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This
functional yet handsome building sits at a busy
junction out on the south-western edge of the
Borough of Ipswich, actually just over the
boundary in Babergh District. This wholly
artificial settlement goes by the name of
Pinewood, which sounds comfortably rustic,
although almost everything here was built in the
1990s. The only older buildings are Belstead
House, parts of which are late medieval, which
sits at the bottom of the lane, and this church's
neighbour, the architecturally influential
Sprites Schools by Johns, Slater Haward of 1960,
the only post-war school in Suffolk to make it
into Pevsner's Buildings of England. Such an
honour is unlikely to befall Shepherd Drive
Baptist Church, but it is a fitting and
purposeful structure in a vaguely Farm Vernacular
style, and thus an adornment to what might
otherwise be dreary suburbia, apart from the
schools. Like many of its neighbours, it was
built in the mid-1990s, and is a good example of
the trend over the last few decades for
non-conformist church communities to dispense
with lucrative inner-city sites and start afresh
on cheaper land with an often larger building.
The
community here seems to have undergone a
metamorphosis during its short life. At first,
they were a fairly militant lot, members of the
hardline Grace Baptist movement. I am told that
Ian Paisey, the fundamentalist firebrand from the
north of Ireland who would go on to be First
Minister of the Northern Irish Assembly, preached
here, and it was said locally that the
then-minister had vetoed the formation of a Churches
Together in South-West Ipswich group because
he refused to countenance the involvement of
Catholics. Whether or not this is true I do not
know, but things appear to have moved on. The
church seems to have a much more welcoming
profile in the local community, and I can't help
noticing that they have dropped the word Baptist
from their new sign. There's a story there, I'm
sure.
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