The East Anglia Region - Southern England - page 272

FIG 254. Landguard Point and the Port of Felixstowe. (Copyright Dae Sasitorn & Adrian
Warren/www.lastrefuge.co.uk)
FIG 255. Felixstowe container quay. (Copyright Suffolk County Council)
FIG 256. Looking southeastward from Ipswich down the Orwell estuary. Medieval Ipswich
is to the left of the river, in the middle distance. Two more geometrically planned suburb-
an areas have been built on high plateaus that form the shoulders of the valley: Califor-
nia and Rosewell (left, middle distance) and Chantry (right, foreground). (Copyright Aer-
ofilms)
Ipswich (Fig. 256) developed in the first area upstream from the open estuary of
the Orwell where a river crossing was relatively easy. So the position of Ipswich is a
direct result of the last great (Flandrian) rise of sea level, which flooded the Orwell
valley up to this point. Three kilometres downstream, the Orwell Bridge (completed in
1982) was built to allow the A14 trunk road from the Midlands and northern England
to bypass Ipswich, taking container and other traffic to and from Felixstowe Port.
Excavations in the Ipswich area ( d2 ) reveal bedrock of Late Cretaceous Chalk,
Early Tertiary mudstones (mainly London Clay) and Late Tertiary Crag deposits.