Ipswich Ragged Schools
The Boys' School is a
well-known survivor of a bygone era standing on Waterworks
Street, or rather it would stand in the middle of the current
Waterworks
Street, had the fascia not been moved back from the road and the
building
shortened by by about ten feet when the street was widened in the
eighties
as part of the Ipswich 'Eastern Gyratory' traffic scheme (which also
turned
the most ancient part of the town around the Wet Dock into a
race-track).
-
The rather impressively sited commemorative plaque in
the upper Dutch style
frontage shows: 'IPSWICH RAGGED SCHOOL, FOUNDED 1849, RENOVATED 1903'
with
'BOYS SCHOOL' on the stone mullioned windows below. It has received at
least
a couple of facelifts since then and is now housing accomodation with
accesses
at the side. It was set up by the Quakers who did much philanthropic
work
for the poorest in society during the Industrial Revolution.
This photograph from 1960 shows the original position
of the school standing
shoulder-to-shoulder with its long vanished Waterworks Street
neighbours.
-
- (marred only by the promotional
banner)
The Ragged Girls' School stands further up the road in Bond Street.
Variously:
'IPSWICH RAGGED SCHOOL - (GIRLS SCHOOL) - FOUNDED 1849'. Formerly used
as
Mick Blackwell's martial arts school, it is now a private nursery. The
building
displays several lettering plaques and is a more recent and impressive
building
than the Boys' School.
-
'THIS STONE WAS LAID BY
THE MOST HONOURABLE
THE MARQUIS of NORTHAMPTON
PRESIDENT of THE
RAGGED SCHOOL UNION
November 29th 1900'
Smart Street School
More schools (Argyle Street, Clifford
Road,
Bramford Road, Ranelagh Road)
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Copyright throughout this site belongs to Borin Van Loon, 2003.