St Lawrence Church

St Lawrence Centre is let to Realise Futures. It is open daily to provide moderately-priced refreshments and since 2008 has proved a popular town-centre venue, warm and welcoming. The belfry is clearly visible from the nave (the church lacked aisles) and the ring of five bells is the earliest in Christendom.

As a young boy, Thomas Wolsey will have known the sound of four of them and we believe that his wealthy and generous uncle Edmund Daundy added a fifth in about 1480, just before Wolsey went off to Oxford to become a Bachelor of Arts at 15. The bells are rung for half an hour at 12.30pm every Wednesday, also at 9.30am on the first Sunday of every month. They are best heard from Dial Lane, so called because a large dial clock hung above the west door in the 19th century. Before that it was Cook Row. The stained glass of the east window made in 1853 by Charles Gibbs of London has scenes from the life of Christ.

For more information about St Lawrence Church, there is a booklet available for £1 at the Tourist Information Centre, St Stephen’s Church, St Stephen’s Lane, Ipswich.