About 140,000 people live in and around Ipswich, the county town of Suffolk.
Ipswich is about 70 miles north east of London and was founded about 10 miles from the mouth of the River Orwell and access to the North Sea.
Ipswich began as Gippeswic, an early Anglo-Saxon settlement named after chieftain Gippe. Now called Ipwcih, it grew up in Medieval times to be one of the most important towns in England as a result of the East Anglian wool trade. Its historic dock, at one time the largest dock in England, is now the town's waterfront.
The historic town square, the Cornhill, lies at the heart of the old part of the town.
Although the Romans did not found a town at Ipswich, Romans lived in this fertile countryside and built villas, and a large Roman villa was built at Castle Hill, close to what would become the site of Ipswich, on the route between the main Roman port of Felixstowe and London.
As trade between England and mainland Europe gradually grew in Saxon times, Ipswich grew from a small hamlet to a substantial town based around its sheltered port.
King Rædwald, ruler of the English between 616–624 was probably buried at nearby Sutton Hoo.
The trade with Europe also meant that, through its history, Ipswich was a place that people from overseas settled. In about 700 potters from Friesland arrived and set up what was to become an important pottery using local clay.
Later on, cloth makers also arrived to develop the textile industry.
What is now the Buttermarket area grew up as Ipswich trade and industry prospered. Some of this ancient street plan still survives.
The 8th century saw invasions from the Vikings, and Ipswich was a prime and valuable target. But they knew that they were vulnerable, too, and when the Saxons started to regain power in 10th century England, the Vikings built earthen defensive walls, just like the saxon burchs (fortified towns) to the west. But this did not stop its recapture and it became a Saxon town again.
When William the Conqueror arrived, Ipswich was an obvious place to build a castle. The town began to grow again, getting a market charter in 1200. But it was the growth in the sale of wool from East Anglia to Europe that made Ipswich prosper. This was also the time when monasteries were founded in Ipswich.
The medieval town of Ipswich was a busy port of trade and shipbuilding and later in cloth making. But the inns and taverns of the town were also full of pilgrims going to the Marian shrine to Our Lady of Grace at Ipswich, which was dedicated in 1152. The shrine of Our Lady of Grace in Lady Lane was just outside the west gate of the medieval town wall of Ipswich, on Lady Lane. As a sign of how important Ipswich was in Medieval times, it was the 14th century wealthy merchants of Ipswich who featured in the Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer.
Cardinal Thomas Wolsey, was born in Ipswich in 1473 as the son of a wealthy landowner.
Through medieval times the wealth caused by the port allowed many fine buildings to be put up of which a merchant's house called The Ancient House in the Buttermarket is a fine example. Many more modest Tudor buildings still line the streets of the old part of town.
In the 17th century Ipswich was the port from which many religious sects left for the New World of North America. These were the people who, in particular, began the Massachusetts Bay Colony during the 1630s. It is a time known as the Great Migration.
But Ipswich could not continue to prosper after the wool trade declined in the 16th and 17th centuries. It fell back compared to ports on the western side of England.
The emphasis of businesses in the town switched from port to countryside. Ransomes, Sims & Jefferies Ltd, makers of agricultural machinery, were founded in the town. Ransomes also built railway equipment.
By the 1960s Ipswich port was in a sorry state of decline. But since then it has flourished, as old dock buildings have been converted to new apartments, and much of the dock area transformed into a marina. This has attracted modern businesses such as insurance and call centres to the town because of its pleasant waterfront environment and lower costs than closer to London.
