THE KINGS ARMS
Ipswich Street

Shortly after the Railway from Ipswich and London arrived at Stowmarket in 1846 the Railway Hotel (later Railway Tavern), which had been built at the same time and in the same style as the station, opened to cater for the visitors to Stowmarket who would previously have arrived by coach and would have found refreshment and accommodation in one of the inns in or near the centre of the town. Before long a public house, known as the Kings Arms, opened on the opposite side of the new Station Road to the Railway Hotel to take advantage of the increased trade in this part of the town.
However until 1846 an earlier Kings Arms existed in Ipswich Street on the site of the present Argos and Thorntons stores. The first mention I have found of a Kings Arms in Stowmarket is in the account book of Giles Mompesson for 1618 & 1620. Giles Mompesson had obtained a patent which authorised him to licence inns throughout the country and receive the licence money. He was impeached in 1621 for abuse of his patent, however his account books survive and these are a valuable resource as they give the name of inn and the name of the innholder, one copy of the account book is kept at Buckingham County Record Office, who for he price of the photocopy and postage will send the entries for a particular town or village. For 1618 & 1620 John Reade is named as the innholder of the Kings Arms.
At the same time the Lent Recognizances give the names John and Robert Reade as occupiers, these documents which can be found at the Public Record Office bound victuallers and innkeepers not to sell meat during lent and at other times when it was forbidden. Then in 1679 we read in the Burial Register of the parish that Henry Hayes "a young lad came with the soldiers" died at the Kings Arms the inn was described as Thomas Offwood`s. At this time soldiers were billeted at the local inns and when in this year a number of them succumbed to an epidemic the inns where they were billeted are named in the Burial Register.
Overseers Account books show that in 1689 & 1691 John Wright paid the Poor Rate as occupier of the inn, and from 1713 to 1716 Samuel Purcas appears for The Kings Arms as well as The Swan in 1714. At this time the Licensee was John Bowell who is listed in the note book of Devereux Edgar. Mr. Edgar was a J.P. for the county, he included a list of innholders in his notebook for the year 1714, amongst other business that he dealt with in his role as J.P. was the licensing of inns. His notebook is available at Suffolk Record Ipswich.
In 1719 the Kings Arms was owned by William Goodwin of Sudbury, a brass founder and his wife Jane nee Wright, it is described in the deeds as "now divided into tenements, lately new built (or part thereof)." The house is described as "one seller, one shoppe over the seller, one chamber and garrett over the same, two low roomes behind the said shopp with three chambers and two garretts over them, the shopp called the foundering shopp adjoining the malt house there near with two chambers and two garretts over them and stable abutting upon the camping ground towards the south and the west and a hay chamber over it. One garden lately paled out with use of well and pump there near with two parts of the stone yard next to the dwelling house to be paled out to the tofts." This shows that William Goodwin had his brass foundry on the premises, there is no mention that the premises was being used as an inn at that time but the presence of a malt house and stables indicates that it may have been.
William Goodwin, gent, possibly the son of the above appears to have sold it in 1747. 1775 saw the inn in the ownership of Mr. Leonard Munnings, gent and in the occupation of James Hunt. The property passed to Mr. Munnings son, Shadrach, a merchant of Narborough in Norfolk, and in 1788 John Philby was the tenant. By 1792 Shadrach Munnings is described as "now in Brussels", possibly on business, or maybe he was forced to live there due to being in debt. Debtors and bankrupts would often went to live on the continent due to the cheaper cost of living there. At this time The Kings Arms, still in occupation of John Philby, came into the hands of John Boby of Stowupland, who in his will, made in 1815 & proved in 1817 left the property to his heirs Robert & Charles Boby, Robert Lockwood being in occupation at this time. A plan of this date drawn on one of the deeds shows the inn and adjoining buildings.
The year after, the Kings Arms came into the hands of John Cobbold of the Ipswich brewing family. Most of above information on ownership was obtained from deeds at the Record Office, Ipswich. In this year a notice in The Ipswich Journal informed the readers that Robert Lockwood had been given notice to quit. From around this time directories and rate books give us an increasingly complete list of tenants and owners. We know that in 1823 John Dansie was tenent and in 1830 Mary Dansey, probably his widow had taken over. The Inn was still being used as a staging post for coaches and The Ipswich Journal tells us that the coach from Bury called every morning at 4.
Between 1836 to 1846 Henry Cross had the inn, he was also described as a farmer in 1846 and this year saw the closure of the Kings Head as an inn when it was sold to Thomas Sheldrake, for use as a shop. Letters show that he had alterations done to the building at this time. In January John Medland Clark who two years previously had designed the Ipswich Customs House was advertising for tenders to carry out the alterations.
This brings us back to the coming of the railway in this year which saw a sharp decline in the coaching trade to inns in the centre of the town, so the closure was probably a shrewd move by John Cobbold who was also chairman of the Railway Company and owned the Kings Head, one of the premier Inns of the town just a few yards away. The building that had been the Kings Arms later became William Turner`s drapers Shop and continued as a shop throughout the first half of this century until demolished to make way for a new development in the 1960`s.

STOWMARKET HISTORY AND HERITAGE
2007
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