DECEMBER 2008 REPORT
Mr Fox who talked to us in December about ‘Historic Streets of Ipswich’ is into maps. As a consequence he was particularly appreciative of the map we sent him to guide him to the Village Hall which he said made finding the place a doddle. The resonance of Ipswich street names opens up an immediate insight into the history of the place, and it saddens him that schools in the area no longer study local history. Did you know that the Corn Hill was once part of a Roman road, that Majors Corner was named after a dyer and cloth merchant, that the portmen of Portman Road once governed Ipswich, That Dogs Head Street came from a pub called the Dog’s Head in a Pot, and that Tacket Street probably derives from the old English ‘tac’ – a small peninsula surrounded by water on two sides? The derivation of Silent Street is not certain but it is known that it was once owned by Sir Robert Curzon who opened his property to war wounded. The noise from carts coming to the local market which could have disturbed the invalids was deadened by spreading straw on the road.
V E Bines
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