Architectural features

This section contains lettering examples from the fabric of buildings. The carved or moulded lettering on shop, house and other buildings constitute one of the most useful indicators for the local historian. A habit particularly prevalent during the Victorian era, a period when house building in the town increased prodigiously, these plaques and names often included a date. The selection of examples here show lettering and numerals intrinsically part of the material of the building, rather than applied or attached to it.

Ipswich Ragged Schools in Waterworks Street and Bond Street are a sobering reminder of the hardships and philanthropies of the past.

Smart Street School and Pleasant Row between Foundation Street and Lower Orwell Street.

More Schools: Bramford Road School, Argyle Street School, Clifford Road School and Ranelagh Road School are here.

Old hospitals: the Angleses Road Pathology entrance, Victoria Wing, War Memorial Wing as well as reminders of Bartlet and Foxhall Hospitals.

Ipswich Museum displays its date of building and the Schools of Art and Science.

County Hall Once the home of the East Suffolk County Council in St Helens Street.

St Helens Street has several examples of lettering built into structures. We celebrate 'Tramway Place 1882' with a short history of the Ipswich Corporation Tramways.

Belle Vue Road: a tiny detail is part of a house name carved into the capital of a brick pillar; plus 'Deans Villas' in Felixstowe Road, 'Percy Cottages' in Crabbe Street and the date moulding at the corner of Freehold Road and Cauldwell Hall Road. We add 'Beaufort Buildings' in Norwich Road as a counterpoint.

Ruskin House
: a butchered house sign on the former post office.

14 North Gate and Pitcairn Road show house lettering of a circular kind, with stray oddities: the 'CTC' emblem from Upper Brook Street and 'Crown Office'.

E. Brand and Sons in Tacket Street provides much of interest on its decorative frontage of ; Ewer's Grey-Green and Phillips & Piper in St Margaret's Street are here, too.

Fred Smith & Co. building in Princes Street: one of the architectural trade lettering gems in Ipswich.

Lower Brook Street leads to Price, the bootmaker, The Victoria Nursing Institute and in Rose Lane 'D.B 1862'.

Bethesda Church, the nearby Public Library entrance is also on this page, plus the Regent Theatre.

The Co-operative Society have many properties in the town and provide some interesting architectural lettering features.

Lloyds Avenue reaches right up to Electric House.

Cornhill. Several excellent examples of architectural lettering can be seen in this vicinity. This page shows the original Post Office and Mannings public house.
Cornhill2 takes us round behind the Corn Exchange: the original Police Station, the bank, Exchange Chambers and the Swann Inn.

The Crown & Anchor Hotel in Westgate Street nearby is a gothic palace of decoration and lettering.

Princes Street has some nice examples of lettering in 'the banking and insurance quarter' of the town).

Christchurch Mansion: improving Latin mottos abound. In the park: a drinking fountain and comemorative oak tree plaque.

Tooley's Almshouses and Smart's Almshouses in Foundation Street bear impressive dedication plaques.

Stoke Hall in Stoke Street.

Fore Street Baths in Fore Street.

East Suffolk Militia Depot boundary stones on the walls of Ipswich School, Ivry Street.

[Our '1900' background comes from the Freehold Road/Cauldwell Hall Road example.]

Home
Copyright throughout this site belongs to Borin Van Loon, 2003.
1