Bury St Edmunds Abbey
Bury St Edmunds in Suffolk takes its name from the great Benedictine abbey that was established here in the ninth century to house the remains of St Edmund, King of East Anglia, who was martyred by Danish invaders in 869 and rapidly venerated as a saint and martyr across England. The abbey became one of the wealthiest and most powerful monasteries in medieval England, its wealth sustained by pilgrimage to St Edmund's shrine and by the commercial prosperity of the town that grew up under its patronage. The ruins of the abbey church and its precinct walls survive in excellent condition and can be explored through the Abbey Gardens in the centre of the town.
The scale of the ruins gives an impression of the extraordinary size of the medieval abbey church, which was one of the largest in England. The great tower of the Norman west front survives to considerable height alongside the later perpendicular tower, and the ruined arches and walls of the nave and transepts extend across a large area of the gardens. The complete precinct boundary wall, much of which survives, encloses an area that makes the extent of the monastic complex clear, and the surviving gatehouses on Angel Hill are among the finest examples of medieval monastic entrance architecture in England.
The Abbey of Bury St Edmunds has a further historical significance beyond its religious importance. It was in the abbey chapter house on 20 November 1214 that the barons of England met and swore on the high altar to compel King John to confirm the ancient liberties of England, a meeting that led directly to the sealing of Magna Carta at Runnymede in June 1215. The abbey was thus the birthplace of Magna Carta in a meaningful historical sense, and a memorial to this event stands in the Abbey Gardens.
The town of Bury St Edmunds is one of the finest market towns in East Anglia, with a Georgian cathedral (elevated in the twentieth century), a theatre, market square and a wealth of well-preserved buildings creating one of the most satisfying historic town centres in Suffolk.