The River Gipping
Although today the River Gipping barely nudges the western extremity of Stowupland, historically it played a significant role in the development of the Uplands. Prior to the 1930s the river marked a boundary between Stowupland and Stowmarket but now this role has been usurped by the A14.
In Ena Carter’s notes she recorded that in 1618 ‘The river hath these bridges at Stow, at Needham, at Bramford, at Sproughton and at Stoke near Ipswich’ (From Reyce’s “Breviary of Suffolk” published in 1902, p53/4).
These photos were published in 1954 in the July edition of The East Anglian Magazine, to accompany an article by Walter Tye. They show 2 extreme views of the Gipping in Stowmarket. The top one from 1912 shows the Gipping during flooding (the footbridge is long gone), whilst the bottom one from 1954 shows a very dried up river, at a time when it was described as being little more than a sewer.
In the 1790’s the Gipping was transformed from a meandering stream to a canal along which barges could transport goods between Stowupland Bridge, Stowmarket and Ipswich. 15 locks were created and the cost was put at £26, 263. To read more details about the creation of the Stowmarket Navigation go to A History of a Suffolk Canal.
This image shows the head of the navigable river as it was sketched in 1838 and has been much copied from an engraving first made by a Henry Davy of Ipswich. The wooden foot bridge has long since gone, to be replaced now by a road bridge.
In 1818 a proposal was made to build a canal from ‘Stowmarket through Stowupland, Old Newton, Gipping and Mendelsham to Brockford’, but this did not go ahead.
The Stowmarket Navigation was opened on Saturday 14th September 1793. The first load was 3 barges of coal, these barges were towed by horses and travel time was 3 days. Initially barges were restricted to loads of 18 tons but over the years this was increased to up to 50 tons. And by 1850 steam barges had appeared and the journey time was 7 hours.
From the Ipswich Journal, October 1794 :- ‘Messrs Boby, Reeve, Rainbird & Edmonds …have now built and fitted up an extensive and capacious warehouse & granary at Stowupland with a convenient barge for the purpose of carrying on together the coal-trade’.
Then in 1805, April 13th ‘The partnership between Messrs Boby, Reeve, Rainbird & Edmunds being dissolved…debts at counting-house in Stowupland.’
The coming of the railway in 1840 saw the demise of the Gipping as a transport route, with the last barge making the journey to Stowmarket in 1895.
The Rev Brame in his unpublished memoir ‘As I Remember It’ wrote that ‘in my younger years I was taken to a bridge on Station Road in Stowmarket to see small sailing barges on the Gipping, and alongside the water a towpath for horses to power the barges’. He was born in 1914.
The Gipping Navigation was closed by an Act of Parliament in 1932.
This image was copied from the 1978 ‘ICI Paints Division Newspaper No 216’. It shows a portion of the Gipping’s towpath from ICI to Stowmarket with the rowing boats that for a time were available for hire, possibly in 1905. In our archives we have several copies of this image from different sources so unsure who took the original.
Read also about the industries that grew up along the Gipping in the 19th and 20th centuries. Most were on the Stowupland side of the river and many had a damaging effect on the ecology of the area.
Photo shared on Facebook showing the dried out River Gipping in 1954. The bridge is near Stowmarket station.
