Ipswich Close

One of the many modern Whitleigh streets named after a county town, Ipswich Close sits just below Budshead Green and leads off Derby Road.

The Suffolk town, to which it owes its name, is about half the size of Plymouth and has a population of about 125,000. An ancient market town, its economy was driven for many centuries by a thriving East Anglian textile trade.

The name Ipswich was first recorded more than a 1,000 years ago as Gipeswic, and would appear to be a reference to its location on the river Orwell - the 'Gip' element possibly meaning a gap or opening. The opening in question is the broad, six-mile-long estuary of the Orwell that runs up from the coastal towns of Harwich and Felixtowe, and ends at the 'wic' (that is the dwelling, settlement or village) that spawned the present town of Ipswich.