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Share your memories with us

Home > Heritage > Share your memories with us

Share your memories with us of St Margaret's Church, Ipswich.

Lots of you have memories of our church which you would like to share, here are some of them.

Join in, contact us at email@example.com to send us your memories and any photos you would like to share.

We meet an ancestor of the Fonnereau Family

On one of our tours recently we were delighted to welcome an ancestor of  Thomas Fonnereau who lived in Christchurch Mansion in the 18th century. Our visitor was looking for monuments and references to the family. We were able to show her several funeral hatchments and this lovely monument with a tribute to the Rev William Fonnereau, 3rd owner of the Mansion. Thank you for joining our tour and sharing your memories with us. Angela from Ipswich talks about bell ringing "I have been a bell ringer at St Margaret's for over 25 years. The most memorable occasion for me was ringing the bells when the Queen Mother died.

The bells were half muffled and it sounded so strange. We had to really concentrate and listen to hear the bells, it was really weird, but amazing at the same time!"

My ancestor is buried in your churchyard Tim from London writes:

"My family lived in Norfolk from the 15th century but my gt-gt-gt- grandfather Thomas Lincolne Barker moved to Ipswich where he was married in 1813 at St Stephen’s to Ann Courtnall Edwards.

They both lived at Orwell Place in Ipswich. He was Governor of the Norman Cross Prisoner of War Barracks in 1810. They were both buried at St Margaret’s and their quite imposing tomb is in the graveyard on the north side of the church."

I was taught bell ringing at St Margaret's Sue writes:

"My sister and myself learnt bell-ringing with our father, John Blythe, in the 1970s."

Our grandfather was churchwarden at St Margaret's Richard writes, my grandfather was born in 1847 and had a business in Ipswich. He lived on Tuddenham Road and the whole family, with 6 children, attended church on Sundays. Two of my uncles were in the choir and my grandfather was churchwarden. He had poor health, so did not serve in the First World War, but he was responsible for keeping all the public town clocks wound up and on time. This included the clock in St Margaret's

We got married in St Margaret's - Rick from Virginia USA writes "We had lots of family members from the USA at our wedding in the church. They were amazed that the building is older than their own country!"

Derek joined the choir in 1954 and became head chorister He was a pupil at St Margaret's school and was invited to join the choir by the vicar, Canon Battersby. The choir was all male then and had about 14 or 16 boys who attended 2 practices a week. He sang at weddings and funerals for which he was paid half a crown each time (11.5p).This was good pocket money in the 1950s. He remembers once going straight from a wedding with his earnings and using it to buy a ticket at the Odeon cinema for the film '2000 Leagues Under the Sea'. He once sang a solo with professional singers in the church. He remembers going on choir outings and getting lost in Great Yarmouth on one occasion, but thankfully was soon found by other choir members.
