Bury St Edmunds buildings [164]

Image: © Michael Dibb Taken: 11 Sep 2020

Number 4A St Mary's Square was built in red brick in 1812 as a Methodist chapel. Converted in 1878 to a factory manufacturing stays and thereafter used partly for commercial purposes and partly for domestic purposes. The 1878 alterations included the insertion of an upper floor and a rear lean to extension incorporating the stairs to the new upper floor. The ugly and incongruous entrance doorway is 20th century. Listed, grade II, with details at: https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1135168 Sparhawk Street runs from Honey Hill via the open space of St Mary’s Square to Southgate Street which leads to Southgate Green, the site of the town’s Southgate and where St Petronella’s Hospital was located, established in the 12th century for the treatment of female lepers. The area is rich in history and has a great variety of 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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