PUBLIC access round the New Cut East and lock gates area at the Ipswich dock and waterfront is a topic close to the hearts of the readers of Kindred Spirits it seems.
Memories are still arriving after I mentioned the time, until more recent years, when everybody could cross the swing bridge at the lock and use the route to and from Stoke Bridge. The ferry service which crossed the River Orwell at New Cut was featured.
Peter Gosling of Quilter Drive, Ipswich, said: “The ferryman was my father Walter ‘Curly’ Gosling. He had the business from the late 1940s until about 1954 and then I think he sold the business to some one from Felixstowe. His father, my grandfather, had the business before him.
“He had a hut which he could sit in and watch to see if anybody needed picking up from the other side of the river.
“This was at the bottom of Bath Street, just across the road from the Griffin Pub on New Cut West and immediately above the stone steps to the boat.”
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