Bury St Edmunds buildings [248]

Image: © Michael Dibb Taken: 11 Sep 2020

The main entrance to Gibraltar Barracks has high, wide wrought-iron gates flanked by small side gates. Each pair of gate piers is linked above the side gates by brickwork, with stone capping and a stone block, on the left a shield dated 1878, on the right with the interwoven letters VR. The keep and the walls are the remaining parts of a much larger depot complex built in 1878 as part of the army's 'localisation' process which was intended to improve the ties between a regiment and its locality to assist recruitment. The keep raised the local profile of the barracks, and provided a focus for the regiment. The depot ceased to be used in 1960 and is now The Suffolk Regimental Museum. Listed, grade II with details of the keep at: https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1244805 and details of the walls at: https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1244844 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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