Ipswich, United Kingdom: Self-Guided Walking Tour

Looking for things to do in Ipswich? This Suffolk town brings together historic houses, museums, churches, sporting landmarks and traces of medieval religious life. Neywo has a free audio guide for Ipswich with 60 narrated places, helping you discover the town as you walk.

What to see in Ipswich

Christchurch Mansion

Christchurch Mansion is a substantial Tudor brick house set within Christchurch Park, close to the town centre and the southern gates. Edmund Withypoll, also recorded as Edmund Withipoll, built it around 1548 to 1550. Several noble families later owned the mansion before Ipswich Borough Council purchased it in 1884.

Since the following year, the building has been used as a museum. Its preserved rooms contain original furniture, fine clothing and children’s toys, making the lives of former residents especially tangible.

Clifford Road Air Raid Shelter

The Clifford Road Air Raid Shelter, also known as the Clifford Road Tunnels, presents everyday life on the home front during the Second World War. Part of the museum recreates the shelter during an air raid, with dim lighting, wooden benches and sounds of an attack outside.

The museum welcomes public visitors, private groups and school groups. Guided tours and group visits can also be arranged at other times.

Ipswich Museum

Ipswich Museum occupies a Grade II* listed building on High Street. The museum began in 1846, focusing mainly on natural history, and moved to its current premises in 1881. It became the leading regional museum in Suffolk, bringing together collections from what were formerly East Suffolk and West Suffolk.

In 2007, the museum service merged with Colchester’s to form Colchester and Ipswich Museums. Ipswich Museum closed in October 2022 for a refurbishment expected to last three years, so check its current status before planning a visit.

Ipswich Transport Museum

The Ipswich Transport Museum explores local transport and engineering through more than one hundred large objects. Its collection includes buses, trams, fire apparatus, bicycles and horse-drawn vehicles, as well as a notable selection of electric vehicles.

The museum began with the Ipswich Transport Preservation Group in 1965. In 1988, the group obtained the former Priory Heath trolleybus depot in Cobham Road, where the museum has welcomed the public since 1995.

Many exhibits have a strong local connection, including vehicles associated with Ipswich Corporation Transport and the Eastern Counties Omnibus Company. The collection also represents Ipswich manufacturers such as Ransomes, Sims and Jefferies, and Ransomes and Rapier.

Portman Road

Portman Road has been the home of Ipswich Town since the club moved there in 1884. The stadium’s four stands—the Sir Bobby Robson Stand, the Cobbold Stand, the Sir Alf Ramsey Stand and the West Stand—are covered and all-seater.

The ground changed considerably over time. Its stands became all-seater areas in the early 1990s following the recommendations of the Taylor Report, while major redevelopment in the early 2000s increased capacity from 22,600 to more than 30,000. Portman Road became the largest-capacity football ground in East Anglia.

The largest recorded crowd was 38,010, for Ipswich Town’s match against Leeds United in March 1975. Further investment has included new dugouts, undersoil heating and a hybrid pitch.

Ipswich Blackfriars

Ipswich Blackfriars preserves the remains of a medieval religious house in an open grassed area. The surviving footings reveal the plan of the lost church and wider conventual complex, while a fragment of the sacristy wall remains visible.

The Dominican friars, also known as Friars-preachers, founded the community in 1263 under King Henry the Third. It was dissolved in 1538. The church was dedicated to Saint Mary, and the Blackfriars community was the second of three mendicant communities established in Ipswich, after the Greyfriars and before the Whitefriars.

The former sacristy, chapter house and dormitory were later used as a schoolroom for Ipswich School until 1842. The last monastery buildings were demolished in 1849. Interpretative panels explain the remains, whose layout was illustrated and planned by Joshua Kirby in 1748.

Ipswich Castle

Ipswich once had its own medieval castle, although Ipswich Castle has now vanished. Its place in the town’s history remains part of Ipswich’s medieval story.

Giles Family

The Giles Family, also known as the Giles Statue, represents a fictional British family created by cartoonist Carl Giles. The family first appeared on 5 August 1945, at the end of the Second World War.

During the war, much of Giles’s work had focused on figures including Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini and the typical British Tommy. After the war, he broadened his subjects, and the Giles family emerged from that change.

Ipswich’s churches and local buildings

Ipswich’s religious buildings add another layer to the town’s architectural character. Places included in the city’s audio-guide collection include All Hallows Church, the Church of All Saints, Alan Road Methodist Church, Bramford Road Methodist Church and Castle Hill United Reformed Church.

Other local points of interest include 9, St Margaret’s Plain, also known as Bethesda, and Burlington Hall. Each offers a smaller-scale glimpse of Ipswich’s built environment and local places of worship.

Explore Ipswich with a free audio guide

For an Ipswich self-guided walking tour, download Neywo and explore at your own pace. The app offers two walking tours and one bus route in Ipswich, with narration available in 11 languages.

The walks are:

• Wolsey’s Town: Martyrs, Merchants and Medieval Churches — 3.52 km, 110 minutes and 12 narrated stops.
• Park, Paintings and Playhouses — 2.69 km, 78 minutes and 8 narrated stops.

There is also Bus 4: the churches of old Ipswich, a 2 km route lasting 9 minutes with 5 narrated stops.

Neywo tells the story of each place as you reach it, at your own pace, with no group and no schedule. It includes 60 narrated places across Ipswich, from churches and museums to Portman Road and Christchurch Mansion. You can also continue planning your trip through England or the wider United Kingdom.