Bury St Edmunds houses [214]

Image: © Michael Dibb Taken: 9 Sep 2020

Number 153 Southgate Street is a 16th century house greatly restored and altered in the 1960s when a rear extension was added. Timber framed, stuccoed on the ground floor and jettied along the street. The ground floor windows replaced two early 19th century shop windows. Listed, grade II, with details at: https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1272180 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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