Monument record IPS 277 - St. Stephen's Church, Ipswich, (IAS 3203).

Church of St Stephen. Recorded in Domesday book. Largely Perpendicular, much restored in 1866 & 1881. Details in (S1, S2).

1982: The conversion of this redundant church to a tourist information centre involved minor improvements. Two small trial trenches were excavated either side of the central walkway in the nave. In the following year these were enlarged to include the whole area which had been occupied by wooden flooring in the nave. Finds included Cu alloy items and Late Medieval floors and post medieval tombs and graves (S5).

1st March 1994: Unblocking of doorway in East end of aisle (S3, S4, S8)

See also (S7, S9,S10)

[letter, number] refers to mentions in the Suffolk Council Archaeological Service Ipswich Documentary Card index.
P20
St Stephens church

Visible on Speede's Map of 1610, (S12).

Archaeological monitoring during groundworks associated with the conversion of the church into a music venue. The excavation by contractors of a trench for new drainpipes along the S side of the church revealed cemetery soil underneath the current footpath and also allowed for the examination of the foundations of the 15th-century Rush Chapel. The foundations were found to be composed of flint and mortar, but with occasional nodules of septaria, perhaps spolia from earlier church fabric, and a large nodule of gneiss, possibly imported as a glacial erratic or ship ballast. No early floors were seen to survive under the modern concrete flooring of the Rush Chapel, although earlier cemetery soil was encountered beneath it. On the N side of the church, a 19th-century stone wall, partially constructed of reused medieval and later material, was removed. A 14th- or 15th-century carved stone head, originally part of an interior corbel or label stop, was among the early stonework that had been incorporated into the wall. Beneath the wall, the top of a brick vaulted structure, perhaps a domed cap over a well or burial vault, was uncovered. An 18th- or 19th-century brick burial vault with a whitewashed interior was also encountered just N of the church. Although outside the scope of the present work, previously unrecorded historical graffiti was identified by chance discovery in the stairwell of the W tower (S13).