Blackfriars

The ruins of a 13th-16th Century Friary Church are the only substantial remains of a medieval community's foundation in Ipswich. The church of the Dominicans, the Blackfriars, whose Friary of the Blessed Virgin lay to the south of Tacket Street, was excavated by archaeologists in the 1980s. Five monasteries once stood in Ipswich and none of them survives today. Only the ruins of the Blackfriars Monastery give an idea of what these medieval monasteries looked like while the others have completely disappeared.

In 1263, the Friary was founded and remained there for over 250 years. In the 16th Century, Henry VIII ordered to dissolve the monasteries and give their property to the state. After the closing in 1537, the monastery buildings were left standing - unlike their church of St. Peter and Paul whose ground was used to build a college. But in the 17th century they fell into disuse and some of them were quickly pulled down. After some decades, only the four arches of the Friary remained visible. It wasn’t until the 1980s that the rest of the monastery was uncovered again and preserved. These measures also uncovered one of only three surviving stone altar structures in Suffolk.