IPSWICH docks has seen rapid change over the past few years - and the view today is certainly very different to how Suffolk artist John Moore saw it.

IPSWICH docks has seen rapid change over the past few years - and the view today is certainly very different to how Suffolk artist John Moore saw it.

The Evening Star has often published old and new pictures of the West Cut area, but never gone as far back as this view painted by the artist in the 1800s.

The painting of the docks by moonlight was done by Woodbridge-born John Moore, a member of what was known as the Suffolk School, a group of painters who captured the county on canvas in Victorian times.

Moore enjoyed painting the east coast, the Suffolk countryside and Scotland.

He became an active member of the Ipswich Art Club on its formation in 1875, where he regularly exhibited until a year before his death in 1902 at the age of 82.

The painting has been held by a private collector but is set to go under the hammer on April 30 as part of Diamond Mills Centennial Sale in Felixstowe.

Nigel Papworth, of the chartered surveyors, estate agents, valuers and auctioneers, said the painting could make between £2,000 and £3,000.

“The area around West Cut has changed a great deal in recent years and it could be this painting might be quite desirable for someone who has bought an apartment there - a reminder of the past could be nice hanging on a wall,” he said.

The sale - which takes place at the company's auction rooms in Orwell Road - has a large number of lots including two detailed ship's builders models, of the ill-fated SS Maid of Hydra, built in 1921, and Michael Livanos, 1938, each expected to fetch between £1,500 and £2,500.

Diamond Mills was founded in 1908 and is one of Felixstowe's oldest businesses.

Which view of the docks do you prefer? Write to Your Letters, Evening Star, 30 Lower Brook Street, Ipswich, IP4 1AN or e-mail eveningstarletters@eveningstar.co.uk