Street Signs
The use of cast or printed signs for street names is a
relatively
recent
development; streets have changed their names or have not been signed
in
any way in centuries past. This is probably due to the fact that anyone
who lived in the town would know the whereabouts of The Shambles (which
once stood on the site of the Post Office building on Cornhill) or
Buttermaket
(a name surviving to the present day) and any visitor would be able to
ask
the way.
Albion Hill:
this old name for the area around the top of the hill of Woodbridge
Road is not signed, but it is labelled twice on the 1867 map shown on
our Sunny Place page.
111
Bramford Road and the next door Hovis lettering
Benchmark:
an Ordnance Survey benchmark in Christchurch Street
Brick
wall (mixed) in Tuddenham Road bearing a brick-making
company name.
Bishops Hill and its brickwork street sign
Boundary
markers mini-site featuring research and images by Paul Horne
Blue plaques put
up to the memory of the famous and the interesting, plus other plaques
Carnsers:
a vanishing word and feature of our street scene; also Parkside Avene
(atop a carnser).
Charles
Street has a gate with
a donation credit.
Civic Drive,
now no longer leadng to the Civic Centre, has street nameplates with a
faded coat of arms
'Clean
it up!' Pavement lettering from Borough Council to
discourage dog-fouling
Clocks:
public clocks in and around the town centre.
Courts
and
yards in 19th century Ipswich (maps and text); also Charles
Court (off Upper Orwell Street), Watts Court off Foundation Street,
Wingfield Street and house, the Salvation Army Citadel
Coytes
Gardens with its paving setts (sadly vandalised by the
Highways Authority in 2017)
Curson Lodge,
St Nicholas Street; the story of Lord Curson's house (now lost), and
Wolsey's attempt to have it for himself; also a page about Wolsey's
College
Dog's
Head Street signed on The Plough
Elm Street:
'Quill Court'
Ernleigh Road
and its etymology.
Felaw Street,
Maltings Terrace, Bulstrode Road, Little and Great Whip Streets, Gower
Street: all in Over Stoke
Friars
Bridge Road, now an appendix to Princes Street, but link to
the Cattle Market and way back to the Friary of Greyfriars (1298-1535)
Greyfriars
& Cromwell Street as seen in the 1960s leaflet Ipswich Tomorrow
Humber Doucy Lane street nameplates,
the story of the lane and a cheeky 1930 advertisement.
'IBH':
the hidden lettering on the Argyle Street/St Helens Street junction;
and by the same technique, the hidden 'ITFC' sign on Portman Road, plus
bicycle symbol
Ipswich
Transport Museum
has some
rescued examples of
street name plates
King Street: the triple-named and very short
street, also the narrow, the quadruple-named Lion
Street and Arcade Street.
Lancaster Road
also Nottidge Road
Lloyds Avenue, our Art Deco street
Mile End
(Coleman Buildings)
Milestones: Ipswich has an intact collection
of cast iron Turnpike markers (see also the Toll-house link below)
Myrtle Road memorial: a tragic piece of
Ipswich history on a wall near the park
Norfolk
House in Over Stoke
Old
Cattle Market leads us round St
Stephen Church, down St Stephens Lane and to the house of Sir Thomas
Rush and other lost mansions in the area.
Parliament Road also Upper Orwell Courts and
Northgate Street
Plough
Street: the smallest street in Ipswich.
Purplett
Street and Tyler Street nameplates and plaques
Railings and
gates in some of our streets carry foundry names in the castings.
Railway bridges and their numbering system
Felixstowe
Branch Line (Ipswich - Westerfiled - Felixstowe)
Saxmundham to
Aldeburgh Branch Line
Dales
Brickyard Light Railway
Rosehill
Library case study: overview of the development of
public libraries in the town and the great and good invlved in the
founding of Rosehill Library
Sculpture
52 degrees North:
the Pegasus sculpture on Ravenswood
Cardinal Wolsey,
that most famous and unlovable of Ipswich's sons
Giles
Circus and the statue commemorating
Ipswich's second most
famous son
Our Lady of Grace, Lady Lane
Prince Obolensky,
Russian pilot and rugby player; Cromwell Square
Pylons by Bernard Reynolds athe
entrance the
old Suffolk College
Ship by Bernard Reynolds on the
Civic Drive/Handford Road roundabout
Tam next to St Mary-At-Elms
More public sculptures (The Navigator and Against the tide) can be seen on
our Water in Ipswich page.
Slade Street mystery tablet
dated 1812
Slavery
Abolitionists
commemorated in Ipswich street names
St Helens
Church Lane: an unusual street sign
Street
furniture (pillar boxes, drain covers, British Relay TV
boxes etc.) also the removal of the K6
phone box outside the
Greyhound
Street
and house naming, also house numbering as delineated by
Ipswich Borough Council.
Street
nameplates: a rich
variety of styles, fonts and materials with links to relevant pages
Street
nameplates on posts! Newton Road and
Gladstone Road
Street names
(a page of derivations and sources)
Toll-house
(now Barclays Bank) on the junction of Woodbridge Road and Rushmere
Road.
Tuddenham
Road/Gainsborough Road garden wall, including kiln 'wasters'
and a partial lettered brick.
Turret Lane and its
importance in relation to Wolsey's College
Vicarage,
St John's Lodge, Harmony Square, Woodbridge Road
Warwick Road
and the lost York Road of the 1860s
Water has
often had dramatic effects on streets in Ipswich.
Willis
monolith: the obelisk which marks 800 years of Ipswich history in
the new thoroughfare built between Friars Street and Cromwell Square
when the Willis building was erected.
Related pages:
House
name plaque examples: Alston Road;
Bramford Road;
Cauldwell Hall Road; Cavendish Street; Marlborough Road; Rosehill area;
Cauldwell Hall Road house names;
Marlborough Road house names; Rosehill house names
Named buildings list;
Named (and sometimes dated) buildings
examples
Borough guidelines on
street
and house naming and numbering
Dated buildings list; Dated buildings
examples; Dated rain-hoppers/weather vanes
Origins of street names
in Ipswich; Streets named after slavery
abolitionists
Street index; Boundary markers
Ipswich Tomorrow, Greyfriars 1960s
Rampart and Town gates
Historic maps of Ipswich
Timeline: historical eras, events and
monarchs
Monasteries
Freehold Land Society
Ipswich coat of arms
Pubs & Off licences
Brickyards;
Ropewalks
in Ipswich
Listed buildings in
Ipswich
Windmills
in the Borough of Ipswich
The history of street naming is an area of
study all its own.
We recommend The Way We Went:
Streets
in 19th Century Ipswich
by Muriel Clegg, see Reading List.
[Our background is the rail bridge
number on Tuddenham Road.]
Home
Please email any comments
and contributions by clicking here.
Search Ipswich
Historic Lettering
©2004 Copyright
throughout the Ipswich
Historic Lettering site: Borin Van Loon
No reproduction of text or images without express written permission