River Gipping
During 1791, when the Trustees were negotiating with John Rennie, they had asked him to assess an extension of the navigation from Stowmarket to the River Lark at Bury St Edmunds, but this was not pursued. With the navigation thriving, there were two proposals for canals from Ipswich to Eye, Suffolk in 1819. A meeting was held in January at Eye, which was chaired by Charles Cornwallis, 2nd Marquess Cornwallis. It considered two reports, one proposed by the civil engineer William Cubitt, which involved a tunnel through the hills at Mendlesham, with the estimated cost exceeding £100,000, and another, for a canal over the hills, costing £80,000. Both were thought to be too expensive to implement, but a third proposal emerged, for an extension from the River Gipping at Needham Market, which would follow the valley of a tributary through Creeting St Mary to Earl Stonham, where a basin would be built beside the turnpike road (now the A140 road). This would enable waggons to make a round trip from Eye in a single day, rather than the two days that a trip to Ipswich took. The scheme was estimated to cost £12,000, and shares in it were offered at the meeting. Although many were taken up, the scheme did not advance any further.
River Gipping
After another crossing under the railway, the river skirts the eastern edge of Bramford and circles a hill, on top of which is Sproughton Manor, a grade II listed house built for Col Henry Phillipps in 1863 by the architect William Eden Nesfield. Sproughton Lock and mill are at the bottom of the hill. The mill is built in red brick and dates from the late eighteenth century. The mill race passes below the mill, which was operational until 1947, but all the machinery has been removed. Parts of the adjacent mill house date from around 1600. After passing under the A14 road, the river briefly heads north-east, through Chantry Cut, where Chantry Lock is situated, to pass under the railway. There are two bridges, as the railway line forks on the south side of the river. A flood barrier has been installed below the first bridge. Now passing through Ipswich, the river also forks, with the eastern branch being the River Gipping, and the western branch forming the start of the River Orwell. A modern sluice is located on the Orwell just below the junction. A final weir marks the position of Handford Sea Lock, below which the two channels rejoin. An outfall is situated below the junction, beyond which the river is tidal.