PHOTOGRAPHS FROM 1961
We have been lucky enough to obtain contemporary photographs from these main sources (apart from the Ipswich Society's Flickr collection, see Links).
Architect Birkin Haward oversaw the main project to repair and smarten up Fore Street. On a cold, wet day – perhaps in February 1961 – a set of monochrome photographs were taken of many of the shop-fronts and buildings which required attention. They are not of professional quality, but capture the rather poor condition of things which provoked the Ipswich Society's idea for a renovation scheme. To add interest and aid identification, Society member Tim Leggett has provided the same views as seen today. Take a look at these 'then and now' pairs of images:
Click for Selected stills from the colour Don Chipperfield film of the Fore Street Improvement Scheme, 1961 originally sponsored by The Ipswich Society. Also a selection of monochrome stills from Anglia TV of the day.
The preparations for the great event of the first official visit by a Queen of the United Kingdom to Suffolk in four hundred years are captured here in images drawn from The Ipswich Society's own Image Archive on Flickr (see Links).
The Fore St / Orwell Place junction with final touches being made to the decorations for Queen Elizabeth II's visit on 21 July 1961. The girl on the bicycle waiting at the traffic lights is wearing Northgate School for Girls summer uniform. The Spread Eagle public house is decked with garlands and has a vertical blue banner outside it.
The green garlands went the length of Fore St at the time of the Queen's visit on 21 July 1961. Considerable effort had been made to clean up and paint the shop fronts in Fore St in the months before. The central building on this view with the brick quoins is, in 2015, the East Ocean Chinese restaurant with the entrance to Dedham Place beyond it. Sneezum's store and pawnbroker business would have stood opposite. In the distance is the site of the present day Star Lane traffic cut-through.
Looking down Carr Street towards the Co-operative stores, Woolworths is at the immediate right foreground with traditional livery. Excitement mounts and chairs are being occupied to await the royal motorcade. No obvious security can be seen here.
Here is a press photograph showing the view in the opposite direction with White Horse corner and Tavern Street in the background.
The Civic College about the time of its official opening by Queen Elizabeth II on her visit to Ipswich on 21 July 1961. The open space in the foreground was later occupied by Suffolk County Council's St Edmund House. Just visible at either side of the covered entranceway is a pair of 'pylons': cast artworks by local sculptor, Bernard Reynolds. In 2015 it is perhaps ironic that the only surviving structures (and on their original sites) in this photograph are the Reynolds pylons, which are adjacent to the recently built Suffolk New College.
Eye-witness colour slides by Peter Beard. The former Wheatsheaf building draped in garlands; and a remarkably close-up photograph of the Queen as her limousine passes the cheering crowds in Fore Street, Friday 21 July 1961.
More pictures of the Queen taken on the day she officially opened Ipswich's Civic College, then attended a packed Ipswich Town Football Club ground: Friday 21 July 1961:
See also stills from the Anglia newsreel and also download the Official Programme of the Opening Ceremony of the Civic College by the Queen:
David Kindred, photographer and local history enthusiast, supplied selected photographic prints for the exhibition and this website. It is a sobering fact that this fine group of photographs recording the Fore Street Facelift 1961 might not have survived at all. The photographer is unknown, but they were probably taken for the East Anglian Daily Times and Ipswich Evening Star. They record the 'facelifted' buildings, quite a number of which no longer exist, the work being done and the decorations, also the people – children and old'uns – lined up awaiting the royal motorcade. (David also created a special page for the group on Flickr.)
See also David's Kindred Spirits article about the event and our exhibition from the Ipswich Star (28.7.2015) in our Press section:
