GeoSuffolk’s new, free leaflet focusing on the geology of our townscape will be launched at St Peters by the Waterfront on September 14th to celebrate Heritage Open Days. It is the latest in a series of leaflets we have written on the geology of Suffolk – all on our website. There is such a wealth of geological material in the buildings, streets, and parks of Ipswich that this leaflet practically wrote itself!
The deposits which underlie Suffolk have a fascinating story all of their own, but they provide little in the way of good quality building materials. Ipswich has several examples of the use of the mudstone (from the London Clay with outcrops along our shores) in its Medieval buildings. The leaflet uses the Blackfriars ruins to show this, and St Nicholas church which also has fine examples of local knapped flint. The beautiful 12th century Belgian limestone font in St Peters is a very early example of imported stone, presumably possible because of our waterfront location.
Our good communications by land and sea have certainly added to the variety of our building materials. Once the railway arrived in 1846 the Victorians imported stone from around Britain for our civic buildings – limestones from Bath and Dorset and sandstone from Nottinghamshire are used in the Town Hall. The terracotta ornamentation on the Museum façade were made in Lambeth. The Victorians also dug out the Wet Dock – the sarsen stones they found there are in the rockery in Christchurch Park.
And what of the 21st century? – the Question on the Waterfront of course. The beautiful Portuguese marble and Uruguayan dolerite indicate our ability now to import rocks from anywhere on the planet. Do keep an eye out for the leaflet during Heritage Open Days, copies will be at various outlets around Ipswich – or download one from the GeoSuffolk web site www.geosuffolk.co.uk. GeoSuffolk is indebted to the Ipswich Society http://www.ipswichsociety.org.uk/ for their support for this project.
Text by Caroline Markham – GeoSuffolk
Photos Blackfriars, Cornhill, GeoSuffolk logo and a sneak preview of the new leaflet!
Who wrote this about Ipswich?
Caroline Markham
Caroline Markham is a Geologist and a member of the Executive Committee of The Ipswich Society
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