EHL251. Mills & Co, Ipswich. 1899-1908. Firle Road at the junction with St. George’s Road, Eastbourne, Sussex, UK. what3words location: galaxy.readings.node

Date 1899 - 1908.  It is interesting to note, that in this small area we have gully (gutter) grates marked, ‘CBE’ (County Borough of Eastbourne), ‘C.B.E. J. Every Lewes’, ‘Every Lewes’, and ‘Frederick Bird & Co.'  Amongst these I have found (so far) four marked ‘MILLS & CO – ST NICHOLES WORKS – IPSWICH’.  These are located in Firle Road (2), St. George’s Road (1), and Sydney Road (1).  I contacted The Ipswich Society, and their Secretary, Caroline Markham, put me in touch with Borin Van Loon of the Ipswich Historic Lettering website.  Borin stated that: - I would be most grateful for permission to use your photograph – full credit to you, of course. I assume that the mould for this unusually long gutter drainage cover had to be made up before casting and a spelling error was made. It is clear that C. Mills had premises in Greyfriars Road (close to St Nicholas Church) and presumably moved to Tanners Lane – keeping the name 'St Nicholas', mis-spelt in this example. They were clearly successful enough to sell their wares as far afield as Eastbourne. I am not too surprised that you drew a blank when researching this foundry – one of many in Ipswich. I had a similar experience when I started looking a few years back.