IPSWICH A HUB FOR SUFFOLK RAILWAYS PART ONE
Photographs from the author’s collection
As long ago as 1836 railway pioneers set out to construct a railway line runnning north east from London to the county town of East Suffolk. Over the next 50 years Ipswich became the operational centre for a series of tracks striking out in many directions to towns in Suffolk, Essex, Norfolk, Cambridgeshire and further afield. By 1885 Ipswich engine shed presented a range of routes for its enginemen. This article outlines the history of the railway network these men worked. The story is complex but as far as possible I will lay it out in the chronological order of building.
The railway comes to Ipswich: The Eastern Counties Railway and the Eastern Union Railway (1837-1846)
The Eastern Counties Railway (ECR), authorised by Act of Parliament on 4th July 1836, was intended to build a railway from London to Norwich and Great Yarmouth (via Debenham and Eye). The company’s English engineer, John Braithwaite, constructed the line to a gauge of 5ft with provision for later widening to 7ft. Building commenced in late March 1837. West of Stratford the line traversed Bow Marshes and after that the urban environment of the area meant that the railway had to be built on costly viaducts. Braithwaite’s grand vision of magnificent structures, sweeping viaducts etc was not the cheap option. However, crossing the mostly arable land east of Stratford was comparatively easy and a two-track railway opened for traffic on 20th June 1839 from a temporary terminus at Devonshire Street in Mile End to Romford in Essex. On 1st July 1840 the ECR opened extensions at the London end to its intended permanent terminus at Shoreditch (renamed Bishopsgate in 1846) and at the country end to Brentwood.
Parliament approved more funding for the 64 bridges or viaducts, culverts, embankments and cuttings needed to complete the line to Colchester and work continued. The very wet winter of 1841 hindered work further and, by the time their railway reached Colchester in March 1843, the directors faced severe financial problems and were unable proceed further. Nevertheless goods trains started to operate the 51 miles between London and Colchester on 7th March 1843 and passenger services commenced on 29th March. At the recommendation of Robert Stephenson, the gauge was converted to ‘standard’ 4ft 8gin between September and October 1844.
The local worthies of Ipswich did not sit back and await developments. With true Victorian entrepreneurial vigour they took matters into their own hands. Enter here (or re-enter, for both had been involved in the Eastern Counties Railway) two outstanding figures of the Victorian age: John Chevallier Cobbold and Peter Schuyler Bruff. Cobbold was of the famous Suffolk family now chiefly known for brewing and for its involvement with Ipswich Town Football Club, and was also involved in banking, shipping and local and national politics.
Bruff, a self-confident and innovative civil engineer, is sometimes called ‘the Brunel of East Anglia’. I think he was a cross between Isambard Kingdom Brunel and a Victorian Richard Branson. The unrelenting Bruff engineered the Chappel Viaduct for the Colchester, Stour Valley, Sudbury & Halstead Railway between 1847 and 1849. He then went on to transform coastal farmland into flourishing seaside
