Ancient Ipswich dates back to the Iron Age and has developed as into a thriving county town.  Its long history has twelve Churches mentioned in the Doomsday Book, and later it had at least five Priories and became a place of Pilgrimage to the famous Shrine of Our Lady of Grace.  This stood in what is still called Lady Lane, where a plaque now hangs in honour of Our Lady of Grace.

Following the reformation and the dissolution of the monasteries and pilgrimage shrine, the act of supremacy (1535) declared it to be high treason to practice the Catholic faith. And in 1592 it became a criminal offence not to attend reformed (Protestant) church on pain of fines or prison. If found guilty of Catholic practice or of preaching the penalty was death. Blessed John Robinson was executed in Ipswich for the crime of being a priest.

In Ipswich the faith all but died out. Outside Ipswich, large houses preserved the faith and may have been visited by priests. A Catholic chapel existed briefly in Judge Milton's home (the poet's brother) in Tacket St, and there were occasional visits by Jesuits from Bury St Edmund's in the 17^th century.

In the 1790's, only a handful of Catholics remained in Ipswich. The French revolution saw a persecution of Catholics, with priests fleeing to England. Abbe (Fr.) Louis Pierre Simon arrived in Ipswich in 1792 as a refugee French teacher at a local school. He found lodgings with Miss Margaret Wood, a Catholic, in Silent Street (later Carr St).

Regular Mass was celebrated in Ipswich for the first time since the reformation., but much prejudice existed and practice of the faith was secretive. Soon the room was too small for the growing numbers of faithful. The Catholic relief act of 1778 and 1791 allowed the establishment of Catholic schools and places of worship. L'Abbe Simon travelled to Woodbridge and Harwich to say Mass, and was chaplain to the Catholics at the barracks in Woodbridge Road. With peace in France in 1815, l'Abbe Simon returned and came back with the proceeds of his estates to Ipswich.

Here he stayed and worked to build up the Church, eventually buying a property on Albion hill, Woodbridge Road. There, in 1827 he built a small chapel to St Anthony of Padua, large enough for 200 people. The entrance was screened from view by trees but in ten years the chapel was too small for the growing   catholic population. L'Abbe became a British citizen in 1837.  In 1838 permission was eventually given and a larger church, to our Lady of Grace, was built. L'Abbe died in 1838 and Ipswich had no resident priest for a while until 1840 when the first of an unbroken succession of priests came to serve our town.   

History of St Pancras' R.C. Church

It was soon recognised that there was a need for a central place of worship and the Church of St. Pancras was built in 1861, partly with funds from the estate of L'abbe Simon.  Designed by the architect Goldie, its interior is an outstanding example of Victorian Gothic architecture.  The arches of the Nave and Sanctuary have alternate courses or red and white brick, in what is known as the Venetian Style.  Behind the Altar and above the Reredos, five large statues depict Our Lord and the four Evangelists.  The statue of the Blessed Virgin, in the small Lady Chapel, is over an ornamental marble Altar.  This has floral carving symbolic of the title of the Queen of Heaven: the rose, lily of the valley and the marguerite.  The Organ, built in 1891 for Glemham Hall and later donated to the parish, has two manuals and stands in the Choir Gallery. Both Organ and choir gallery were badly damaged in a disastrous fire in 1985, requiring extensive renovation.  Beneath the Gallery is found the Caen stone font, the round bowl of which is a sculpted band of water lilies and four bosses of crystal spar, with the parish War Memorial of marble behind it.  The church also contains the Shrine of Our Lady of Poland, a souvenir of the stay in the town of the Polish Free Army during World War II, which is cared for by the local Polish community, while in the Parish garden is a statue of Our Lady of Grace. To mark the millennium, a new stained glass West rose window was commissioned, depicting the Holy Spirit.

Today Ipswich Christians have close links with the town of Nettuno in Italy where there is a shrine to the English Madonna, believed to be the statue of Our Lady of Grace from Ipswich, rescued from destruction during the reformation by sailors and miraculously saved from shipwreck. Today Ipswich people go on pilgrimage to the English Madonna of Nettuno and the people of Nettuno come to Ipswich on pilgrimage to the restored shrine of Our Lady of Grace here (in St Mary Elms church) in Ipswich

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