The Crown & Anchor
The Crown & Anchor Hotel in Westgate Street stands
as a palatial monument
to what once was in the town. Until refurbishment and modernisation of
the
interior and rear buildings in the nineties (the stables and out houses
stretch right back to Tower Ramparts where All Fired Up now have
premises;
the side bar used to open onto Providence Street), the Crown &
Anchor
Hotel had struggled to regain its position as a top hotel in the town
centre.
The key is probably that modern visitors want to drive to their hotel
and
park for free. A nineteenth century hotel inthe town centre just
couldn't
provide this.
Once again (see also the Old Post Office)
we
have a decorative fascade emblazoned with its name, function and date,
yet
it's a branch of W.H. Smith. A banner at the top right above a window
(just
visible) gives the date of 1897. However, this characteristically
spired
and decorative frontage certainly features on an 1859 deguerrotype by
W.
Thompson taken from Cornhill. It appears
from
behind the American Stores (a building demolished in the 1870s to make
way
for Grimwades clothier's shop, now Clinton's Cards) when Westgate
Street
was much narrower. Moving to the left of this old view, we would find
the
site of Mannings public house.
-
Very little around the Crown & Anchor remains: the
austere red brick
frontage which becomes the new Debenhams store to the right of the
colour
image (above) has replaced the original Footman Pretty building. 'THE
CROWN
& ANCHOR HOTEL' in 'gothic' lettering lies on the furled stone
banner
high above a regal looking shield, crown and lions couchant in the
centre,
flanked by roundels featuring the crown and anchor motifs. The name of
the
hotel is repeated without the definite article in pierced plain
capitals
with latticework surround on the portico above the central door.
-
The old stables and out houses which led back from the
rear of the hotel
up to a narrow entrance on Tower Ramparts, near the top of Providence
Street,
have presented problems of usage in recent times, but are now partly
occupied
by the cafe/pottery All Fired Up.
The man resposible for this sonework re-fronting of The Crown &
Anchor
Hotel was one of the foremost 19th century Ipswich architects, Thomas
W.
Cotman, nephew of the famous watercolourist, John Sell Cotman. His use
of
stone, not a characterisitic local building material in Ipswich, for
business
premises is unusual and can be seen in other fine town buildings: the
nearby
Lloyds Chambers on Cornhill, the Chelsea
Building
Society offices at the corner of King Street
and Princes Street, as well as Harvest House in Felixstowe, schools,
commercial
premises and houses in the area. (This last paragraph based on an
'Evening
Star' interview with Ipswich Borough Conservation Officer, Bob Kindred,
relating to the recent renovation of the interior and exterior of the
Chelsea
Building Society's Normandy Gothic building, 14/1/04)
Home
Copyright throughout this site belongs to Borin Van Loon, 2003.