Electricity Work For You (sic)
Possibly the ugliest building in Ipswich up until
recently, this Electricity
sub-station with its iron-plated frontage and just-readable lettering:
'Electricity
Work For You' (perhaps it had a 'Let' in front of it?) lies on Duke
Street,
facing the end of Coprolite Street. The whole area is being transformed
by development and building work (whether it's an improvement on
deserted
wharves, only time will tell) and this building is no exception. The
nearby, long-disused Garrett Hall on the corner of Back Hamlet and Fore
Hamlet has undergone a wonderful refurbishment with decorative
stonework and restored brick details; needless to say it's now flats.
The above is now a glittering fish restaurant in glass
and chrome, Mortimers
having moved from a site near to the Customs House, to be replaced by a
bistro. The shape of things to come... Now a vague memory: here's that
slogan
of yore:
Coprolite Street gained its name from the fertiliser
plant owned by the pioneering Edward Packard built at the dock end of
this street in 1850,
which processed the fossilised dung for improvement of agricultural
soils.
This is now the site of the Netune Quay block of flats on one side and
the
Suffolk University building on the other. Below is a photograph
from the sixties(?) of the factory, the fascade with teagle door and
overhanging gantry facing the waterfront. Coprolite Street (with cars
parked) runs away from the water towards the Electricity sub-station.
Above the car nearest to the corner is affixed to the filthy 'Suffolk
whites' wall the street nameplate with superior 'T' in 'Street'.
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throughout the Ipswich
Historic Lettering site: Borin Van Loon
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