Essential Hotels > England > Suffolk > Bury St. Edmunds

Bury St. Edmunds grew up around the powerful medieval Abbey of St Edmund. Although the abbey was dissolved by Henry VIII and fell into ruin in the 16th century, the town has continued to prosper. A rich picture of generations of human history is painted by the buildings, monuments and even the pattern of the hedgerows. Traces of Stone Age hunters at Barnham and Bury St. Edmunds tell of the first farmers, working the rich soils of the north of the area. Some of the abbey ruins have been sympathetically converted into houses and the Great Court is a prize-winning public garden. Dozens of Bronze Age barrows remind us of later herdsmen who cared for their animals on the same land.

The clay areas of the centre and south of the borough were opened up by the Romans, with Ixworth and Pakenham at the centre of a network of roads and villa estates. An important Romano-British settlement was discovered at Haverhill. From its humble Saxon beginnings, Bury St. Edmunds became home to one of the most powerful abbeys in medieval Europe and has seen glory, turmoil and scandal over the centuries of which few small towns can boast. Today, it remains a busy and beautiful market town at the heart of East Anglia.

The abbey's rise to fame came about because of the martyrdom of King Edmund. A devout Christian, Edmund was captured by raiding Danes and shot full of arrows when he heroically refused to renounce his faith. His head was cut off and thrown into a wood. When his friends came looking for him, legend has it that the severed head called to them, and they found it guarded by a wolf and his subsequent burial there. The arrows, the wolf and the crowned head still form the coat of arms of the Borough of St. Edmundsbury. St. Edmund was also the Patron Saint of England before dragon-slaying St. George took up the title.

Among the most well known and visited features of Bury St. Edmunds is its cathedral which opens each day for tours and it remains Suffolk’s cathedral, clocking up more than 1,000 years. There is an art gallery in the centre too, while the likes of Euston Hall, the Blackthorpe Barn arts centre, Ickworth House and the Malthouse Project are also among the attractions in the area.