Bury St. Edmunds (said "Barry St. Edmunds") is about a 20 minute drive from us. It has a huge shopping center, a large market where you can buy fresh produce etc. (some of you know my love of farmers' markets), and is the location of the smallest pub in the UK called The Nutshell.
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| The Market (and Adam) |
Bury St. Edmunds is also the location of a Cathedral and the ruins of a medieval abbey. Interestingly enough, many of the buildings in the town were built with materials originally used in the Abbey after it was destroyed in protest to Henry VIII's creation of the Church of England. Although the Abbey was destroyed, the Cathedral is still standing.
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| Bury St. Edmunds War Memorial. The Abbey Gate and the Cathedral can be seen down the road on the left hand side. |
ST. EDMUNDSBURY CATHEDRAL
St. Edmundsbury Cathedral was originally built as a parish church, not as a Cathedral (a Cathedral is simply a church with a Bishop's Chair). Consequently, the church still functions every Sunday and has an active parish (people who actually belong to it), eventually becoming a Cathedral.
The Cathedral is named for S. Edmund, the first patron saint of England (the second and current patron saint is St. George). As the story goes, St. Edmund was a young and handsome King who energetically defended the Brits against the Vikings. One unfortunate day, King Edmund was killed during a battle with the Vikings that took place not so far from Bury St. Edmunds. To execute King Edmund, the Vikings tied him to a tree and shot him with arrows. In an effort to make sure he did not reach heaven, the Vikings intended to remove his body from the tree and behead it (the belief was that dismembered bodies did not make it to heaven), however a white wolf was said to have protected the body until the townspeople were able to retrieve the body and bring it back to the church. It is also said that the wolf stayed with King Edmund's body all the way to the church. As such, the Cathedral became the resting place of St. Edmund, and the town is now called Bury St. Edmund.
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| St. Edmundsbury Cathedral |
It is also said that it is here, in this Cathedral and the Abbey, that the noblemen of England called for the King to adopt the Magna Carta. In addition, many important people who are responsible for the colonization of American (including William Penn and the Gosnold Family) were members here.
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| Cathedral Aisle |
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| The Bishop's Chair |
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| Mouse carved in stone |
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| Cathedral Tower, opened in 2011 and bulit to ancient specifications |
ST. EDMUNDSBURY CATHEDRAL GARDENS
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