Ipswich Railway Modellers' Association in the form it is today was started in 1966 by an advert in the “Railway Modeller” by John Noble who later became the first Chairman.

The club originally met in an upstairs room in the “Oxborrow Hotel” in St. Peter’s Street, until space could be rented to start a layout. This was found in a redundant bakery in Cowper Street.  After a few months we were forced to move, first to Waterworks Street and then then to Fore Street, above a Chinese Restaurant.  Then, an offer was made to share premises with the Ipswich Model Engineers in Foxhall Road.  After a few years we again moved to two outbuildings in Bixley Lane.There we resided until the property was sold to a developer, again we had to up layouts and move, this time to St. Peter’s Church., and finally with the help of a loan has been able to purchase its own premises at Norfolk Road in Ipswich. We only realized how fortunate we were when, within weeks of the purchase, other model railway clubs lost their rented premises at very short notice.

A lot of hard work has gone into turning what was a set of run down workshops into a comfortable home to work on and run layouts. It has been hard after having had a surfeit of space at St. Peter's Church to confine ourselves into a more restricted environment. However, some of the layouts were coming to the end of their lives and this will give us the opportunity to develop new ideas and techniques.