is a town in the county of
Suffolk ,
England . It is the main town in the borough of
St. Edmundsbury and is probably most famous for the
Ruined Abbey which stands near the town centre. The abbey is a shrine to
Saint Edmund , the Saxon King of the East Angles, who was killed by the Danes in
869 AD. The town initially grew around
Bury St. Edmunds Abbey , a site of pilgrimage, and developed into a flourishing clothmaking town by the
14th Century . The town is closely associated with
Magna Carta , in 1214 the barons of England met in the Abbey Church and swore that they would force King John to accept the Charter of Liberties, later known as
Magna Carta .
The abbey was largely destroyed during the
16th Century with the
Dissolution Of The Monasteries but Bury remained a prosperous town throughout the 17th and 18th centuries. As would be expected of a town in such a rural area, Bury fell into relative decline with the onset of the
Industrial Revolution and accordingly remains an attractive market town. It is also home to
Culford School , a leading public school, situated just 4 miles north of the town
Next to the abbey is
Bury St. Edmunds Cathedral , created when the
Diocese Of St. Edmundsbury And Ipswich was formed in
1914 . The cathedral was extended with a new eastern end in the
1960s , and a completely new
Gothic Revival cathedral tower was built as part of a major millennium project running from
2000 to
2005 . The opening celebration for the new tower took place in July
2005 , and included a brass band concert and fireworks display. The tower makes St. Edmundsbury the only recently completed cathedral in the UK; only a handful of Gothic revival cathedrals are still being built worldwide. The tower was constructed using original fabrication techniques. Six highly skilled masons cut and placed every stone individually.
For an important service at the new cathedral in the
1960s Benjamin Britten wrote his
Fanfare For St. Edmundsbury , a work for three
Trumpet s which is now well-known.
The town has the small but enormously significant theatres in the country will ensure a vital part of our theatrical heritage will survive for future generations"
The
Greene King Brewery is to be found in Bury. Greene King produce the award-winning IPA
India Pale Ale . It is a light hoppy ale intended for expatriates in
India , the large quantity of
Hops used being intended to keep the beer from spoiling on the long sea voyage. Legend has is that a boat transporting it spilled its load on the Suffolk coast and the locals found it so delicious that they demanded it be made available at home.
Another famous beer-related landmark is Britain's smallest
Public House ,
The Nutshell , which is on The Traverse, just off the town's marketplace.
The other brewery in Bury St. Edmunds is the
Old Cannon public house on Cannon Street near the railway station. The brewing vessels, which were made for an exhibition in Japan in 1997, can be seen in the front room.
Bury's largest landmark is the British Sugar factory near the
A14 , which processes
Sugar Beet into refined crystal sugar. It was built in 1925 and processes beet from around 1,300 local growers. 660 lorry loads of beet can be accepted each day during a processing "campaign", when beet is being harvested. Not all the beet can be crystallised immediately, and some is kept in solution in holding tanks until late spring and early summer, when the plant has spare crystallising capacity. The sugar is sold under the Silver Spoon brand name (the other major British sugar brand,
Tate & Lyle , is made from imported
Sugar Cane ). By-products include molassed sugar beet feed for cattle and LimeX70, a soil improver. When the wind is in a certain direction a smell of burnt starch from the plant is very noticeable.
- The Abbey Gardens had an , founder of Microsoft , in person to tell him about this problem.
- Every May, Bury St. Edmunds holds its annual festival including concerts, plays, dance and culminating in fireworks.
- Bury St. Edmunds boasts Britain's first internally illuminated street sign, the Pillar Of Salt . When built, it had to be granted special permission because it did not conform to regulations.
- Notable bands from Bury St. Edmunds include:
- --- Miss Black America
- --- The Dawn Parade
- Notable people from Bury St. Edmunds include:
- --- Actor Bob Hoskins .
- The name ''Bury'' is a form of ''borough'', which has Cognates in other Germanic languages such as the Old Norse "borg" meaning "wall, castle"; and Gothic "baurgs" meaning "city". They all derive from Proto-Germanic ''---burgs'' meaning "fortress". This in turn derives from the Proto-Indo-European root ''---bhrgh'' meaning "fortified elevation", with cognates including Welsh "bera", "stack" and Sanskrit bhrant- "high, elevated building".
- Bury St. Edmunds is also the seat of the East Of England Regional Assembly
- On 3 March , 1974 a Turkish Airlines DC10 jet Crashed near Paris killing all 346 people on board. Among the victims were 17 members of the Bury St. Edmunds rugby club, returning from a trip to Paris.
- Tudor king Henry VIII's sister, Mary, was buried in Bury's St. Mary's Church.
