Our Lady of Ipswich

Our Lady of Ipswich (also known as Our Lady of Grace) was a popular English Marian shrine before the English Reformation. Only the shrine at Walsingham attracted more visitors.

Background

There was a time when England was known as 'Our Lady's Dowry'. Anglo-Saxon England sheltered many shrines to the Virgin Mary: shrines were dedicated to her at Glastonbury in 540, Evesham in 702, Tewkesbury in 715, Canterbury in 866, Willesden in 939, Abingdon before 955, Ely in 1020, Coventry in 1043, York in 1050, and Walsingham in 1061. By the High Middle Ages there were sixteen shrines to Mary in Suffolk alone.

About half of the medieval churches in Suffolk were dedicated to St Mary under a particular title or devotion. Churches not dedicated to Mary, would have contained a Marian shrine, generally at the east end of the south aisle. Some shrines became so popular that they were translated to buildings of their own. This may be how the shrine of Our Lady of Grace came to be. During the High Middle Ages, the shrine of Our Lady of Grace was second only to that of Our Lady of Walsingham.

Shrines to the Virgin Mary

In the culture and practice of some Christian churches — mainly, but not solely, the Roman Catholic Church — a shrine to the Virgin Mary (or Marian shrine) is a shrine marking an apparition or other miracle ascribed to the Blessed Virgin Mary, or a site on which is centered a historically strong Marian devotion. Such locales are often the destination of pilgrimages.

Some of the largest shrines arose from reported Marian apparitions to young and simple people on remote hilltops that had hardly been heard of prior to the reported apparition. The story of Saint Juan Diego's reported vision of Our Lady of Guadalupe in 1531 is similar to that of Saint Bernadette Soubirous' vision in 1858 of Our Lady of Lourdes. Both saints reported a miraculous woman on a hilltop who asked them to request that the local priests build a chapel at the site of the vision. Both visions included a reference to roses and led to large churches being built at the sites. Like Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico, Our Lady of Lourdes is a major Catholic symbol in France. Both visionaries were eventually declared saints.

Ipswich

Ipswich ⁱ/ˈɪpswɪtʃ/ is a large town in Suffolk, England, of which it is the county town. Ipswich is located on the estuary of the River Orwell. Nearby towns are Felixstowe, Woodbridge, Needham Market and Stowmarket in Suffolk and Harwich and Colchester in Essex. Ipswich is a non-metropolitan district.

The urban development of Ipswich overspills the borough boundaries significantly, with 75% of the town's population living within the borough at the time of the 2011 Census, when it was the fourth-largest urban area in the United Kingdom's East of England region, and the 38th largest urban area in England and Wales.

The modern name is derived from the medieval name 'Gippeswic', probably taken either from an Old Saxon personal name or from an earlier name of the Orwell estuary (although unrelated to the name of the River Gipping). In 2011, the town of Ipswich was found to have a population of 133,384, while the Ipswich built-up area is estimated to have a population of approximately 180,000.

Ipswich, Queensland

Ipswich is an urban region in south-east Queensland, Australia, which is located in the south-west of the Brisbane metropolitan area. Situated on the Bremer River, it is approximately 40 kilometres (25 mi) west of the Brisbane CBD. A local government area, the City of Ipswich, which has a population of 190,000 (projected to grow to 435,000 residents by 2031) governs roughly the same portion of metropolitan Brisbane

The city is renowned for its architectural, natural and cultural heritage. Ipswich preserves and operates from many of its historical buildings, with more than 6000 heritage-listed sites.

Ipswich began in the 1820s as a mining settlement and was originally intended to be the Queensland capital but Brisbane was instead chosen because of its geographical accessibility for ships.

In 2015, Ipswich was named in the world’s Top 7 most Intelligent Communities by the Intelligent Community Forum (ICF) in New York.

History

Early History

Prior to the arrival of European settlers, what is now called Ipswich was home to many indigenous language groups, including the Warpai tribe, Yuggera and Ugarapul Indigenous Australian groups. The area was first explored by European colonists in 1826, when Captain Patrick Logan, Commandant of the Moreton Bay penal colony, sailed up the Brisbane River and discovered large deposits of limestone and other minerals.

Ipswich (MBTA station)

Ipswich is a passenger rail station on MBTA Commuter Rail's Newburyport/Rockport Line, located in downtown Ipswich, Massachusetts. The station is handicapped accessible, with a mini-high platform on the northern end of the platform.

Ipswich was the terminus of the line from April 1976, when the lone round trip to Newburyport was cut, until full service was restored on October 26, 1998. Just south of the end of the platform are two auxiliary tracks that were used to store trains during that time.

Connecting service

CATA provides weekend service during the summer on its Purple Line Ipswich - Essex - Crane Beach shuttle.

References

External links

Media related to Ipswich (MBTA station) at Wikimedia Commons