Bury St Edmunds buildings [235]

Image: © Michael Dibb Taken: 7 Sep 2020

Originally one house, once divided into two and lately recombined, numbers 16 and 17 Risbygate Street are now offices with a flat above. Built in the early 18th century, incorporating fragments of an earlier core, timber framed and stuccoed with the framing exposed on the gable wall. The attic storey and the rear range are later 18th century alterations and additions. Listed, grade II, with details at: https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1244900 Brentgovel Street and Risbygate Street was a prosperous area in the fifteenth century but it became neglected and decay had set in. In the 1990s, a Conservation Area Partnership Schemes was introduced to give a new lease of life into the area by repairing and reusing historic buildings. Forty five new residential units and ten new retail units have resulted in the area thriving again. 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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