Monument record IPS 063 - Holywells Park, Ipswich, (IAS 9002).

Park of historic interest as mapped in (S6).

Associated with Holywells House and Cobbold family, with formal garden, canal (to feed Cobbold's (Cliff) Brewery beside the river), site of watermill and brickworks and kiln/s.
The Park was a 19th century creation incorporatiing earlier landscape features such as a Medieval moat, a watermill and mill pond/s of the late 16th Century at the south end of the park, and a late 17th Century brickworks and kiln/s.

Large quadrilateral moat (of about 1 ha or 6 acres), connected to a linear series of ponds. Wykes Bishop was originally an outlying grange belonging to Queen Edith (in 1066). It was later granted by Richard I to John Oxenford, Bishop of Norwich. It is [incorrectly?] claimed the Bishops of Norwich subsequently had a manor house or palace here. In 1535 it passed to the Crown and was regranted in 1545 to Sir John Jermie. It is also claimed there is some possibility of a church or chapel here

A moat first recorded in a bailiff's account of 1515 though there is no mention of any buildings on the site. Documentary search has failed to locate any evidence for a manor house or palace, though there is a 1515 reference to a barn or grange near the site of the moat. The named 'Holywells' was a 19th century invention - the area was previously known as hollow wells. The Park did not exist before the 19th century, (S2, S6, S7)

1994: Monitoring of footing trench for childrens slide, (S5, S10, S11).
2004: Partial investigation, including geophysical survey of moated area (and part of formal garden), documentary search, limited trenching and augering. Details in (S1-S3, S10, S11).

Date Unknown: Neolithic Stone axe found on the edge of a stream on the east side of the park, (S8).
1937: Bronze age axe, (S9).
1940: Palaeolithic Scraper found, (S10, S11).
2006: Documentary Survey, Evaluation, , See IPS 497.
2007: Monitoring, See IPS 497.

Features visible on Lidar. See associated files.

Included in the Proceedings of the Suffolk Institute of Archaeology and History annual round up of individual finds and discoveries for 2005 (S14).