Borin Van Loon: Ipswich Historic Lettering: Rose & Crown

Rose & Crown Brewery

'DAN...INCE' That mystery lettering solved! [see Update 5.1.10 below]

Anyone walking regularly down Bramford Road from the busy junction with Norwich Road could easily miss this most elusive sign. The side wall of the Rose and Crown public house with its frontage and small triangular car park on the corner, extends down Bramford Road with the meeting room above. One can only conjecture the way in which the buildings were once put to use. The sign clearly states:

'ROSE & CROWN BREWERY
DAN... INCE'

The whole wall itself tells a story. One window bricked up, another cut into the wall right in the middle of the sign; some of the lettering obscured by a vertical iron wall truss and down-pipe. (Close-up below.)

Those fugitive characters, in close up and enhanced, with heavy drop-shadow (plus two full stops) on a black painted panel.
[UPDATE 23.2.08: New management at the Rose & Crown has resulted in the upstairs meeting room at the rear of the premises (the outside wall of which we show here) being stripped back to bare brick and boards, to be used as a music venue. Vestiges of the old brewery can be seen - or imagined - the 'rough hewn' look of the room adding to the period feel.
Ipswich Historic Lettering: 19i

[UPDATE 5.1.10: Dave Riseborough tipped us off about the CAMRA website (see Links) which contains fascinating historical background to some of the pubs featured. "Concerning the "DAN....INCE" letters under the Rose And Crown Brewery sign, something which I have wondered about since I was a child, I note that on the Suffolk CAMRA pub website the Rose And Crown had a landlord named Daniel Vince between 1855 and about 1879 - so maybe it is his name there." Here's a summary from that CAMRA page:

"1830s brew pub
My Parents Charles and Hilda Elvin were the licensees from 1944 to about 1948, after being bombed out of the Malthouse Pub in Ipswich. My sister Mary was born at the Rose and Crown on the 13th July 1946 and it has been suggested that she was the only female child ever born there? We moved to New Zealand in 1950 and I currently reside at the Gold Coast in Queensland Australia. (information from Geoffrey Elvin)

Recorded publicans
1823 Thomas Clarke [1]
1844 Westrop William Waller [2]
1855 Danl. Vince [2]
1869 Daniel Vince [3]
1871 Peter Johnson [4]
       Sailor/27/Gothenburgh, Sweden
1871 Esther Bunyard [4]
       Wife/62/Stowmarket
1871 Harry Banyard [4]
       Hawker/62/Stowmarket
1871 Alice Jennings [4]
       General servant/24/Sproughton
1871 Alice Jennings [4]
       General servant/24/Sproughton
1871 Daniel Vince [4]
       Inn Keeper/60/Bildestone
1871 Daniel Vince [4]
       Inn Keeper/60/Bildestone
1874 Daniel Vince [2]
1879 Robert Garrard [5]
1891 Robert Garrard [3]
1892 Robert Garrard [5]
1937 ALFRED WILLIAM CHANDLER [5]
1944-48 - Charles and Hilda Elvin
1952 PJ Flegg [5]
1956 PJ Flegg [5]

Information sources
[1] Pigot's Directory
[2] White's Directory
[3] Post Office Directory
[4] Suffolk Census
[5] Kelly's Directory]

Just around the corner in the narrow Gaye Street is the somewhat mysterious, modern, bricked up shop frontage bearing the initials 'TFL' (what challenges would have faced the bricklayer if one of the initials had been an 'S'?). This lays back from the corner with Benezet Street.
[UPDATE 23.2.08: This example has now been demolished and builder's shuttering now surrounds the corner site. Slavery abolitionists celebrated in Ipswich street names - including a Quaker called Claude Gay - even though this street name includes an 'e' at the end.]

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Rose & Crown Brewery

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