extremegroundhopping

The original lock gates (1842) for the wet dock were located in the New Cut channel – roughly on the other side of the cut from the Steamboat Tavern – to protect them and the docks from inclement weather and tidal surges along the Orwell River.

However, manoeuvring into the out of the wet dock required shipping to make close to a ninety degree turn.

This proved to be quite a challenge for larger vessels and in 1881 a new and more practical lock at the south end of the wet dock was opened.

In this now more familiar location shipping was, and still is, able to enter and exit the wet docks directly from the estuary.

The Grampian Dawn and Grampian Princess fishing trawlers (pictured in 2005) where moored on a jetty just shy of the Orwell Bridge for many years until they were finally scrapped last year.

Originally christened Ben Strome and Linden Lea, respectively, they were built by J Lewis & Sons of Aberdeen in the early sixties for the Aberdeen fishing fleet.

After twenty years of use as trawlers they were converted for use in the North Sea oil fields as rig support ships during the oil boom years off the east Scottish coast.

By the early nineties they had found their way to London but changes in marine craft legislation effectively put an end to their working lives and they were towed out to Ipswich.

A saviour appeared to have been found at the turn of the millennium when they were purchased by an offshore radio devotee who planned to have them fitted out as radio ships, a plan that ultimately failed.

More pictures of the pair can be found here and here.

Prior to the completion of the Wet Dock in 1842, the Common Quay (above) was the only wharf in Ipswich where merchant shipping could legally load and unload cargo and, located in front of the original customs house (a timber framed forerunner to the present day building), they would have to do so under the watchful eye of revenue officers. The earliest reference to the quay is dated 1477 so it is probably some six hundred years old.

The bottom two shots show the wet dock from Albion Wharf (just to the west of Common Quay) and Ransomes Quay (the eastern side of the waterfront).

An early Sunday morning stroll around the Ipswich waterfront proved to be something of a wildlife encounter.

Top of the bill was this seal (skin colouring suggests to me that it’s a pup/young adult) which was basking in the sun (what there was of it) on an old wooden pontoon in front of the Steamboat Tavern on New Cut West.

Some research once we got back home revealed that it’s a relatively common occurrence to see seals on the River Orwell and not that unusual for them to make it all the way up the river to the Ipswich docks. Thoughts of putting in call to the RSPCA quickly disappeared.

On the opposite side of the docks – on the Orwell Quay – we were surprised to see, within the space of a minute or so, what later proved – after more internet research – to be a Little Egret and an Oystercatcher.

So surprised that I was only able to catch one of them on camera (the Egret) and then out of focus.

The Egret has been hunted to virtual extinction twice in this country. In the fourteen, fifteen and sixteen-hundreds it was such a popular item on the dinner table of the aristocracy that it was almost eaten out of existence and again in the nineteenth century as egret feather adorned hats became a major craze.

It has since made a comeback and is now regularly seen in Southern England and here in the East.

The Oystercatcher (picture from here) breeds on almost all of Britain’s coastlines but in recent years more and more of them have started to do so inland.

As their name suggest oysters and other shell fish are a favourite the latter abundant on the mudflats of the Orwell.

Built in the Victorian era Suffolk Camra show the Steamboat Tavern as having been a licensed premises since at least 1860.

Located on New Cut West it was ideally located to serve travellers on steamboats such as the “Orwell” (pictured in the gallery) that used a nearby landing stage.

Three cranes operating on a site just south of Stoke Bridge as the construction of new homes and commercial premises picks up pace on a triangle of land between Great Whip Street, Stoke Quay and Felaw Maltings.

In relatively recent years the land had been occupied by various commercial premises including the former Graham’s builder’s merchant but, as a team from Oxford Archaeology discovered during a dig last Autumn, the land had been in use by man since at least the Middle-Late Saxon era.

Among the discoveries was an 11th Century cemetery containing approximately 300 individual graves, the lost church of St Augustine’s and various artefacts, including shroud pins and a piece of lead with runic inscriptions.

The remains – which are to be reburied elsewhere – contain mostly the very young and the very old, some thought to have had leprosy and syphilis, suggesting that this may have been a paupers cemetery.

As this area is adjacent to the first possible crossing point moving up the Orwell from the estuary – prior to modern development it would have been quite shallow and easy to ford – it is perhaps no surprise to find signs of an early settlement in this very location.