ABSTRACT
B ury St Edmunds, or Bury as it is known, is a town of 35,000. Today it is a prosperous place sitting midway between Ipswich and Cambridge, but still a difficult commute into
London. It is an eclectic mix of ancient abbey town, Regency spa and modern industrial centre, brewing Greene King Beer and refining the sugar beet grown on the surrounding farmland. Some say that the town got its name as a description of an actual event; it was where King Edmund of East Anglia was buried after his body was recovered following the battle against the ‘Great Heathens’ (the Vikings) in 879. However, as with Shrewsbury, the ‘bury’ is just the Saxon word for ‘town’. Edmund was killed after refusing to renounce Christianity and in the century after his death a cult grew up around his martyrdom, leading to his canonisation (at one point becoming the patron saint of England). His burial place became an important shrine and the abbey was built around it, and the town built around that, growing to become one of the most important centres for pilgrimage in Christendom. The abbey was rebuilt by King Canute in 1020 following his conversion to Christianity. He was a Viking who became king of England, Denmark and Norway – The legend of him commanding the waves was meant as a demonstration that a king’s power is nothing compared to that of God. He offered his crown at the shrine of St Edmund to atone for the sins of his Viking forebears. The abbey and the town became rich, both as a centre of power and as a shrine attracting thousands of pilgrims with all the merchandising that went with it. William the
its population to keep things as they are with the pressures for growth. The council has worked with the Prince’s Foundation to develop a vision for the town based on the idea of ‘One town made up of many villages’. This encompasses both the town’s existing neighbourhoods and the new housing that it needs to accommodate. The vision seeks to build ‘tomorrow’s heritage’ by requiring the highest design quality for all new development. This is reflected in the improvements that have been made to the town centre, where there has been an emphasis on encouraging street life, with a simple yet effective combination of strategies: pavements have been widened and clutter removed; street markets have been encouraged and empty space above shops has been brought back into use as living accommodation. This has helped link the old town to a major new retail scheme built on the former cattle market. Now called the ‘Arc’, this open shopping mall is anchored by a new Debenhams and includes retailing and housing as well as a performance venue. The town may no longer attract pilgrims, but it remains somewhere worth visiting; a town that understands its rich history but that equally hasn’t been afraid to try something different and reinvent itself.
