Ipswich

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Ipswich. Suffolk town, on the Orwell estuary. It was one of the earliest post-Roman towns in Britain, originating in the 7th cent. as a trading port (wic) and industrial town. Large and wealthy from c.650 to 850, it was less important in the high and later Middle Ages. Thomas Wolsey, a major benefactor, was born there in 1471. Under the Tudors and Stuarts it enjoyed a second heyday as a port and cloth town, and was one of the half-dozen largest and wealthiest English provincial towns. Since the 18th cent. it has been of regional rather than national importance.

David M. Palliser

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