Bury St Edmunds buildings [36]

Image: © Michael Dibb Taken: 14 Sep 2020

These finely detailed offices, number 59 Abbeygate Street, were built in 1891 for the Alliance Insurance Co. Limited. In neo Jacobethan style, the ground floor is in red sandstone the other floors are in red brick above with terracotta and rubbed brick dressings all under Dutch gables with coats of arms. Listed, grade II, with details at: https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1141147 Abbeygate Street is the principal shopping street of the town. Bury St Edmunds is a market town which is the cultural and retail centre for West Suffolk and is known for brewing (Greene King) and sugar (British Sugar). There is scattered evidence of earlier activity but essentially Bury St Edmunds began as one of the royal boroughs of the Saxons and a monastery was founded which became the burial place of King Edmund. A new Benedictine abbey was built in 1020 which became rich and powerful and the town was laid out on a grid pattern by Abbot Baldwin. After the dissolution the abbey became ruinous. A new church, later the cathedral, was begun in the early 16th century.

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