The Historic Towns Trust aims to achieve countrywide coverage with maps and atlases, and to feature towns and cities of many different types and histories. We are very pleased to announce progress towards creating a new historical map of Ipswich, Anglo-Saxon burh, medieval port, and county town of Suffolk.
James Winterbotham, HTT Trustee who is leading the project to bring together a team and raise the money to create and publish the map, writes:
'With anchor funding from the Suffolk Institute of Archaeology and History we have raised almost £20,000 with generous support from the local community. This includes the University of Suffolk, UEA, Willis (who own the iconic Norman Foster building in Ipswich) and many others, all of whom will be acknowledged on the published map. Thanks to all for their contributions.
'The first stage in making our map is to turn the base 1901 Ordnance Survey map into a fully digital document onto which we will add features as these are identified by the editorial team. The digitised base map is now back from Lovell Johns, and an extract is shown below. It covers Fore Street, a section of the Quayside and St Clement’s church. Significant buildings that have survived in this area include the 17th Century Isaac’s warehouse and the Old Custom House, as well as the Jewish cemetery. The area suffered bombing during World War Two and development in the 1960s and 70s, and is now dominated by through roads and car parks.
'The next step is for the editorial team to populate the map with the key features – buildings, streets, earthworks and anything else noteworthy that tells the story of Ipswich’s development. Keith Wade is editor of the project: he has been excavating in Ipswich since 1974 and knows more than anyone about its early history. Ipswich has a large community interested in its unique heritage and Keith and his fellow editors Dr Keith Briggs and Dr Nicholas Amor will be able to draw on the wealth of knowledge gathered over the years.
'As the contents are decided, our cartographer Giles Darkes will add each feature to the digitized map. Over the next few months we will revisit this section of the map as the team builds up the layers of history since Ango Saxon times – so watch this space!
'We have been delighted by the broad support for the project, from county and town. We are still fundraising for some of the educational and community projects that we hope to run alongside the map itself. A new Donate page has been set up on our online shop for anyone wishing to support this project, or our work in general: https://shop.historictownstrust.uk/'
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