St Pancras Church, Ipswich

from the 1860s The construction of St Pancras was largely financed from the estate of L'Abbé Louis Simon. Abbé Simon was a French émigré priest who came to Ipswich in 1793, during the French Revolution, and became the first Catholic priest to celebrate Mass regularly in Ipswich since the Reformation. According to the church's website, Goldie may have intended St Pancras to develop into a larger structure, a cathedral for a future Catholic diocese of East Anglia. The church and the area surrounding St Pancras were originally part of the Catholic parish of St Mary's, Woodbridge Road in the Diocese of Northampton. St Pancras was consecrated by the Bishop of Northampton, Francis Amherst, with the future Cardinal Manning preaching the sermon. ==History==

with reredos and statues of Christ and the Four Evangelists Two years after the church was consecrated, in 1863, St Pancras was the target of a series of anti-Catholic riots. This led to the curate barricading himself in the presbytery for two days The riot was suppressed only when the Mayor of Ipswich enrolled 200 special constables, although the riots were credited with creating sympathy for the church and the Catholic community among local dignitaries. St Pancras was originally the Catholic parish that served Old Stoke and the Chantry Estate to the southwest of Ipswich, although this section of the parish became the parish of Saint Mark's. In the 1940s it became the centre of the Polish community in Ipswich although later the parish of St Mary became the pastoral centre of the Polish community. In 1976 St Pancras, with all the other Catholic parishes in Suffolk, was transferred to the new Diocese of East Anglia. On Christmas Day 1985 the church was badly burned in an arson attack which meant that the choir loft and organ had to be rebuilt. ==Architecture and fittings==

St Pancras is a grade II listed building and the altar of repose. The tabernacle is directly behind the standalone altar, with a Victorian, ceiling-hung tabernacle lamp between the main altar and the Lady Chapel. The choir loft is at the west end of the church. It was largely rebuilt in the 1980s after a fire in 1985. The church organ is in the choir loft. The organ was built in 1891 and has two manuals. At the back of the choir loft there is a large modern, stained glass rose window in plate tracery style that depicts the descent of the Holy Spirit, to the Catholics of Ipswich who died during the First World War and a painted copy of the icon of Our Lady of Czestochowa donated by the crew of Polish armoured train C who were based in Ipswich during the Second World War. The nave and sanctuary are in the Venetian style where the arches are alternately red and white brick. The interior was once multi-coloured but is now mostly white-washed. ==References==