Medieval town

Ipswich castle did not have a long life, beseiged by King Stephen in 1153 and demolished in 1176 when Hugh Bigod was brought to order by Henry II. The exact location of the castle is uncertain, although it was certainly not the Castle Hill area of the town, which covered a Roman Villa site. A good theory is that the curve of Elm Street reflects the outline of the castle site preserved in the road layout, in which case the current Police station is well placed.

The town had been a royal borough until King John awarded Ipswich a charter in 1200, under which it was given the right to govern itself. The town walls were ramparts with a stone gateways set in them (eg Northgate), the ditch and rampart being reconstructed in 1203 following the original pre-Norman defences, licences to build walls were made (1352), but probably due to the lack of local stone this never came about although the gateways were built. Holywells Park is a landscaped park with a moated platform believed to be the site of the palace of the Bishop of Norwich. The area now known as Bishops Hill was previously the hamlet of Wicks Bishop first doucumented in 1189-99 as being held by the Bishop.

The town centre featured a series of markets on Corn Hill, Tavern Street and Buttermarket and combined with the trading at the quayside the town was the trading centre for the local area. The 14th Century saw the town trade grow as a result of the wool exports to mainland Europe. The tradesmen built their homes by the river, Isaac Lord's in Fore Street is a series of buildings from the early 15th to the 17th Centuries, where the cloth was stored ready for export and the merchant's conducted his business alongside a family home.

The town's growth was focused on the trade through the port, and the number of churches around the dockside attests to the concentration of population in the area. St Peter's church is now redundant, but contains a font of Tournai stone (late 12th Century), decorated with lion's (detail from font). Alongside the churches, were a number of chapels and of course religious houses which occupied a large area of the town. The Dominicans (or Black Friars) were established in 1263 on the eastern ramparts area, the few remaining walls of their building have been restored and are now part of a walk way from Foundation Street to Fore Street.

The recently restored Curson Lodge on the corner of St Peters Street & Silent Street is a well preserved timber framed former inn from the early 16th Century. It is said that Catherine of Aragon (in 1517) and Henry VIII (in 1522) spent the night in this building during visits to Ipswich. The building has served as inn, bishop of Norwich's town house, naval hospital (c1666 - c1680 during the Dutch wars), leather business (J Conder Ltd.), chemist (Wiggins) and antiques shop over it's 500 years. [info from Ipswich buildings preservation trust]