Town in Suffolk, England
Bury St Edmunds
A murderer's skin binds a book here, a mummified cat hangs in a pub the size of a garage, and barons once swore to take on a king at the abbey high altar.
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Key information
- County
- Suffolk
- Nation
- England
- Population
- about 40,700 (2011 Census)
- Known for
- St Edmund's shrine, the ruined abbey, Greene King beer, the Theatre Royal and the Magna Carta story
- Famous people
- St Edmund, Jocelin of Brakelond, William Corder, M. R. James
About Bury St Edmunds
The book bound in a murderer's skin
Moyse's Hall Museum, in one of the oldest surviving stone buildings in East Anglia, holds one of Britain's grimmest keepsakes. It is an account of the Red Barn murder, bound in the skin of the killer. In 1827 William Corder shot Maria Marten in a barn at Polstead, about 19 miles south-east of Bury St Edmunds as the crow flies, and buried her there. He was tried at Bury, hanged outside the county gaol in 1828 and publicly dissected. The tale became a Victorian melodrama sensation, and the town still keeps its relics. The building itself dates from the 12th century and was once a Norman merchant's house. It has since served as a workhouse, a police station and a prison.
A king, a wolf and a town that grew round a shrine
Bury exists because of a dead king. Edmund, King of East Anglia, was killed by Danish invaders in the 860s, and legend says his followers found his missing head guarded by a wolf, calling out "Here! Here!" His body was brought to Beodricesworth, a settlement that grew into St Edmund's Bury. Pilgrims flocked there, and Edmund was a patron saint of England before St George took over the role. The abbey became one of the richest in the country. In the 11th century Abbot Baldwin, a physician to Edward the Confessor, laid out a new town beside it on a neat grid. The regular streets of central Bury are still recognisable as his plan. The Suffolk flag, a blue banner with three crowns, is linked to Edmund's emblem.
The barons, the altar and Magna Carta
In November 1214, the story goes, rebellious barons gathered at the abbey. They swore at the high altar to force King John to accept the liberties set out in a charter, a pledge that led to Magna Carta the following summer. That is why the town's motto calls it the "Cradle of the Law". The abbey had a tougher side. In 1381, during the Peasants' Revolt, townspeople rose against the monastery that dominated their lives, and its prior was killed. The abbey was finally dissolved in 1539, and its stone was carted away for building. Houses now stand in the ruined west front, and the Abbey Gate and the Norman Tower, once the abbey's bell tower, survive to remind visitors how grand it was. The monk Jocelin of Brakelond wrote a lively chronicle of life under Abbot Samson around 1200. It is one of the best portraits of a medieval monastery, and the Victorian writer Thomas Carlyle drew on it for *Past and Present*.
Beer, a Regency playhouse and a pub like a garage
Greene King has brewed in Bury since Benjamin Greene founded the firm in 1799, and the smell of malt still drifts across town. Greene King IPA and Abbot Ale are its best-known beers. The Theatre Royal, opened in 1819 and designed by William Wilkins, is the only surviving Regency playhouse in Britain. It is now cared for by the National Trust and still stages shows. For something smaller, there is The Nutshell, measuring about 15ft by 7ft and often called Britain's smallest pub. A mummified cat dangles from the ceiling. Charles Dickens stayed at the Angel Hotel, and in *The Pickwick Papers* Mr Pickwick does the same. Dickens also gave readings in the town.
Cathedral with a very late tower
St Edmundsbury Cathedral began as the parish church of St James, first built in the 12th century, and became a cathedral in 1914. Its Gothic-style tower was completed in 2005, roughly five centuries after the rebuilding of the church began in 1503. The ruined abbey grounds next door are now the Abbey Gardens, with flower beds, a river walk and a dovecote among the remains. M. R. James, the master of the English ghost story, studied the abbey and wrote a scholarly book about it in 1895. Few places are better suited to a ghost story. On match days the focus shifts to Ram Meadow, where Bury Town, known as The Blues, play.
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