Three Hours in Ipswich
One of the things I hope to encourage with this blog is internal tourism in the UK. So as I was early and wanted to see a new art gallery in the town, I decided to have a little walk around the centre of the town.
It is actually very compact and sits between the River Orwell and the railway on one side and Christchurch Mansion and Park to the North.
I started by walking from Ipswich Rail Station over the River Orwell and past Portman Road football ground into the town centre. Ipswich Town’s ground must be one of the nearest grounds to a rail station outside of the major conurbations.
My first visit after checking if Marks had something I wanted, (Which they didn’t incidentally!) was to go to the old Ipswich Art School, which has now been turned into an art gallery. The first exhibition is a loan of work from the Saatchi Gallery.
It was very much worth visiting, but as it was the sort of modern art, that I don’t like, I almost got the impression it was a lovely building wrapped around some unlovely art! I hall go again, for the next exhibition!
It was then a short walk up the hill to Christchurch Park, which is a traditional formal park of the sort you get all over the United Kingdom.
Christchurch Park, Ipswich
I ate my packed lunch in the sun, looking out at the War Memorial.
The War Memorial, Christchurch Park, Ipswich
Why is it war memorials always have phrases like “Our Glorious Dead”? Death is never glorious! It’s just an awful waste and a what might have been!
There is also another smaller war memorial in the park. And that is one to the men of Suffolk, who died in the Boer War.
Boer War Memorial, Christchurch Park, Ipswich
I then moved on to Christchurch Mansion, which is effectively inside the Park.
Christchurch Mansion, Ipswich
Strangely, deespite living in the area for many years, I’d only been over the mansion once and that was when I attended a black-tie dinner there in the 1990s.
But I made a mistake and I should have gone more.
For a start there is the house and gardens, but then there is the art gallery with a dozen paintings by both John Constable and Thomas Gainsborough.
These though are not the famous paintings we’ve all seen in National Galleries all over the world, but often earlier ones that they painted locally as they were starting out on their careers. As an example, there is a touching portrait by Constable of his mother, Ann.
For that reason alone, they are worth the walk up from the town centre to Christchurch Mansion.
I then walked back down to the town centre, which has as more old shops, than any other towns I know. It is perhaps a pity that most of the shops as is comon throughout the UK, are national chains. But that is a problem all over the UK.
Ipswich Town Centre
The picture shows the Great White Horse, with its Dickensian connections.
The jewl in the crown of Ipswich dhops is the Gade One Listed, Ancient House.
The Ancient House, Ipswich
It must surely be the most unusual branch of Lakeland!
After walking back along the Buttermarket, I was virtually back where i started and it was a short walk down Princes Street and through an underpass or over a crossing and I was back at Portman Road. The route took me past another Grade One Listed Building, but one that is very diferent to the ancient House. this is Lord Foster’s first important building, the Willis Faber Building.
The Willis Faber Building, Ipswich
Note how the building opposite are reflected in the glass. This is now probably the most famous building in Ipswich, as every time Lord Foster is mentioned, they always show some footage.
The walk with a couple of detours had been easy and had taken me two hours, so if you’d decided to have lunch somewhere, you’d have filled the three hours. On a nice day as Saturday was, I wouldn’t eat in the town centre, but I’d get a picnic in Marks or one of the other shops and eat it in Christchurch Park or outside the Mansion. Judging by what I saw, many people were doing just that.
The next time, I am in Ipswich and the weather is good, I’ll walk round the town centre and visit the ten Grade One listed Buildings in the town centre. That is not bad for a town, which has featured heavily in Crap Towns.
Saatchi in Ipswich
I was surprised to see a sign as the coach arrived in Ipswich, advertising the parking for a Saatchi exhibition. I had not heard anything about it.
So as I had a hour before the match, I walked into the town and asked in the Corn Exchange about the exhibition. I was told it is in the old Art School just to the north of the town centre. Here is the web site.
Yet again something worth seeing has been badly publicised and Ipswich is doing nothing to attract visitors to the town to see the exhibition. Next time, I go to the football, I’ll go early specifically to see the exhibition. It’s free and is open from ten until five from Tuesday to Saturday.
Memories of My Grandfather – Henry Millbank
I never met my grandfather, Henry Millbank, as he died a few months before I was born. All I have is a couple of photographs at my parents’ wedding in 1946.
He was an engraver and one of his specialities was to engrave the die by which names and other words were stamped on to pencils. These days nearly all pencils are hexagonal and that according to my mother, is because her father was the last person with the skills to engrave one for a round pencil. Apparently, according to my mother in the last years of his life, people were always asking him to engrave others, as there was no-one else.
Interestingly, you now get engraved round pencils again, but that is because computers and the machines they control can do what few craftsman can.
New Readers
I was given a write-up in the Ipswich Town program today and some people who visit, may have been directed from the program.
Don’t take anything I say too seriously, as underneath it all I try to amuse and inform. Remember too, I have other interests outside Ipswich Town, like art, architecture, engineering and trains. I also feel that one of the ways we’re going to get this country out of the mess it’s in, is by appreciating what we’ve got here in these Isles and enjoying it. Who would have thought that a visit to Middlesbrough or Crewe could be so enjoyable. But they genuinely were and I shall be visiting other places in the next few months, that might be equally unpromising. Hopefully, they’ll be equally enjoyable, even if Town don’t win or the trip has nothing to do with football.
The next trips will be Portsmouth and Scunthorpe.
Feel free to post comments. I reserve the right to remove those that are not constructive!
Rhino Mania in Chester
We’ve had cows everywhere, lambananas in Liverpool and now we have rhinos in Chester.
Painted Rhino in Chester
There was also quite a lot of other street art. I particularly liked this baby elephant.
Baby Elephant in Chester
Funding the Arts
David Lister wrote this provocative article in today’s Independent.
He argues that cutting arts funding may be a good thing, especially as some institutions like the Royal Academy, Glyndebourne and the Lowry in Salford, seem to manage better without it.
He asks hat should the Royal Opera House gets as much subsidy as it does, when the companies based there never perform in the regions and does London really need four Symphony orchestras.
He also attacks the highly-paid time-servers on the boards of the various quangos that adminster taxpayers money an proposes more democracy in how money is allocated.
I agree with nearly everything he says.
Rabbits in the City
I saw these yesterday in Spitalfields.
Rabbits in Spitalfields
I really like to see jokey and frivolous street art! Especially sculpture, as my uncle was a good one!
New Uses for Old Railway Buildings
The BBC has done a piece this morning about the reuse of Edge Hill Station in Liverpool as an artistic creative space by Metal
Often these buildings were well-built to designs of the best architects of their day. Let’s reuse them rather than build something new and rather boring and anonymous.
Temenos
Temenos is impressive and towers over everything in the dock area of Middlesbrough, except for the transporter bridge.
Temenos and the Transporter Bridge
I like Temenos and feel that it is beautifully sited and paired with the nearly hundred years old bridge, that is still in full working order, despite what you saw in Auf Weidersehn Pet.
We need more structures like Temenos and the transporter bridge, as I think they make people and especially children think about engineering and how to build things. In recent years London has gained the Millennium bridge and the Hungerford footbridges, Newcastle has the winking bridge, but poor old Ipswich has gained nothing at all. Properly built these types of structures last generations, as so many of our Victorian bridges have shown.
Perhaps after the match, we should have all gone had paid homage at Temenos, which in ancient Greece was a place to worship gods., as the structure is very close to the Riverside Stadium. But I suspect if we’d tried, the Middlesbrough Police wouldn’t have understood the joke. These Middlesbrough fans don’t look too happy as they trudge home in the shadow of Temenos.
Temenos, the Transporter Bridge and Middlesbrough Fans After The Game
I said that Tenemos was impressive, but so was the quality of the water in the dock below. Terry pointed out a salmon, which are nhow comon in the Tees. How many were there, when the bridge was built?
A Weekend in Middlesbrough
As I said in Travels with My Stroke, the first trip outside London would be one to Middlesbrough. Some of my friends thought I was slightly unhinged to be going there, but then you don’t have to be mad or stupid to be an Ipswich supporter, but it does help.
So it was with a certain amount of anticipation, that I boarded the train at Peterborough for the journey to York, where I changed for Middlesbrough. It was a pleasant and uneventful journey that was completed by a short taxi ride to a clean and comfortable B&B called Chadwick Guest House, run by a charming young Sardinian, who had come to the UK to learn English a few years ago and had stayed.
Also staying in the same guest house, were some Town fans from Oslo in Norway, who after the match were going to Exeter for the Carling Cup.
I should say that I was going to be shown round Middlesbrough by a lady, Liz, who subscribes to the coeliac group on the Internet that I moderate, and her husband, Terry.
So on the morning of the match, they showed me around Middlesbrough and gave me lunch. One of the reasons, I’d come was north was to see the new Anish Kapoor installation, Temenos, and the various amazing bridges across the Tees. They have the famous Transporter Bridge, an enormous lifting bridge, a modern stylish footbridge and a barrage to prevent flooding of the town. We even saw some salmon leaping up the salmon ladder past the barrage alongside the canoe slalom course.
It was a very interesting couple of hours before the match and the walks along the Tees are very much to be recommended.
I won’t say too much about the match, except to say my fears and those of the other several hundred travelling fans were not fulfilled.
Perhaps, we should have all gone had paid homage at Temenos, which in ancient Greece was a place to worship gods, after the match., as the structure is very close to the Riverside Stadium, but I suspect if we’d tried, the Middlesbrough Police wouldn’t have understood the joke.
Did I have any regrets about going? Only one! Sunday marked the start of the Tall Ships Race, just over the Tees at Hartlepool. If I’d known about it, I’d have gone. But neither the Middlesbrough Council or Football Club web sites had mentioned this was happening. Instead I took the train back to Bury St. Edmunds in a much more optimistic mood in more ways than one, to the one I’d started out on Friday.
I will return to the Tall Ships Race. Surely, in these times of austerity, we should do everything we can to encourage visitors and make their visits as enjoyable as possible. If just a few Town fans had stayed over to see the unique race, at least they would have had a meal and a few beers to help the local economy.
Remember too, that many football fans are interested in other things. I was in Milan, when Town fans showed how to support the team away in style. It was the first time, I actually had managed to get to see Leonardo’s Last Supper, in the city. One of the guides told me, that she’d never seen so many football fans viewing one of the world’s most famous paintings.
But then Town fans are different and long may it stay that way!
Anyone for a weekend in Scunthorpe?
The Anonymous Widower 