle with dogs prior to slaughter tenderised the resultant meat. The latter occurred around 1515-1558 during a period of religious and political tumult when London vied with Rome in the publication of new heresies, crimes which could be punishable by burning at the stake. [*Update: In 2018, the trees in front of the Post Office were felled as part of the Cornhill regeneration/repaving project. The red block paving will be replaced.]

Two thousand or more people were recorded as attending these grisly executions. They usually occurred from 7 to 10 o’clock in the morning with the heretic tied to a sixpenny stake surrounded by brushwood and faggots. Officials sat in the gallery of the Shambles and a clergyman would deliver an appropriate sermon. The condemned man or woman would then have the chance to speak, sometimes at length enough to annoy the gentlemen onlookers. Sir Robert Curson, occupant of Curson House in St Peters Street, was once so overwrought by a burning that he came down from the gallery, cut a branch with his sword from a nearby tree and added it to the flames.

The Cornhill of 1800 must at times have been impossibly congested. Corn trading still took place around the Market Cross, as well as all sorts of livestock (horses, cattle, pigs and sheep) being bought and sold, not to mention local traffic and the hourly stage coach. The timber-framed Shambles of yore had been replaced by the short-lived, odiferous Rotunda, but this and the Market Cross (repaired and changed over time), were swept away in 1812 to be replaced by a Regency Corn Exchange. By about 1880 this in turn gave way to the grand Post Office building. The sculpted figure of Justice from the top of the Market Cross, exchanged her sword and scales for a sickle and sheaf of wheat/horn of plenty to sit atop the interim Corn Exchange. She currently lives, a little weather-beaten, at the foot of the main staircase in the Town Hall.

When major alterations to the Cornhill were discussed in October 2013, the late Dr John Blatchly was a strong advocate for retaining the gentle slope and reinstating the Market Cross. Its removal in 1812 seems to have been unpopular and the noted historian G.R. Clarke (1830) tells us that it was only pulled down ‘with considerable difficulty, as the timber, and every part of it, were in excellent preservation… As a relic of antiquity, we cannot but regret its loss.’ The town lost the focal point of the space, octangonal in plan with an area suitable for seating covered by an attractive ogee-shaped, lead-covered roof, topped by the aforementioned figure of Justice. It was 27 feet in diameter and about fifty feet from the ground to the top of the figure. Apparently parts of the Market Cross are stored at the Ipswich Museum.

The grand Venetian-style Town Hall we see today arrived in 1868; it was designed by Lincoln architect Pearson Bellamy, replacing a Palladian Town Hall which was built on the site of (and including parts of) the Church of St Mildred around 1812. This saw the final removal of any remnants of the church which had stood on the Cornhill for a thousand years. Meanwhile, for a hundred years the new Town Hall was the seat of local government in the town, until the Borough moved its offices to the Civic Centre in the 1960s. Sitting on a raised platform and accessed by impressive stone steps (as does the ‘Post Office’ building), in 2016 the Town Hall is crying out for a new role in our town. Having apparently wandered away from the original idea of a fine suite of galleries for exhibitions and workshops, the ‘Town Galleries’ seem now to be mainly a caf� and gift shop. Only the Suffolk Craft Society room maintained the original intention, until 2017 when it closed. The large Council Chamber upstairs still serves its original function and provides a good venue for music, poetry and other events.
Ipswich Historical Lettering: Cornhill 1840

Ipswich Historical Lettering: Cornhill 1840

1840 (postcards courtesy Nick Wiggin)
The illustration of a rather empty Cornhill in 1840 shows a very different street scene. The early incarnation of the Corn Exchange, with the statue of Ceres above it, is at the immediate left. Then comes the entrance to today's Princes Street. The Palladian frontage of the Guildhall (with the triangular top, shouldn't according to our Cornhill timeline (above) be there, as it wasn't built until after 1841 – perhaps the artist was a little lax in his research (or dating). On the far side of the Cornhill is the Golden Lion Hotel, Mannings and the buildings which pre-dated Grimwade's clothier's store. On the corner with a very narrow Westgate Street is the 'American Stores', formerly the Bell Inn (earlier the Blue Bell Inn). The rather naive perspective makes the Cornhill look much wider than it really is.
Ipswich Historical Lettering: Cornhill post-1903

Ipswich Historical Lettering: Cornhill post-1903

post-1903
Above: two-hand-tinted photographs of Cornhill from the collection of Nick Wiggin. Electric trams replaced horse-drawn trams in Ipswich in 1903, so these views are after that date. Horse-drawn cabs and carts are still very much in evidence. The photograph on the right may have been taken from the roof of Grimwade's the draper to give the higher view of an equally bustling scene. The pinnacle on the left down Tavern Street is the Picture House theatre and cinema (opened 1910), shown on our Woottons page. The Victorianised tower of the Church of St Lawrence rises up right of centre.

See our Museum Street page for 1778 and 1902 comparative maps of this area.
Our King Street page shows several map details over time of the Cornhill area.

See our Cornhill 2 page for more on this area.

Other related pages:
Westgate Street
Tavern Street
King Street/Lion Street/Arcade Street
Princes Street
Giles sculpture