There was said to have been some kind of
castle built in Ipswich after
the Conquest, perhaps in the early year's of William I's reign as part of
his programme to subdue the country. Matilda's son Henry besieged it in
1152, in the latter stages of the civil war. It was later again held
against him when Hugh Bigot supported the rebellion of Henry II's sons.
That latest in a series of problems with the incorrigibly rebellious Bigot
earls of Norfolk led to Ipswich castle's demolition (along with other Bigot
castles in the region) by Henry II in 1176. Construction of
rampart and ditch defences was begun
ca.1204 – although this may only have been an overhaul and/or expansion
of an earlier fortification; that it was the king who took the initiative
here, using labour from Suffolk and Cambridge, hints at a defensive
imperative at that time rather than local ambitions. There were plans
for a wall, but it is not clear how far they were carried out, and we
find none of the applications to the king for murage that could be
expected if a major wall-building project had been initiated. There
are references between early fourteenth and late fifteenth centuries
to properties adjacent to town walls, but a larger number to those
abutting onto the "great ditches" or "wall-ditches", some of which
must have connected to the river, since we hear of fish-traps in them.
One grant of part of the ditches, in 1302, was revocable if walls were
ever built there. Possibly walls were erected only around parts of the
town and reliance elsewhere was placed on the earthworks; the
northwestern sector of the town was a part protected by a wall, and
near that corner were one or more "barred
gates", while other gates were
on the northern and
eastern sides. The rivers provided a
natural barrier in the south and south-east.
During the Late Middle Ages most towns tried to stay neutral in national
political struggles, and their interest in fortifications was as much a
matter of controlling trade (to channel it through supervised town
entrances/exits) as of protection. Only once do we find some
militaristic alarm in Ipswich when, in October 1452, it was ordained
that all burgesses be in possession of a bow and arrows, sword and
shield, and other weapons, and ensure that their adult employees or
servants have a cudgel handy, and that all be prepared to respond day or
night to a summons from the bailiffs. Since active hostilities between
Yorkists and Lancastrians were then in hiatus, the concern may have been
with a more local dispute – perhaps that between the town and the
Prior of Ely (landlord of local property) which had prompted forceful
action by the borough against the Prior's enclosure of common pasture
in 1451, and was before the king's court throughout the 1450s. Although
Ipswich has been described as Yorkist in its sympathies, and certainly
Sir John Howard had some influence there (as elsewhere in East Anglia)
it was rather that a few prominent townsmen and rural gentry of the
neighbourhood had Yorkist affiliations. The corporation itself shows
no signs of taking sides, while the ordinance
of 1474 suggests that the borough was tired of being used as a pawn for
individuals to assert exercise political influence
through parliament.
Although St. Mary Tower, as we have seen
from the events of 1200, may have been the
site of the folkmoot around that time (and its significance is further
suggested by the fact that curfew was rung there), when a moothall was
built it was on the south side of Cornhill.
This was a more important location, in terms of administration of commerce,
since the large corn market was there; the commercial role of the borough
authorities is reflected in the alternate name by which the moothall was
sometimes known: the Tolhouse. The building may have been in existence by
1212, for the bailiffs' defence against the
complaint of Elias de Gippewyc about the
relocation of the fish market (to the vicinity of Cornhill) was in part
that it was to make collection of tolls easier. Adjacent to the moothall
site was St. Mildred's which, previously a
parish church, appears to have been absorbed into the moothall property
in the 14th century. In 1391 the borough authorities were acquiring
another adjacent piece of land, presumably for further expansion of the
administrative facilities.
As for most boroughs, the cost of maintenance and repairs to the
moothall and other public properties became an increasing burden. In
1361 the borough authorities assigned certain sources of income to
repairing the moothall and one of the town bridges; at the same time
we hear that the authorities had recently built a new set of butchers'
stalls in the meat market, which it then leased to two townsmen.
Renovations to a house at one end of the moothall were initiated in 1435;
and we hear of new construction at the end of the "plea-hall" in 1448, the
costs to be covered from escheats, estreats from Sessions of the Peace,
and freemen's entrance fines. In 1446 there is reference to the borough
leasing to butchers stalls in the "Flesh-house", although whether
the stalls in 1361 were within a permanent superstructure is unknown.
In 1391 the borough had two water-mills
built on common land between the town bridge and Stoke bridge – one was
used for grinding corn, the other for fulling cloth. The construction work
was accomplished by granting the land to a small committee of burgesses who
financed the construction and recouped their costs from the profits of the
mill, after which they regranted the land and mills to the
community; this
brought legal problems, obliging the borough authorities to obtain a
royal licence to hold the property in mortmain. In 1435
Stoke Bridge itself was in need of
rebuilding, and one of the town's wealthiest merchants, John Caldwell,
offered to finance this, if the borough would make a contribution; at some
point before 1477 a gate was built to control access over the bridge. The
town conduit required work in 1451 as did houses associated with it, while
repairs to the town quay were the reason
for a levy on the community in 1473; two years later it was the town mill
and fishmarket that demanded attention, and in 1477 a new crane was needed
for the quay.
History of
medieval Ipswich
