History

There has been a church on this site at least since the Domesday Book. It was presumably built near a tower on the town walls, and it quickly came to be seen as the principal church of the Borough.

From 1177 it was staffed by Augustinian Canons. In 1200, it was the scene of the reading of King John's new charter for the Borough. The Merchants' Guild Chaplain also functioned as schoolmaster of the ancestor of today's Ipswich School.

After the Reformation, Ipswich was a stronghold of Puritanism, and Tower clergy were imprisoned for attacks on Church and Regime. After Charles II was restored in 1660, however, the Tower became a center of the High Church party and ever more closely associated with the Corporation of the town. While Ipswich was a garrison town, it was also the Garrison Church.

The rebuilding of the church commenced in 1850, under the direction of the architect Richard Phipson. A dozen years later, this continued at the expense of churchwarden George Bacon, Mayor of Ipswich at the time. At this time, the church was widened and heightened. A new 176 foot tall spire was put in place above the South entrance and almost all the fittings were replaced. The 18th Century pulpit only just survived, its tester only being returned years later after being used as a hall table. Memorial tablets were tidied away into the corners. The font of early 15th Century provenance was moved as well, and many new fittings and stained glass added.

In this way much classical work in the church was swept away in a way that we might consider vandalism. On the other hand, a large and noble church was the result, committed to the architectural and liturgical ideals of the Oxford Movement.

By Stephen Johnson