Felixstowe

High Road West

taken on a dark, wet November afternoon. This bears a striking resemblance to a Maypole doorstep in Ludlow, Shropshire. A description about that lettering: "Remember them well in the 60s: supermarkets under the Lipton banner. They had meat counters for the first time & some of my friends at Dewhurst left & worked for them & were fast tracked to Area managers, They didn't have centralised buying in those days & were buying from the same suppliers as ourselves & with the cost of packaging & no small goods made in-house, They could only compete on convenience & cleanliness, But as they upped their game, supermarkets won the day."
   2012 images
This 1910 postcard shows the Maypole Dairy branch in Tavern Street, Ipswich; they also had a branch in St Matthew's Street.


29 Hamilton Road (corner with Orwell Road)

   2018 images
Above the first floor windows of this corner building are two lions which stand holding shields bearing the date:

(corner with Orwell Road)
2023 images
Trinity Methodist Church dates back to 1885, as stated on their website. A memorial stone on one of the butresses reads:

'THIS
MEMORIAL STONE
WAS LAID ON
SEPTEMBER 19TH 1895
REV. R. HARRIS LLOYD
MINISTER
WM. EADE FRIBA        ...   THOMAS WARD
AND E. THOS JOHNS         FELIXSTOWE
ARCHITECTS                  BUILDER'

The most notable lettering is to the east, down Orwell Road:

'MEMORIAL VESTRY
ERECTED 1933'

The use of gothic windows with leaded lights and matching stonework have resulted in this extension blending in well with the rest of the church. It was clearly an object of pride for the church to warrant such a large sign. The whole building occupies a footprint running down to down to Victoria Street.

13-15 Hamilton Road
   2014 images
Above: the prominently-named:

was the nephew of John Sell Cotman, the famous Norwich water-colour artist. Several notable buildings by Cotman can be found in Ipswich including 40-42 Museum Street, The Crown & Anchor Hotel, Parr's Bank and Lloyds banking house on the Cornhill.
2018 view of the whole building
The 'crow-steps' of the gables are a striking feature.

Orwell Road
[UPDATE 28.8.2019: 'Looking down today, rather than up, I noticed this pavement outside the Polish Shop in Orwell Road Felixstowe. If it’s of any interest to you I will return to site with kitchen steps and a wider angle lens to get a better shot for your website. Still remember fondly your talk to our

[Felixstowe Photographic Society] in January, so keep looking up, and down! Chris Carne. Many thanks to Chris for sending this example of old lettering in tile, set into concrete reading: ‘STA . LIGHT’, rather puzzlingly.]

The composite image above gives an impression of the lettering.
2019 images
[UPDATE: 29.9.21: At Borin's talk to The Felixstowe Society, an attendee told him that this was the STARLIGHT Video shop, so the 'full stop' is in fact the remnant of an 'R'. Also, it's in Orwell Road, not Cobbold Road, as first suggested.]

2022 images

This blissful piece of terra cotta and brickwork sits to the right of the front door on the ground floor wall of a large Arts & Crafts-style house – sometimes obscured by foliage. It is on the corner of Orwell Road and Tomline Road (named after the man who established the Westerfield to Felixstowe Dock branch line). The complex monogram '1900' sits inside a circle. This florid roundel is surrounded by eight voussoirs (decorative keystones). This is surely 'going the extra mile' by the architect: as 1901 was the date of the death of Queen Victoria, it is quite possible that this roundel was created to commemorate that international event.
Thanks to Carole Josey for identifying the location.

106 Queens Road ('Reade House')
  

This road runs at right-angles to the cliffs past the car park to this point. One of only a handful of 'real' public houses in Felixstowe, historically the building is over 100 years old and until the 1960s was an hotel.  The lettering panel high on the side wall clearly shows the word 'STORES' on the bottom line, so it can be assumed that at least the tallest part of The Grosvenor was once a shop. Does anyone know what the rest of the sign read?
  
[UPDATE 14.1.2019: 'Dear Borin, I have just discovered your website by chance, and can give you some info concerning 'The Grosvenor', in Ranelagh Rd, Felixstowe.
This pub was owned by my Grandfather, H. T. Ablett. My mother was born there, and we spent our summer holidays there for many years. I was born in 1948 and can remember being there when very young, so though I understand it had been a hotel in the past it was no longer so in the early fifties.
The ground floor of the tallest part of the pub, on the left, was the off licence, so I would imagine the 'STORE' sign on the wall referred to this. The rest of the building, the two lower sections, was devoted to the Private Bar, the Public Bar and the Billiard Room. The two upper floors were purely family rooms. I hope this info is of some use to you. Regards, Jon Crowley.' Many thanks to Jon for this invaluable link to the past and this building's ghost sign.]

97 Undercliff Road West (below) for a 'Wine Stores' run by H.T. Ablett, presumably the same gentleman, Jon's grandfather. Interesting synchrony of the word 'Stores'.
2018 image
[UPDATE 13.8.2019: 'Hello Borin, I attach a couple of photos which may be of interest to you. My great grandfather was Harry George Jacques Porter. According to his obituary he came to Felixstowe in 1911 and entered into a partnership with Mr W.M. Cuckow (the son of the Edwin on the sign?). The relationship was severed when Mr Cuckow resigned and he formed a partnership with his former manager Mr H.T. Ablett. I am not sure how long he ran the hotel for but he was the president of the Woodbridge and District Licenced Victuallers Association for 10 years. My great aunts were raised at the hotel. I live in Australia and am flying to the UK tonight for a visit, I plan to drop in to the hotel sometime on my travels! Regards, Trevor Darge.' Many thanks to Trevor for sending the information and the remarkable photographs. The close-up below shows the 'Edwin Cuckow & Son' sign sitting rather uncomfortably across the chimey breasts.]

Photos courtesy Trevor Darge
Trevor's excellent photograph shows the hotel  – with its three distinct but linked buildings – around 1900, perhaps. The gas street lamp obviously helped peolple find their way to and from the hotel in the dark, particulalry when it was paired with the impressive gas lamp which projects out from below the centre ball finial; today this is replaced by a hanging pub sign. The very decorative wrought ironwork above the projecting ground floor sections were removed at some time.
From the left: the Wine Stores advertise 'Edwin Cuckow & Son' above the shopfront and above, a projecting sign between first and second floors reading 'HOTEL GROSVENOR HOTEL'; the blind window on the third storey reads 'THE GROSVENOR STORES'. The cartouche on side of the three storey building states: 'The GROSVENOR' in decorative characters on a curve, but seems to be crying out for the word 'Hotel' beneath it. We thought that we could make out faint lettering on the huge signboard at roof level above the hotel canopy.

  

Below: pre-1923, the cartouche on the three storey building now reads 'WINE STORES' and the large signboard at right 'The GROSVENOR' in huge characters. The gas street lamp has gone; the projecting lamp has been simplified (perhaps electrified).


Further down Ranelagh Road is:

Incidentally, the name Ranelagh is also, of course, applied to the road in Ipswich which links London Road with Burrell Road (outside the station see our named and dated buildings page). The name comes from the Earls of Ranelagh in Ireland. The locality on the south side of Dublin became known as Ranelagh when a popular entertainment venue (now a public park) was established about 1770, and named Ranelagh Gardens after a similar venture of the same name in Chelsea, London. The model and the name were also copied in other cities, including Liverpool, New York and Paris. The original Ranelagh Gardens in Chelsea was built on the site of Ranelagh House, the London home of the Jones family, who took their title (Earls of Ranelagh) from lands in County Wicklow that had belonged to Fiach McHugh O'Byrne sometimes described as Lord Ranelagh, because he was head of the Gabhal Ragnaill branch of the O'Byrne clan.

Salvation Army, Cobbold Road

Wyclif Hall, now used as a Salvation Army centre.
  

Wyclif Hall was built in 1898 on the corner of Cobbold Road and Ranelagh Road. By 1897 the church was known as Christ Church Congregational Church and the hall was named after its first Minister. An extension was added in 1922 and extra halls built in 1937. It was designed by Ipswich architect E.T. Johns of Eade & Johns; it is not listed.

  
Above right (top) the porch bears the original name 'THE FELIX HOTEL'

'HARVEST HOUSE'

2022 images

B.P.' At first we assumed that this might be the Tollemache family Latin motto, but not so. 'Ut omnes veniant' means 'That all may come'. However, we still haven't tracked down the attribution: 'B.P.' (could it stand for Bible Presbyterian?).
This palatial pile was designed to be built 1903 by Thomas W. Cotman as the Felix Hotel; a pastiche, according to the listing text, of Holland House (London) and Hatfield House (Herts). Others have suggested inspirations drawn from Helmingham Hall, country seat of the Tollemaches – just as happened with John Shewell Corder's 'Tolly Folly' pubs in Ipswich. It is Listed Grade II.

Albert Clarke, 'Art Smith', based in Ipswich

6 Beach Road East

  

  

c.1910 image
This early photograph (we estimate 1910, two years after the Model 'T' Ford was introduced) shows more clearly the twin buildings on Beach Road East. The lettering on both buildings is very clear and probably recently applied. The road sign, a metal ring, has '10 MILES' beneath it – surely an early speed limit. William G. Clarke was in business as a jobmaster in the eastern part of this road in the 1890s and continued be listed in directories as a jobmaster until the last Suffolk Kelly’s came out in 1937. As can be seen in this pre-1914 photograph, he had espoused the cause of the horseless carriage from an early date. The further building still advertised Clarke’s Livery Stables and another advertisement – behind the first vehicle – offered ‘PONY TRAPS FOR HIRE’. The line of Unic cars with drivers in attendance has clearly been assembled for a promotional image for 'Clarke's Motor Garage'.
[Photograph and information from Felixstowe: a pictorial history by Robert Malster, 1992.]

The Fludyers Arms
The Fludyers (usually prounced "Fludgers") Arms lettering further up Felixstowe undercliff.
2009 images
Notably, the painted characters recessed/painted above the ground floor window state the singular:
'FLUDYER ARMS'

Here is an extract from their website (closed 2012):
"The Fludyer name comes from Sir Samuel Fludyer – grandson of the presumably more  famous Sir Samuel Fludyer (1705-1768) - who was Lord Mayor of London in 1760. The grandson died in 1833 and is buried with his wife locally. The original Fludyer (or Fludyers?) Arms is a wooden building dating from at least 1884. The current brick building was built in 1903 and both brick and timber buildings obviously co-existed alongside each other for a time. A stable block, which is now part of the hotel as a garage / storage area was built behind the wooden structure." This has a similar glazed extension to the pub and is now signed: 'Cotman Hall...  Mrs Simpson's... Tea Rooms'.

A paperback book published in 1969, called "Inns of the Suffolk Coast" by Leonard P. Thompson contains the following extract:
The Fludyer Hotel, Felixstowe. There was a small, wooden building on the beach known as Smith's after the name of the proprietor, William Smith. It was the original Fludyer's Arms and also Felixstowe's Post Office. Gradually the sea encroached and for several years it stood within a few feet of high tide. The Hotel of today was built in 1903. [Source: Suffolk CAMRA; see Links.]
   2018 images

By 2018 the seafront superstructure has gone, the windows replaced and repaired and we can get a look at the terra cotta panels set high in the Dutch gable-ends. It may be the salt air, but they are very discoloured – the enhanced view below reveals:

'BUILT ...   AD   ...   19...04'

We see similar motifs of overlaid characters of 'Built' and 'AD' on buildings in Ipswich on the Co-op stores in Cauldwell Hall Road (1896) and Surbiton Road (1904), Castle Hill Community Centre (1893) and Morpeth House (1893): also a terra cotta house fascade on Aldeburgh's seafront (1898), Sudbury's Masonic Hall (1886).

2018 images
'FELIX COURT' from Cavendish Road
rear of the Felsto Arms, 11 Sea Road

  
‘MARLBOROUGH.’ from Russell Road (left) and

  

A real 'ghost sign', partially obliterated by the later lean-to extension. When taking this photograph in the February rain, an elderly gentleman drew up in his car and told us what the actual wording had been and we forgot the last, barely visible word. However, a light-bulb moment and it must, we think, be 'RESIDENCE'. The word 'TINTERN' (the village of Tintern – and famous abbey of the same name – is in Monmouthshire, on the Welsh bank of the River Wye) is shown in much-weathered, large capitals with full-stop; the following words are in condensed caps. The sign can be found on Russell Road, Felixstowe (to the rear of 'Tintern', now named Russell House, 14 Sea Road).
2022 image   1893 image courtesy Carole Josey
Above: the former 'Tintern' today compared with a photograph from 1893 in the early period of development of the sea front – there have been several changes to the building but the two triangular gables on the Russell Road elevation are clearly seen. The extension with its steeply sloping roof has yet to be built.

Further away from the town centre, we eventually come to Old Felixstowe,  its shoreline, marina and ferry over the Deben to Bawdsey (with its curious manor and curiouser history). The Ferry Boat Inn was one of two pubs in Old Felixstowe (the nearby Victoria, built 1844, closed in 2010).
2011 images
Here's another surviving example of the "Tolly Cobbold capitals" found on The Emperor in Norwich Road, The Globe, the Rampant Horse in Needham Market,

and on Off licences in Ipswich. The two 'FERRY BOAT INN' signs are picked out in red, perhaps to match the lifebelt mounted on the gable end, while the 'TOLLY COBBOLD' letters above the awning are painted white. This is quite common where the relief lettering still survives on buildings, reflecting the fact that the Ipswich brewery company has not owned tied houses for decades.
'A report in The Ipswich Journal on 9 July, 1842 states that a capital brewery in Ipswich with residence & inn attached and several well accustomed public houses to be sold at auction by Robert Garrod including the Bawdsey Ferry inn, in Felixstowe with cottages adjoining. In 1879 and 1888 listed at Bawdsey, Felixstowe. Bawdsey Ferry Inn is an earlier name for Felixstowe Ferry.' It is said that this inn dates back to the 15th century. (Information from the Suffolk CAMRA website; see Links.)
   2014 images

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