Borin Van Loon: Ipswich Historical Lettering: Bishops Hill

Bishop's Hill

Leaving the town centre from the Duke Street roundabout, Fore Hamlet starts to rise quite steeply. The retaining wall to the left of the road (pictured below) holds back the raised gardens as one reaches the top of Bishop's Hill (just before it becomes Felixstowe Road). This area was clearly a desirable spot, sitting opposite the corner entrance of Hollywells Park and looking over the docks. The ancient hub of the old town has been described as dish-shaped around the entrance made by the great Orwell river. The combination of deep clays and green sands results in water percolating up from springs, filtered and cleaned and being unable to soak back through layers of clay. The springs used to flow freely down the sloping streets towards the Wet Dock (hence Spring Road - the surrounding streets still witness natural flows of water under brick walls and through tarmac, The Wash and Stepples Street.).

The large house behind the two-colour brickwork wall shown has lost some of its garden to a blocks of flats. This road is now inflicted with fast moving traffic; it is doubtful whether many passers-by notice the lettering. The long diamond patterning stretching up this ancient wall suddenly becomes 'BISHOPS+HILL', though shaded by overgrowing ivy when these pictures were taken. This has since been trimmed, making the lettering more noticeable.

Below is a photograph of the wall in 2010: the overhanging shrubs have almost gone, but the algae on the upper brickwork makes legibility difficult. The enhancement below makes things a bit clearer.
Ipswich Historic Lettering: Bishop's Hill 1

Ipswich Historic Lettering: Bishop's Hill 1

However, it was not always thus. The photograph from about 1905 (below) shows that Bishops Hill was considerably narrower then with no pavement on the side which concerns us here. The tram makes its way up the centre of the incline towards its terminus at The Royal Oak public house at the junction with Derby Road, while dog-carts and horse traffic fit into the spaces at the sides. The 1921 widening clearly involved demolition of the retaining wall and a decorative rebuild avec lettering involving some loss of gardens to the properties. More on the history of Ipswich tramways.

While we're in this area, let's (for a change) take a bird's eye view of the site of this lettering.
Bishops Hill - bird's eye view
Fascinating to see what the retaining wall bearing the 'Bishop's Hill' brickwork lettering (indicated at bottom left) is protecting. This is an oasis of tree-circled civilization lying to the west of Rosehill Crescent and accessed by a drive further down Bishop's Hill. Despite the ugly modern flats built on the corner, presumably in the garden of the large house (circled), this is still a sizeable plot. Here's an insight:

"On the subject of views across town, ... we looked at the big house that's hidden on the left as you go up Bishop's Hill. It's listed but was in a real state (hence the asking price that we could afford). The house was being sold by an elderly twin, his brother had died and they had lived there as recluses since birth. The place was tatty, but it was a beautiful example of Georgian architecture, loads of great detailing and original fittings that hadn't really ever been touched, particularly the shutters in the dining room - quite something. Anyway the view from the garden across the town was stunning taking in the docks and the whole of the centre of the town. We didn't buy it in the end as we could afford the house on its own but would have had to forego food and water for a few years after (to carry out renovations.

(The house has) listed status, I seem to recall the council were involved at the time and the owners wanting to ensure the house was only sold to people with the money to restore it. If I were you I'd wander up that driveway and knock on the door. To add a further twist, the remaining twin knew my late Grandfather (well, my Mum's, Mum's second husband who was always our Grandpa as far as we were aware) Noel Turner who was partner in Garrod, Turner & Son, Fine Art Auctioneers, he was involved in the collection of paintings by Suffolk artists they had up there, it was all on the wall when we looked round..."

Our thanks to Justin Kibble for this account.

So, why 'Bishop's Hill'? The answer is given on our 'Ransomes' page, suffice to say that one of the four hamlets into which the ancient town was once divided was the Bishop's Wick which stretched from Bisop's Hill down to the river. The moated residence of the Bishop of Norwich stood in Holywells Park from 1235 until the dissolution by Henry VIII.

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Bishop's Hill

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