Suffolk Art
Suffolk is a county that has been either the birthplace or home to numerous artists; John Constable, John Duval, Thomas Gainsborough, Alfred Munnings, Philip Wilson Steer and George Stubbs, to name some of the more famous. In the present day there is Maggi Hambling. But she is not the only successful woman artist to come from the county. There was the sculptor, Elizabeth Frink and in the seventeenth century, the successful Mary Beale, who was born near Bury St. Edmunds.
There is more on Suffolks public collection of art here.
Street Sculpture in Ipswich
I have always liked street sculpture and feel it is something that brings art to everybody, or in the case of Minsk in Belarus to the people. There are some of the Belarus street statues on this page. I must add to this page, as I have lots of photos from when I visited the city to support England.
Ipswich has some good street sculptues or statues, which tend to be on the popular side of culture. Here’s the Giles family in the Buttermarket.
The Giles Family, Ipswich
It was erected as a tribute to the cartoonist Carl Giles, who lived in the town. Does any other cartoonist have a statue of his famous characters? Or do they have the street named after them?
You might think a statue of cartoon characters is unusual, but the other two popular statues in the town are those of Sir Bobby Robson and Sir Alf Ramsey. Can any other town boast two statues to their football managers, but none to any of their footballers? I doubt it!
Here’s Sir Alf, on the touchline for the World Cup victory in 1966.
Statue of Sir Alf Ramsey, Ipswich
And then there is Sir Bobby in a much more animated pose.
Statue of Sir Bobby Robson, Ipswich
There is also a sculpture trail for Ipswich. Is Ipswich unique in not having any full-size statues of military or royal and often obscure figures in the town centre? There is only one statue of a prince in the town and he was Russian. But Alexander Obolensky is not rememberedso much for being a prince as for scoring one of the greatest tries in the history of rugby.
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.
Senior Travellers,Racegoers and Pub-Crawlers
As Free As Lark had been pulled out of the race at Great Yarmouth today, I was at a loss about what to do, as I’d quite fancied the trip on a train to the wilds of Norfolk.
So I went anyway!
I was dropped at Dullingham station a few minutes before ten, with the intention of catching the first of three trains, that would get me to my destination by just after twelve after changes at Stowmarket and Norwich. And all for a return ticket price of just £9.20 after my Senior Railcard discount.
At the next station, Newmarket, the train filled up considerably. There was a lot of chatter and I felt there were a couple of parties going like myself to Yarmouth, but to the races. It was all very civilised and friendly, and I suspected that many like me were travelling on Senior Railcards.
As I got off the train at Stowmarket, I was recognised by one of C’s morning swimming companions. He asked how I was doing and said that he was going to the races at Yarmouth. He also added that one of the parties on the train, were a group going for a pub crawl in Ipswich and Felixstowe.
But it all goes to show how train travel is changing. Many of the travellers, myself probably included, would never have used a train for these journeys a few years ago.
Another change was that the two changes at Stowmarket and Norwich took just a couple of minutes. The last time, I’d attempted something similar, I’d had to wait a lot longer. I think that the scheduling is better and this is helped by much better time-keeping. I can’t remember when one of the trains between Ipswich and Cambridge was seriously late.
I also found out that you can get a go-anywhere in East Anglia ticket called an Anglia Plus One Day Pass. It’s just a pity that Beeching removed some of the important links between the railways in East Anglia.
So how can we improve things further? Cambridge to Ipswich has one one-coach train and one two-coach one to operate the schedule. National Express East Anglia do their best, but they struggle to provide enough capacity on the line. I suspect it’s the same on other lines in East Anglia! We need more trains and perhaps a couple of three-coach ones too, to handle rush hours to and from Ipswich and Cambridge! An hourly service calling at all stations would be good and with promised station improvements at Ipswich and Cambridge, this might be possible. Perhaps the service could be extended at the Ipswich end to Harwich and/or Felixstowe!
With a new franchise up for grabs, we can only hope!
Cambridge to Get Two New Platrforms
According to the Cambridge Evening News, Cambridge is set to get two new platforms.
About time too! And let’s hope they use the extra capacity to improve the Cambridge to Ipswich service I use so much!
Boxing Clever
Boxing Clever is the title of two articles in September’s edition of Modern Railways magazine. They detail the works being done to upgrade the major freight lines of Felixstowe to Nuneaton and Southampton to Birmingham, so that they can take the larger 9 ft 6 in high containers (boxes) from the ports to and from industrial centres. In times of austerity and climate change, it is interesting to see how these projects which will cut out hundreds of thousands of lorry journeys are being carried out and managed using some very innovative solutions. So much so,m that it appears that the second project might be £10m under its £70.7m budget.
It is an example of very good project management and shows how by spending money wisely to remove freight bottle-necks is to the good of us all. You could argue for instance that Felixstowe to Nuneaton enhancement might be the equivalent of adding extra capacity to the A14, which is a road, that really can’t be widened too easily, as the Orwell bridge was only built for two lanes each way.
I particularly liked the way that the 1847 Southampton Tunnel was made larger. Rather than use the traditional approach and closing the tunnel for two to three months, as they did when they upgraded Ipswich Tunnel, they did it a track at a time closing for only three weekends and over Christmas 2009, saving a year on the project.
It is my belief that we can save a lot of money on infrastructure projects, like roads, railways, hospitals ands schools by thinking things through with a great deal more innovation, enterprise and by borrowing good and proven ideas and methods from other countries and industries.
Confusion Over Train Fares, Barriers and Call Centres
The railways are very much the media’s target and a big storm seems to have been kicked up in the last few days over what constitutes off-peak travel. The only off-peak set of rules that bother me are those out of Kings Cross on First Capital Connect, where the cheaper tickets are not available on trains leaving the capital between 16:30 and 19:00. But even that can always be bypassed by taking a Cambridge train from Tottenham Hale. I also think that if I buy an off-peak return ticket from Newmarket or Dullingham, then I can use the ticket on the forbidden trains, as I bought the ticket on National Express East Anglia. It is not too onerous and I haven’t been delayed yet.
One issue I do have is at Cambridge, where if I’m travelling from Newmarket, I can’t pass through the barriers to do my shopping in the Marks and Spencer in the station. You used to be able to do this and it was a reliable way to get my supper. And whilst on the subject of ticket barriers, if I buy a London Travelcard on the train between Newmarket and Cambridge, then it tends not to work the barriers on the London Underground.
Usually though when I book on-line for a long trip, I don’t have any issues with off-peak or not, as I choose the route and time and this then tells me what trains I can catch and what the prices are. The system works well.
One thing that could be done is to make it more obvious on some web sites, where the train I’m going to catch is going. For instance, if I’d known that my train to Crewe was going on to Chester, I might have changed my plans before I left. As it was, it wouldn’t have made any difference to me, but others might want to perhaps go a little further to see great Aunt Emma.
But one thing the web sites don’t do is allow the purchase of multiple tickets.
On Saturday, I’m getting up early and taking a train from Whittlesford Parkway to Tottenham Hale, as I’m going house-hunting in the morning in Islington. I’m then taking a train out of Liverpool Street to Ipswich for the match against Bristol City. Then after the match it’s back home via the train from Ipswich towards Cambridge. I will have to purchase three single tickets, as I can’t buy these tickets on the web and pick them up at the same time at Whittlesford, where there is a collection machine. It is all the more extraordinary in practice as all trains are the same company; National Express East Anglia.
I did try their call centre and because my voice isn’t that good, the guy on the phone couldn’t understand what I was trying to do. He thought I was trying to get from Whittlesford to Liverpool. The answer to that is probably the old one about not starting from there!
So today, when I go into Cambridge to play tennis, I’ll buy the tickets at the booking office.
Looking at Ipswich Town’s fixtures for this season, I can see several of these multiple trips looming. For instance on the eleventh of September I am going to Portsmouth and on the way, I’ll be breaking my journey to Fratton at Micheldever to have lunch with a friend. So it will be a single from say Cambridge, Whittlesford or Dullingham to Micheldever, another to Fratton and then another from Fratton back to home.
The solution to these multiple trip problems already exist. It’s called a OysterCard. But then I’d need to register my Senior Railcard in some way to get the discount on the trains. Alternatively, we could use scannable tickets like they do on Eurostar or Italian trains.
Let’s hope that a new system replaces the current mess soon. I’d prefer some form of scannable ticket, that I can print before I leave. These tickets could also carry additional information. But please not let’s make it a phone app, as these phones are just not robust enough for someone who drops them like I do.
Ipswich’s New Bridge
I noted in my piece on Temenos, that Ipswich hadn’t built any new structures like bridges in recent years. I was wrong, as Ipswich now has a new bridge over the Gipping named after Sir Bobby Robson.
The Sir Bobby Robson Bridge, Ipswich
How Trains Have Changed
I travelled down to Ipswich for the match against Burnley on Saturday, by changing from the East Coast train that had brought me from Edinburgh to the National Express East Anglia one that took me the rest of the way. The train was a comfortable Turbostar and I sat cosily in First Class, which is one of the perks of a Senior Railcard, as I get one third off. I had thought about sleeping, especially as Ipswich is the end of the line, but in the end I talked about football and trains to two drivers from East Midlands Trains, who were positioning back from Ely to Norwich.
It was a pleasant journey in rolling stock that is a far cry from what we used to have to endure. We all had to agree though, that according to reports some of the newer trains that cross the Pennines are a lot better and have been consistently praised for the quality of the ride.
I arrived at Ipswich on time with ninety minutes before kick off after a six hour journey from Edinburgh.
A point to note is that the Felixstowe-Ipswich-Peterborough route is being upgraded to handle more and longer container trains to and from Felixstowe, by selective dualling of the line between Felixstowe and Ipswich and also between Soham and Ely. It is estimated that this and other schemes will take almost 250,000 lorry journeys off the road. To me this is a good thing, especially as the cost is probably less than adding an extra lane to sections of the A14. But there is a downside. I was told that these heavy freight trains can damage the track and make the ride of passenger trains worse.
The Anonymous Widower 