England-Suffolk Flag

Bury St Edmunds >  Google™ Map Sep 2014  Bury St Edmunds Coat of Arms

burh Old English fortified place + edmund (personal name of) saint. Population - 42,000.

England-Suffolk Flag UK > England > Suffolk

Sep 2014

Bury St Edmunds Coat of Arms

Industry looms at the entrance to Bury for that's what it's called round here. The British Sugar processing plant turns 'beet to sweet' and every Silver Spoon™ in your morning cuppa has its stirrings here.

The people could best be described as helpful but stern. Squinting for a machine at the Pay & Display, 'It's over there!' and 'They'll come to you!' in the Suffolk Carver, the table service policy not exactly clear.

Hey, chillaxify yourself man! This is supposed to be a holiday. Go and give that desperate, sculpting man doing dogs in sand a pound but you might want to avoid the rough-looking lads in the marketplace.

Most of the old market area is now given over to the retail[1], this just one of the old buildings on Cornhill.

Bury St Edmunds - Near Cornhill
Bury St Edmunds - Cornhill

The area would have been all about the corn back in the day, the only thing corny now is those Laura Ashley™ floral prints, well they were until 2020.

The modern shopping extension the Arc has been made even more modern by dropping the 'the' and converting to lower case. It might have all the big names but this soon-to-be-eyesore lacks the charm of the old bit.

That, however, applies to pretty much every other similar setup in the UK.

  The Corn Exchange (Abbeygate Street) wetherspoon

The Spoons have a tradition of naming their pubs based on the history of the town or the old building they invariably inhabit. The inevitable offering in a town of this size is called the Corn Exchange because, well, that was the original function back in the 1860s.

There are no awards for their nearly-out-of-date ale and the Director of Contrived Waterhole Naming was clearly on holiday or couldn't be bothered to get out of bed that day. Whoever deputised on that decision is getting a scornful (0/5) for the corny lack of originality and they might as well have stayed in bed themselves that morning.

There were many objections to arc's £100m construction but not so much that it was replacing the historic but largely defunct livestock market.

No sir, old town traders were worried of a doughnut effect with nobody no longer visiting them leaving nothing in the middle.

Bury St Edmunds - Market Square

If you're a fan of the pastry, the poshest looking Greggs™ ever on Abbeygate Street, not shown, doesn't appear to have been affected. There were dozens of doughnuts in their window.

  Suffolk Carver (Brentgovel Street)

Their speciality is roast pork but there's a lot more alongside. Next door to Wilcrofts, see below, which is handy if they're full.

  Wilcrofts Cafe (Brentgovel Street)

Next door to the Suffolk Carver, see above, which is handy if they're full.

The Abbey Gardens house the remains of an 11th-century abbey, which used to house the remains of the martyred king that named that toon.

The ornate gardens themselves are hidden behind the Abbey Gate on Angel Hill and are a lot bigger on the inside when you pop your head in. There's an afternoon picnic's worth in here and they'll even lead you over the River Lark on your way back to the car.

It's all free, since you ask, unlike that Pay & Display that swallowed the last of the small change meaning this stay was as short as any help from a resident.

;