Bury St Edmunds

A quick 45 minute train ride east of Cambridge is the town of Bury St. Edmunds. I’d never been before and had heard that there were some interesting gardens in town, so Fiona and I decided to check it out. Once we arrived, we followed the signs from the station pointing to the “Abbey Gardens.” Truthfully, I had no idea what were headed toward, but when we arrived, we were thoroughly impressed!

Passing through the Abbey Gate, we were able to read a bit about the history of the site. Truth be told, my understanding of British history doesn’t extend much further back than WWI, and when I try to read up on more distant history, I find it all quite confusing. But, from what we could gather, the Abbey (this I even had to look up! Abbey: the building or buildings occupied by a community of monks or nuns) of Bury St Edmunds was once among the richest and most powerful monasteries (building or buildings occupied by a community of monks) in England. The town of Bury St. Edmunds grew up around the abbey. Today, the ruins of the abbey, church, and most of the other buildings are merely rubble outlines, but two impressive gatehouses survive:

The site became home to the remains of King Edmund in 903, leading it to become a place of pilgrimage as well as the recipient of numerous royal donations. Although power changed hands several times, the abbey at Bury St. Edmunds continued to thrive throughout the 13th century at which point the towns people became too discontented over ridiculous taxes changed by the monks on everything imaginable (including a tax waged on the collection of horse droppings!). The townspeople were so angered that they rioted and even the impressive wall surrounding the abbey could not stop them from attacking and burning much of it down.

Today, touring the abbey remains it isn’t too difficult to make out what a thriving little community it once was. The outline of many of the buildings remain and are well labeled as to what they would have been when in use. The tallest parts of the remains mark the location of the abbey church which would have been an impressively sized structure even by today’s standard, and was one of a very few of its size at the time. At nearly 500 feet in length it would would have extended for nearly an entire city block!

Once we tired of exploring the ruins, we spent some time reading in the beautiful gardens (which I didn’t managed to actually photograph) before playing a round of strange mini-golf in the shadow of town’s present day cathedral - a structure that has itself been present on the site since the 11th century. Because of the church’s seemingly  continuous expansions and repairs however, the age of the current building is difficult to judge.

After Fiona bet me badly at mini-golf, we decided to call it a day and headed back to Cambridge.