Isaac Lord was a local businessman who bought this site on |  |
In 1961, Stuart Cooper - son of Reginald - joined the business, and with his wife Georgina, invested time and funds in the regeneration of the buildings, with help from English Heritage and Ipswich Borough Council.
1997, 1999 and 2003 saw the complex win The Ipswich Society’s Award of Distinction for exceptionally high quality repairs.
The current owner intends carrying on this fine work, with a view to opening up the whole site with a mixture of shopping and leisure purposes.
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Letter regarding the bombing of the foreman’s cottage in the home yard at Issac Lord :-
Dear Mr Cooper
You may recall that on the evening of 25th October at the Ipswich Institute we talked about the bombing of the rear of Isaac Lord’s premises. To my great surprise the official account of all the 1939 – 1945 incidents does not mention dates for that particular action, and also does not take the area affected beyond Yandells works at the lower end of Foundation Street.
However, in the book “Air Raid” by M J F Bowyer the East Anglian actions for 26/27th of February 1941, he does give an account of the Key St / Salthouse raid of the afternoon of the 27th.
Michael Bowyer has included a number of small errors in his book, and you will notice “Quay St” and “Keith St” as obvious examples. He also identifies the aircraft involved as a HE 111 which dropped 4 bombs -- in fact the machine was a JU 88 which released 5 medium HE’s, the last of which being ‘yours’.
At the time I was an apprentice at the works of Lock & Stagg in Friars Road. They had lost so much time due to so many false air raid warnings that they started a scheme where on receipt of a warning the staff would continue to work as normal. One poor soul was sent up to a roof lookout to keep all nine of his eyes peeled, he had a button connected to an electric horn in the works. If Jerry arrived the button was pressed and the staff took cover in the pits. I was then 16 years of age and keen on aircraft recognition, and so won the post (against no opposition!) of being the man on the roof.
That afternoon the warning was given and I went aloft armed with a brass telescope and a too large W.W.I.TIN hat. A Blenheim MK. It came over and orbited the town four or five times, and tailed off to the S.W. All was then quiet and I reclined on the roof cladding, quite at ease.
After ten minutes or so, engine noise came from the West, a point in my vision blocked by the roof of the stores. I assumed this to be the Blenheim returning, but as it sailed over at no more than 1500 feet, it was this JU 88; a beautiful pale blue underneath and bomb doors already open. As I watched five bombs detached and raced over like downwind partridges. After pressing the horn button I stood and watched the aircraft climb away and the H.E.’s dip into the gap between St Marys Church and Cranfields.
The first explosions threw up great shooting spikes of dark boiling, rolling dust and debris reaching out on an exact radius from the ground – all very impressive. If the load on the 88 that day had included a case or two of incendiaries, the outcome would have been quite different.
I felt that the German crews were never as good as R.A.F. trained men – thank God, and around here at least was quite spasmodic and poorly organised and in small numbers.
I hope that all this ancient, tattered old rope of passed days is of some interest to you.
Yours sincerely Ken Leighton