Where tourists seldom tread, part 17: three port towns freighted with history

From Ipswich’s medieval treasures to Ramsey’s seaside charm and Lancaster’s chilling legacy of witches and slavery

• Where tourists seldom tread, parts 1-16

The place names are tiny poems: Silent Street, where sound was deadened with straw out of respect for convalescing soldiers during the Anglo-Dutch wars of the late 17th century; Smart Street, named after a benevolent merchant and library builder, William Smarte; Star Lane for Stella Maris, Our Lady of the Sea; Franciscan Way, leading to Grey Friars Road, evokes monkish times. Thirteen medieval churches rise above the old town, some in disrepair. Others are renascent: St Mary-le-Tower was recently redesignated as a minster in recognition of its value to the community and its 1,000 years of existence. That’s not so long ago in a town settled very early – perhaps as early as the fifth century, and established by the seventh – by the Anglo-Saxons.