Bury St Edmunds buildings [61]

Image: © Michael Dibb Taken: 12 Sep 2020

Number 28 Churchgate Street, now a shop with living accommodation above, was originally two houses built in the 16th or 17th century. The white brick front was added in 1835 to the timber framed and stuccoed building. There is a rear 17th century extension. Part of one of the original houses survives in number 29 adjoining (Image). Listed, grade II, with details at: https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1248120 Churchgate Street is aligned with the Norman Tower entrance to the Abbey and would have been the ceremonial route between the Abbey and the Guildhall, the spiritual and the temporal. The street has some of the town’s most important historic buildings with structures dating back to the 13th century. 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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