Buttermarket and King Street – Centuries of Trade and Street Life
In the heart of Victorian Ipswich, the Buttermarket was a hive of daily life — a place where commerce, conversation, and community converged beneath the watchful gaze of Georgian and early Victorian façades.
By the mid-1800s, Ipswich was a town on the rise. The arrival of the railway and the expansion of the Wet Dock and its heavy industries had transformed it into a regional powerhouse, and the Buttermarket reflected this energy. Originally established with other adjoining specialised markets the area had evolved continuously over 1,400 years to become a vibrant place where traders sold everything from fresh produce and baked goods to haberdashery and household wares.
The cobbled streets bustled with townsfolk — women in crinolines and bonnets, men in top hats and frock coats — weaving between stalls and shopfronts. Especially on market day the air was filled with the scent of bread, leather, and pipe smoke, and the soundscape was a lively mix of horse hooves, farmers’ banter, and the occasional street performer drawing a curious crowd.
Shops lining the Buttermarket and Tavern Street and their adjoining lanes catered to every need of the Victorian household. Drapers, grocers, and apothecaries stood shoulder to shoulder with public houses and coffee shops, offering respite and refreshment. Behind the scenes, apprentices swept floors and stocked shelves, learning the trades that would shape their futures.
Serving a wide part of agricultural Suffolk, this part of the town was more than just a place to buy and sell. It was a social hub — a space where news was exchanged, gossip shared, and civic life played out. Notices were posted, speeches delivered, and the rhythms of Ipswich’s growing population echoed through its stone and timber.
Before the Corn Exchange was built in the early 1880s, the corner of King Street looked very different to today. Princes St. was then a new street giving tram access to the railway station, while King Street had once extended eastwards directly into Buttermarket. The building of the new Victorian Corn Exchange behind the Town Hall at the King St. end of Buttermarket together with the development of many new commercial banks dramatically changed the area into the character we know today, while at its centre opposite Dial Lane the famous Ancient House still proudly stood just as it was built all those centuries ago, and as it still does today to remind us that the town centre uniquely retains much of its medieval human scale and character.
In the early 20th century this part of Buttermarket gradually evolved into the Giles Circus that we know today – still a lively market place under its newly established trees. These photographs show something of that gradual change.
The photographs for this article are reproduced courtesy of the Ipswich Maritime Trust Image Archive, John Field Collection.
This content has been developed with generous time and expertise donations from a number of people whom we thank for their contributions. The author of the content is Stuart Grimwade.
There are six binoculars in key historic locations around the town. You can find them all here
You can also download a map kindly curated by Historic Towns Trust on their 1904 map of Ipswich, showing the location of each set of binoculars and what the town around them used to look like.
Photographs from the Ipswich Maritime Trust’s Image Archive helped inform what you see and the content on this website.
Members of the Ipswich Maritime Trust, the Historic Towns Trust, the towns’ Tourist Guide Association and other wonderful members of the public shared their expertise on the history of Ipswich to help guide the designs and keep them accurate.
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