The Wet Dock

The very heart of the ancient town was the natural right-angle bend in the river and its sudden narrowing down towards the site of the present Stoke Bridge (the confluence of the fresh water River Gipping and the brackish River Orwell takes place, not here – contrary to popular belief – but further inland above Handford Bridge). The earliest crossing point of this broad and sweeping waterway, so central to the establishment and development of Ipswich as an international port, would originally have been a ford between the site of Great Whip Street and the present St Peters Dock at Foundry Lane. The fact that it could be forded at all, shows how marshy parts of early Ipswich were, the nineteenth century Wet Dock coming to a deep-channelled 'nip' near this point, bordered by the heavy industrial quaysides we know today.

The enormous structures in brick and concrete which largely replaced the timber-framed buildings erected by Tudor merchants were in turn demolished and tower blocks built (see Waterfront Regeneration Scheme) – until the money ran out in 2007/8. However, there are some survivors: The Neptune Inn building fronting Fore Street once had a string of structures behind it reaching the quayside. The Isaac Lord merchant's house with a similar frontage nearby in Fore Street uniquely retains its saleroom, warehouse, maltings and stables, so that the corn exports and coal imports could be loaded and unloaded, processed and carted away under the eye of the owner. Here is the earliest house in Ipswich, c.1480 (although Pykenham's Gatehouse beats it by a few years and St Mary Elms has an ancient cottage (variously 1467 or 1487) behind it. Ironically, the pub sign from near Parade Field Terrace (shown at the right) depicts, not the windmills which used to stand on Albion Hill to the east of the town, but Cranfield's Flour Mill on the Wet Dock's Albion Wharf.

The signwriters have, over the years, worked to proclaim the company names on the frontages of the wharves overlooking the sweep of water formed by the magnificent Wet Dock which was opened in January, 1842 and at 33 acres was the largest area of water of its kind in England. Nowadays it's hard to see the water for leisure craft moorings.