Bury St Edmunds buildings [111]

Image: © Michael Dibb Taken: 14 Sep 2020

Number 28 and 29 Buttermarket were built in 1925 as The Play-house cinema and theatre with seating for 700. It remained as a theatre until the late 1950s when it was converted to retail use. Cornhill, Buttermarket and The Traverse are the commercial heart of the town. Cornhill incorporates the market areas set out in the 12th century where twice weekly markets are held, Buttermarket with The Traverse extend to the south connecting with Abbeygate Street and Guildhall Street. The area has some of the town’s finest and most important buildings. 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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