The doorway above seems to echo the doorways of Clifford
Road School that bear lettering of a similar vintage above them:
'PATHOLOGY'
belonging
to the old Anglesea Road Hospital which stood above the top of Berners
Street.
This rather battered doorway is just off Ivry Street and is the side
door
of the present Institute of Family Psychiatry building. -
Not far from this door stands another, very different,
but related doorway.
Different in that it is less deco than baroque with its pillars and
mouldings, but
also
in that it leads nowhere, serving as a frame for the plaque
commemorating
Ipswich and East Suffolk (Anglesea Road) Hospital and its conversion
into
'Anglesea Heights'. The original hospital building designed by William
Parkes
Robbins in 1836 has been preserved and this doorway to the 'VICTORIA
WING'
(the wing designed by E.E. Bisshopp in 1892) was saved, thank goodness,
from the widespread demolition on the site. It now stands in the car
park
where one or two other sculptural details including the fine
comemoration
plaque for the 'Ipswich War Memorial Wing' which stood on the site.
(Photograph courtesy Mike
O'Donovan)
'ST PETERS HALL
TO THE GLORY OF GOD
AND IN THE MEMORY OF
MRS J. H. BARTLET
AD 1911'
In St Peters Street is a memorial to the wife of Dr. John Henry
Bartlet who left left £250k in stocks and
shares in his will when
he died aged 87 in 1917 to be used for the provision of the the
Bartlet Hospital above the seafront in Felixstowe. John
Henry was a surgeon based at Ipswich Hospital. He
was also the son of an Ipswich surgeon and therefore had a good
understanding of healthcare and the need for convalescent care. Before
he died aged 87, he made a will that made provision of a convalescent
home as he identified the gap in the general care of
patients. The Trust money transferred in
1947 has
apparently vanished
without a trace: financial records from the NHS were not kept until
1996! The bank that the money was in has no record of where it
has gone. The Bartlet was closed in January 2008. [Information
from Bartlet Bequest Action Group] There is a
somewhat similar
inscription over the door on the building to the left of the entrance
to Anglesea Heights, formerly Anglesea Road Hospital where Dr. Bartlet
used to work. Thanks to Mike O'Donovan for this example and the next.
'IPSWICH SANATORIUM'
(Photograph courtesy
Mike
O'Donovan)
Mike O'Donovan writes: "I took
[the above image] a
good few years ago at the entrance to what was then Hightrees
Adolescent Unit off Foxhall Road on the outskirts of the town. It reads:
"Erected by voluntary subscription as a memorial to King Edward VII.
The site being presented by Mr. E. G. Pretyman, M.P."
I'm not sure if it still exists. The area is now the Nuffield [on the
other side of the road to the Foxhall speedway stadium]."
The blocked out lettering at the top of the tablet was conjectured to
read
'FOXHALL HOSPITAL' (although the spacing isn't convincing). We asked if
this tablet still exists... See UPDATES below for answers to both
questions.
The original Foxhall Hospital (the King Edward Memorial Sanatorium) was
built in 1912 as an isolation hospital for people with lung disorders,
particularly TB sufferers. After it closed down in 1975 it was used as
a centre for displaced Vietnamese “boat people” in the
early 1980’s. Suffolk Coastal District Council planners agreed to
the site being used again as a hospital-type facility after rejecting
housing proposals a number of times. Demolition of the original
hospital buildings started early in 1990 when developers began a
project to turn the building and its 19 acre site into a 58 bedroom
private hospital.
Foxhall is one of those names more associated with a road - which
begins at the top of Grove Lane in Ipswich and runs all the way to
Bucklesham - than a specific place, even though it was mentioned in the
Domesday Book in 1086. The Parish boundaries are very roughly:
the Foxhall Road in the north
the Ipswich- Felixstowe railway
to the south
the A12/14 to the east
the western boundary is formed by
the upper part of Mill River, wending through Brookhill Wood and
south to the Shepherd & Dog public House.
This last may come as a surprise to
those who wouldn't think of the Shepherd & Dog as being in Foxhall.
The Speedway stadium over the road from Foxhall Hospital, even though
it bears the name 'Foxhall' is actually in Kesgrave parish due to
boundary changes in 1984.
[UPDATE 6.10.2010:The original Foxhall Hospital (the King
Edward Memorial Sanatorium) Tablet - from Ross Greuber, to whom
our thanks. "I was interested in your article about the location of the
tablet. Unfortunately, the original hospital buildings have been
demolished, but the tablet with the inscriptions still survive, and
were transplanted to a little outhouse near the new hospital. It is
visible from the entrance to the main carpark, and can be accessed up
the steps leading to the main building. There is a feature inside the
Nuffield hospital of the original buildings in a picture frame in the
main waiting area. Hope this information helps. Ross"]
[UPDATE 18.11.2011: "I just
came across your website about historic lettering in Ipswich. The
blanked out part of the tablet that used to stand at the gate of
Foxhall Hospital read "Ipswich Sanatorium". The Sanatorium only
became "Foxhall Hospital" after the second world war. The name
was blanked out during the war just in case of invasion by the Germans
- to stop them from knowing where they were. For the same reason
many road signs were removed. However, there was another
identical tablet inside the grounds of the Sanatorium, which they
neglected to blank out! And that's how we know what it
said. I know this because I grew up in the grounds: my Dad
was superintendent of the hospital between 1951 and 1965.
Regards, Richard McNab"] Many thanks to these contributors,
particularly for the definitive eye-witness testimony.
Perhaps we ought also to commemorate here the long vanished sign
further up the road which bore the legend 'FOXHALL ISOLATION HOSPITAL'. It
stood at the entry to a track leading off Foxhall Road across a
farmer's field about half way between the USAF aerial mast next to the
Bell Lane junction and the present Foxhall Recycling site. A large
building lurked in the trees, largely invisible when they were clothed
in leaves. There was the air of an institution deliberately remote from
everyday life. We believe that this is now a private residence.
St Clements Hospital One tiny piece of lettering on a stone block has so far eluded
us: the boundary marker for St Clements parish which stretches all the
way from the Wet Dock to, we believe, St Clements Hospital in
Foxhall Road. Clearly set in a red brick wall the square stone marker
appears to have been painted white, with incised lettering picked out
in black:
'St
C+B'
which we assume to stand
for 'St Clements Boundary'. There may be other such boundary
markers in the town.
Mike O'Donovan sends some images about St Clements Hospital. (All photographs courtesy
Mike
O'Donovan)
Mike writes: "I used to work at St.
Clements Hospital
and was very lucky to get hold of some old photos, some of which were
taken in the 1880s. The attached one is a view of the back of the
hospital, which was then know as "The Ipswich Borough Asylum". The
original is a bit faded so I touched it up just a fraction. The
colour
one is a view of the hospital as it now looks. "
"The photo of the hospital grounds was taken in what is now the
football/cricket area. The golf course is more to the front of the
picture.
Regarding Dr. Chevallier, he was in charge of The Grove [an asylum just
off Grove Lane, finally demolished in thew late 1980s] before becoming
the second Medical Superintendent of the Borough Asylum (St. Clements).
Here are some details of his life which you may find interesting.
He was born on January 17th 1819 and died on August 21st 1889. He
was educated at Charterhouse and was a Scholar of Brasenose
College, Oxford. He matriculated March 10th 1837. B.A. 1840. M.A. 1843.
B. Med. 1846. D. Med. 1852. M.R.C.P. (London) 1859. J.P. for the County
of Suffolk. Mayor of Ipswich 1874. Medical Superintendent of St.
Clements October 1st 1877 to August 21st 1889.
His father Revd. John Chevallier married three times. His second wife
was Dr. Chevallier's mother and his third wife was the mother of
Frances Anne Chevallier who married Lieutenant Colonel Henry Horatio
Kitchener. Their son was the famous "Your Country Needs You" Lord
Horatio Kitchener (1850 - 1916).
Not a lot of people are aware of the above info." Our Street Name page notes that Chevallier
Street, which runs between Norwich Road and Bramford Road, linking
Yarmouth Road and Valley Road ('the old by-pass), commemorates Dr
Barrington Chevallier. For many years the Chevallier Club - a few doors
down from the Inkerman pub - which (regrettably) became commonly known
as "The Chev" - was a well-known night spot; it's now a restaurant.
"Attached are two more photos from my collection. The first one has the
title "cricket field" on the back and the second one has the title
"Male Court M 1 July 28 1880". The originals are more of a sepia colour
and have some damage which I managed to repair in the copies. The
pictures are more than likely unique."
-
(All photographs courtesy
Mike
O'Donovan)
