A Catalogue of Dedicated Benches

Whilst wandering around Christchurch Park in Ipswich, Suffolk I noticed that around 2/3rds of the wooden benches were inscribed as a memorial to some one or an event - so I have decided to photograph and catalogue them- and perhaps find out a bit more about the people and history of Ipswich along the way!

Sunday 26 April 2015

The Peace Garden


There are 2 benches for Sri Chimnoy - one to commemorate when he visited Ipswich and the Peace Garden in 1987 and another after his death in 2007. One is inscribed with 'A Dreamer of World Peace'. There Sri Chimnoy centre in Ipswich and a statue to him in Chantry Park

Nearby is a bench to Christopher James Jefferson who died aged only 40. It is inscribed  Ipswich - Rest in Peace  - Cambodia. I have discovered a press article 3 years before his death, about how he was caught up in an armed siege Cambodia.

Finally a bench erected in 2003 to show the close bonds with our twinned town of Arras. I was lucky enough to visit Arras last week as part of my First World War Battlefields tour. I went down the Wellington Quarry chalk mines under the town and learnt about the Suffolk Battalions role in the Battle of Arras 1917.
 This is where several thousand of men had to stay underground for several days before being given the order to attack.

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