Ipswich Audio Tours

Ipswich has been a working port since the 7th century, when it was known as Gipeswic and shipped wool for the Kingdom of East Anglia. Cardinal Wolsey was born here in 1473, and the sole remnant of his ambitious college project, Wolsey's Gate on College Street, still stands as a reminder that even the most powerful men can leave behind only fragments. King John granted the town its first charter in 1200, and the Cornhill at the town's heart has served as a market square for most of those eight hundred years.

What keeps Ipswich surprising is the way medieval and modern architecture sit shoulder to shoulder without apology.

The Ancient House on the Buttermarket, with its extravagant 17th-century pargeting plasterwork, stands a short walk from the 1975 Willis Building by Norman Foster, which became the youngest Grade I listed structure in England when it was designated in 1991. Down at the regenerated waterfront, the University of Suffolk occupies converted dock buildings where the Orwell estuary opens out toward the North Sea.