"For over a century (until 1970) the building on the corner of St Nicholas Street and Silent Street was a chemist's, the whole building covered in painted rendering. The striking lettered sign on the gable:
'THE WOLSEY HOUSE PHARMACY' was surrounded by smaller signs: 'CASH DRUG STORE, DISPENSING CHEMIST, CASH PRICES, DARK ROOM, DRUG STORE'. This rather American-sounding vocabulary replaced the earlier:
'THE WOLSEY HOUSE PHARMACY. CHEMIST AND DRUGGIST, PAINTS OILS AND VARNISHES, F.H.PALMER.'
The shop facing St Nicholas Street was in recent times Cardinal Café and a sweet shop. It became known as Wolsey's house, but it was a misleading name. Thomas Wolsey lived as a boy in a similar sort of house on the opposite side of the road – roughly on the site of the old, Ipswich Hippodrome, designed in 1905 by famous theatre architect Frank Matcham and demolished in 1984 – in the 21st century the modern, suitably named, block Cardinal House. Another misnomer sometimes employed for Curson Lodge is "Wolsey's birthplace". It is thought that Wolsey was actually born near St Mary-at-Elms and a prime candidate is the Black Horse public house (or the previous building on the site) which still stands on the corner of Black Horse Lane and Elm Street.
There are two timber-framed buildings here, the one with the corner-post and the adjoining building reaching up Silent Street. When it was an inn, its location just north of the commercial port area would have attracted a great many visitors seeking accommodation. Curson Lodge was used as a hospital for soldiers wounded in the Dutch wars of the 1650s. It's said to have operated as an inn during most of the 18th century and also for a period during the early 19th century. From 1838 the corner premises were occupied by William Silverston, a chemist. The junction then became known as 'Silverston's Corner'.
The corner post sits on a stone foot (presumably where the original timber foot rotted over the centuries) an bears attractive carvings and supports. The carver's mark which, so far has defied decoding; it bears comparison with The Packhorse Inn on St Margaret's Plain/Soane Street. Coincidentally the opposite face, also carved, bears a blank shield, as does the Old Packhorse.
In February 2013 a car crashed into the corner post, dislodging it. As reported in the Ipswich Star, the incident did not do lasting damage to the 540 year-old building, but did shed some light on its history. "... Star photographer Lucy Taylor was taking pictures of the damage and spotted a broken old pharmacy bottle with paper inside. It turned out to be a business card for the Wolsey Pharmacy, which occupied the store until the early 1970s. There was a pharmacy on the site from the 1850s, but in 1902 it was bought by George Nelson Edwards who had it refitted. The bottle contained a card with picture of the pharmacy from the 1890s, a business card for the new owner, and a document showing who had carried out the work – the former owner’s name is crossed out and Mr Edwards’ name is added in. After the pharmacy closed the building became an antiques shop, but it was empty for several years until it was restored by the Ipswich Building Preservation Trust in a major work which was completed in 2007."
The plaque reads:
'CURSON LODGE
THIS EARLY-TUDOR BUILDING IS A RARE SURVIVAL OF A MEDIEVAL INN.
THE SURVIVING RANGE ALONG SILENT STREET WAS ALWAYS INTENDED
FOR THIS PURPOSE. THE CORNER PROPERTY OF ST NICHOLAS STREET
MAY HAVE BEEN USED AS A MERCHANT'S HOUSE AND SHOP. THIS WAS
LATER ABSORBED BY THE INN. AN IMPRESSIVE GROUND-FLOOR HALL AND
A SUITE OF LODGING CHAMBERS ON THE FIRST FLOOR WERE ACCESSED
FROM A GALLERY AT THE BACK.
THE BUILDING WAS RESTORED IN 2007 BY
THE IPSWICH BUILDING PRESERVATION TRUST' "
SOURCE - (
visit link)