Ipswich Blackfriars

Ipswich Blackfriars
Saint Mary, Blackfriars, Ipswich
Remains of St Mary, Blackfriars, Ipswich
Ipswich Blackfriars Location in Suffolk
52°03′18″N 1°09′30″E / 52.0550°N 1.1584°E / 52.0550; 1.1584 (Ipswich Blackfriars)Coordinates: 52°03′18″N 1°09′30″E / 52.0550°N 1.1584°E / 52.0550; 1.1584 (Ipswich Blackfriars)
Location	Ipswich, Suffolk
Country	England
Denomination	Roman Catholic
History
Founded	1263
Dedication	Saint Mary
Architecture
Closed	1538

Ipswich Blackfriars was a Dominican friary in the centre of Ipswich, Suffolk, England, of which only ruins now remain. The friary was under the Visitation of Cambridge. It was founded in 1263 and dissolved in 1538.^[1]

Two sets of excavations, one in the late nineteenth century and one in the 1970s and 1980s, recovered much of the plan of the entire complex, and particularly the church and east cloister range.^[2]

Henry III established Dominican friars at Ipswich in 1263. Land was purchased by both the king and Robert Kilwardby, the Dominican provincial and the future archbishop of Canterbury. The house was suppressed by the Bishop of Dover in 1538 and was eventually sold to William Aubyn, one of the king's serjeants-at-arms.

52°03′18″N 1°09′30″E / 52.0550°N 1.1584°E / 52.0550; 1.1584 (Ipswich Blackfriars)

The lost domestic and conventual buildings of Ipswich Blackfriars, engraved by J. Wood, drawn and published by Joshua Kirby in his 12 Plates of Suffolk Antiquities (1748). The Friary Church, formerly to the left of this group, is not shown having already been demolished.

References