Cornhill 2
The same 'mistaken identity' as the old Post Office
applies to the side
entrance of the Town Hall and Corn Exchange itself in the upper mouth
of
Princes Street, now used as the Ipswich Borough Entertainments Box
Office and the Age Concern tea room.
Look carefully at the stonework above the door and above the date
('MDCCCLXVII',1867) you
can
just make out the words 'Police Station'. On the photograph below, the
incised letters having been filled with a compound.
The
Town Hall was built (and rebuilt in 1867, removing all traces of the
original
structure) on the site of one of the most ancient ecclesiastic
buildings
in the town, St Mildred's Chapel, which was probably Saxon in origin.
Ipswich Borough Police were formed in 1836 and occupied the Town Hall
from 1867. The building was used as a police station from that date
until the
current police station
was erected and opened in June, 1968 at the end of Elm Street near to
the site of the long lost
Ipswich
Castle, (which is believed to have been a wooden structure). An officer
of the law in the 19th century wore a beaver skin top hat, blue
swallow-tail coat with white duck trousers for summer and blue for
winter. In
2006 a blue lamp (a la Dixon of Dock
Green) will be added, with a police presence in the
Town Hall to give information. Another former police station (1930s?),
complete
with filled in lettering, stands in the car park of St Helens Court, County Hall, St Helens Street (this part
shortly to be demolished).
-
This Police Station entrance has appeared in a Giles
cartoon - Carl
Giles worked a short distance away and is commemorated by the 'Gran'
sculpture at the junction of Prince's Street and Queen Street nearby -
of which a detail is shown below. This marked the move to Elm
Street in 1968.
Incidentally, the stretch of the road directly outside
this former police station entrance is notable for the fact that it is
the only place in Ipswich where the original tramlines have been
covered over, rather than ripped up. For a potted history of Ipswich
tramways se our page including Tramway
Place.
Opposite and further down the street stands a typical
bank branch with
a
typical 'BANK' incised in a tablet; but why is it so terribly high up?
Another
high 'Bank' sign has been photographed in the central square in Beccles
on the 'out of Ipswich' site (an example also the Felixstowe
page). ('Lloyds arch' on the other side of
the
Cornhill also boasts the relief lettering 'Bank'.)
Round the corner in King Street stands an ancient tavern. The Swan Inn
faces
the rear of the Corn Exchange and although the modern lettering which
names
the pub (see the remnants of 'The' below) has been vandalised, the date
lettering and numerals set into the old rendering survive. What does
'ISM'
(or 'SIM') stand for? In 1664 Mr John Parker gave £2 a year, paid
out
of the profits of the Swan Inn, to provide coal for the poor people of
the
parish in which it stands. It was one of the twenty-four inns which
existed in Ipswich by 1689. This shows the Swan to be one of the oldest
public
houses in Ipswich; the date 1707 on the front wall probably signifies
one
of the many alterations to the building which have been made over the
centuries.
King Street itself is
named by means of
high painted street signs on the stonework near the arcade.
Directly opposite and to the left of the modern
entrance to the Corn
Exchange
and Film Theatre is the name 'EXCHANGE CHAMBERS' grandly displayed
above
semicircular classical arch and figures (presumably Ceres: godess of
the
harvest - incidentally, an 18th Century statue of Ceres, once topping
the
Corn Exchange roof, is now displayed in weathered condition in the
foyer
of the building). We don't suppose many people notice it these days.
It's
not even above the current main entrance to the Grand Hall and Film
Theatre.
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Copyright throughout this site belongs to Borin Van Loon, 2003.