Ipswich Whitefriars

Ipswich Whitefriars was the medieval religious house of Carmelite friars (under a prior) which formerly stood near the centre of the town of Ipswich, the county town of Suffolk, UK. It was the last of the three principal mendicant communities to be founded in Ipswich, the first being the Ipswich Greyfriars (Franciscans), under Tibetot family patronage before 1236, and the second the Ipswich Blackfriars (Dominicans) founded by King Henry III in 1263. The house of the Carmelite Order of White Friars was established in c. 1278–79. In its heyday it was the home of many eminent scholars, supplied several Provincial superiors of the Order in England, and was repeatedly host to the provincial chapters of the Order. All three houses were dissolved or suppressed in 1538, the Greyfriars in April and the other two in November. The Whitefriars stood south of the Ipswich Buttermarket street and mainly to the west of St Stephen's Lane, but nothing now remains visible above ground. The site was partly exposed by diggings in c. 1898, observed by Nina Layard, and very extensively excavated during the 1980s by the Suffolk County Council archaeologists. Of the three vanished friaries, the Greyfriars is now particularly notable for its distinguished patrons, the Blackfriars for knowledge of its buildings and the later public, charitable and educational purposes associated with them, and the Whitefriars for the rich story of its ecclesiastical and scholarly inmates. They were also noted for their production of books employing people in such trades as limners (illuminators of manuscripts), scriveners (copyists), bookbinders, leather curriers and quill pen makers.