Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk is a charming market town in the east of England, an easy day trip from London and a really lovely place to explore for a day or two. Once known by the Saxon name Beodricsworth, Bury is named after Edmund, the 9th century King of the Angles who was martyred by the Vikings for refusing to recant his Christian faith. Choc full of over 1000 years of history, home to an 11th century Benedictine abbey (one of the richest and largest monasteries in Europe and a major pilgrimage site due to St Edmund's shrine), the town also boasts a magnificent cathedral, a historic town centre choc full of independent shops, eateries and architectural gems and the smallest pub in Britain.
Bury St Edmunds is proudly dog friendly - in 2023 it came 2nd in the DogFriendly Awards for Most Dog Friendly Town/City in the UK and has been voted Most Dog Friendly Town in England - keep an eye out for a blue pawprint sticker in business windows and water bowls outside. From hotels to shopping, restaurants to attractions, check this link to explore over 100 local businesses that welcome four legged guests, including the Cathedral!
We teamed up with Bury St Edmunds' tourism board to bring you the very best of this lovely town - here's how to get the most out of one day in Bury St Edmunds.
How to get to Bury St Edmunds
By train: Bury is in Suffolk, in the east of England. Trains run either from London Liverpool Street, changing at Ipswich (1 hour 55mins) or from London Kings Cross, changing at Ely (1 hour 45 mins) with 2-3 trains running per hour. The train station is about a 16 minute walk out of the town centre.
By car: If you're driving to Bury St Edmunds, you'll be coming in on the A14, exiting at junction 43. We parked in the Ram Meadow Cotton Lane, IP33 1XP which is only £3 for all day 8am-6pm. From here it's about a 10 minute walk to where you will be starting your itinerary! www.westsuffolk.gov.uk/parking/car_parks/bse_car_parks/rammeadowcarpark.cfm.
How to spend one day in Bury St Edmunds- your itinerary:
1. Start your day at 11am with a guided tour of Bury's historic centre,
Head to Angel Hill opposite the Abbey Gateway entrance into the Abbey Gardens to join a 90 minute guided tour by Bury St Edmunds Tour Guides (look for the guide wearing a green top). Full of knowledge and jokes, your guide will lead you through 1000 years of Bury St Edmund's history, from the murder of Edmund, Anglo Saxon king and serious contender to be the Patron Saint of England, through the Norman, Medieval, Tudor and Georgian eras. . You'll visit the incredible Abbey ruins, which joined Canterbury Cathedral and the Shrine of Our Lady, Walsingham as one of our country's most important pilgrimage sites, an intriguing memorial rose garden featuring a bench made from a B17 Flying Fortress, the burial place of a Tudor Queen and a building that has hosted Charles Dickens, Oscar Wilde and Bob Marley...
Bury St Edmunds Tour Guides Daily Tours run every day at 11am from April 1st to October 31st. Book tickets online.
Adults £10.00, under 18s £5, under 5s free.
Tel: 01284 758130
N.B: If you're visiting in autumn/winter, Bury St Edmunds Tour Guides run their 90 minute Ghostly and Macabre Tours from Halloween until March on Friday evenings at 6.30/6.45/7.00pm. £10, suitable for adults and children aged 14+. All under 18s must be supervised by an adult.
2. Stop for tea and cake at the Pilgrim’s Kitchen café
Time for a pitstop at St Edmundsbury Cathedral - if it's a nice day, take one of the outdoor tables in the Pilgrim's Kitchen's walled garden. If the weather isn't being kind, inside you'll find rustic tables and chairs and a mouthwatering selection of homemade cakes. House favourite are the cheese scones, but we'd like to recommend the bread pudding! Perfect to pair with a pot of Fairtrade tea or Suffolk's own Paddy and Scott's coffee. www.stedscathedral.org/pilgrims-kitchen
Open Monday to Saturday 9.00 am to 5.00 pm, Sunday 10.00 am to 3.00 pm
3. Discover a Tudor Queen in St Mary’s Church
One of the largest parish churches in the country, St Mary’s is the final resting place of Mary Tudor, Queen of France, and younger sister of King Henry VIII (not to be confused with his daughter, Queen Mary I of England) after whom the Mary Rose was named. Married off at 18 to French king Louis XII, more than 30 years her senior, on the agreement that she could choose her 2nd husband, Mary outfoxed her brother by secretly marrying Charles Brandon, Henry's friend and Duke of Suffolk who had been sent to bring her home after Louis' death only 3 months later. Luckily, Henry was uncharacteristically forgiving and the couple kept their heads after paying a huge fine.
Originally buried in the nearby Abbey, Mary was moved to this church just 5 years later after Henry about dissolving the country's monasteries and can now be found in a simple white tomb to the left of the altar. Inside, be sure to look at the magnificent hammer-beam Angel roof and the Victorian stained glass window in the South Chapel depicting Mary Tudor's life. St Mary's is said to have the second longest nave and the largest West Window of any parish church in the country.
Honey Hill, Bury St Edmunds IP33 1RT
Free admission.
Open to visitors Monday to Saturday from 10.30am to 3pm- staffed by volunteers so there is a very slight chance it might not be open on the day you visit.
4. Visit St Edmundsbury Cathedral
Three minutes away is Suffolk's Cathedral, dedicated to St James and St Edmund. A church has stood on this site since 1065 becoming a cathedral only recently in 1914. Originally St James’s Church, built within the precincts of the Abbey, the building was largely rebuilt in the 16th, 18th and 19th century and doubled in size in the 1960s. Newer developments include the addition of the Millennium Tower, completed in 2005, and the Cathedral's beautiful vault, added in 2010. The Cathedral's bells are situated in the separate Norman Tower, one of the oldest and most complete Norman buildings in the country, built in the 12th century as a gatehouse to the Abbey.
Inside, you'll find a colourful hammer-beam roof and magnificent font, built onto a medieval base, both by George Gilbert Scott, and Elisabeth Frink's Crucifixion sculpture (another of her works, a life size statue of St Edmund, is outside in the cathedral grounds). Children and the young at heart should check out the impressive Lego sculpture of St Edmundsbury in the southwest corner of the building. The project aims to recreate the cathedral brick by brick, and you can donate £1 to add a piece. Currently on 140,477 out of 200,000 bricks, volunteers estimate they have another 2 years to go until completion!
Although admission is free donations are expected.
Open 10.00 am to 5.30 pm Monday to Friday
10.00 am to 4.00 pm on Saturdays (and Bank Holidays)
12.30 pm to 3.00 pm on Sundays.
5. Lunch at The Angel Hotel Eaterie restaurant
Book a table at this gorgeous hotel where Charles Dickens stayed. As well as a scrummy a la carte menu, from Monday to Saturday, the Angel has a special lunchtime offer, Fish, Chips and Sips, where you can enjoy delicious beer battered fish with chips, pea puree and homemade tartare sauce, plus a glass of Laurent-Perrier La Cuvee Champagne for £25. Alternatively, new for 2024, the Angel offers a Charles Dickens themed Pickwick afternoon tea everyday from 12pm to 4pm, £35 per person.
3 Angel Hill, Bury St Edmunds, IP33 1LT
01284 714 007
6. Explore the town centre further
Take a walk up Abbeygate Street, peep down the little side streets and see how many different architectural styles you can spot. Keep an eye out for King Henry VIII and one of his wives on a wooden timber in the window of Cotswold Outdoor, and pause outside the Victorian Corn Exchange (now Wetherspoons), where in 1978 an infamous Clash concert caused mayhem in the town as badly behaved punks damaged buildings, resulting in the council putting in place a 20 year live music ban. Grade I listed, it has kept a lot of its 19th century features including a magnificent glass roof.
Turn up the right hand side of the Corn Exchange, past an unusual Lloyds bank sign - it's the only one in the country without a black horse! Instead you'll see pineapples, symbolising prosperity, a bee hive, the symbol of industriousness, and an oak tree, denoting the Oakes family, who founded the Bury and Suffolk Bank in the 18th century.
7. Horrible History at Moyse's Hall Museum
At the top of the road you'll see a flint covered house with a clock and small steeple - this is Moyse's Hall, a 12th century merchant's house, one of the last surviving Norman houses in Britain. Today it is home to a small but fascinating museum about local history. You'll find out about the creation and dissolution of the Abbey of St Edmund, see pilgrim badges and a lock of Mary Tudor's hair, then head upstairs to visit the museum's notorious crime and punishment exhibition. Learn about Bury St Edmunds prison, local superstitions and witchcraft (much like Colchester, Matthew Hopkins, the Witchfinder General, was busy here too) and discover the grisly relics of John Nichol's gibbet and the Red Barn Murder, including a book bound with a murderer's skin!!
There is a special gallery dedicated to the Suffolk Regiment, and on the top floor you can see a world renowned collection of clocks and timepieces from Frederic Greshom-Parkington (you'll see his blue plaque near the bottom of Abbeygate Street). Moyse's Hall hosts regularly changing temporary exhibitions and is currently showing Quentin Blake: The Illustrated Hospital. Since 2005, the beloved illustrator has been creating artworks for hospitals and healthcare settings, and this beautiful and poignant collection is very moving. (Running until Sunday 6th October, included in general admission)
Cornhill, Bury St Edmunds IP33 1DX
Tel: 01284 706183
Adults £5, children (5-16) £3 and seniors £4.50
Open Mondays to Saturdays 10am to 5pm (last entry 4pm)
Sundays 12pm to 4pm (last entry 3pm)
8. A drink at the Nutshell
Stop for a pint of Bury St Edmunds' own Greene King IPA or Abbot in the Nutshell, confirmed by the Guinness Book of Records as Britain's smallest pub. The Little Prince in Margate has challenged this, but as far as we're aware, the Nutshell still holds the official title.
This little Victorian gem has been a pub since 1867, though the building is much older. Measuring a diminutive 15x7ft, there is space for about 10 patrons inside, plus a few patio tables outside, although in 1984, a record number of 102 people and a Jack Russell called Bob squeezed into the pub! The ceiling above the bar is covered with old banknotes and a 400 year old mummified cat discovered during building works in the 1930s... as you'll have read in the Moyse's Hall Museum, the bodies of cats were often placed inside the structure of buildings to ward off evil spirits. According to our guide, John, when a group of airmen from nearby RAF Honington stole the unfortunate moggy for a joke, things started to go wrong on the base and they quickly brought it back again! As well as a cursed cat, the Nutshell claims to be home to a number of ghosts, including a young blond-haired boy who peers out of the upper windows, a Victorian gentleman with long hair, and a monk and a nun in the cellar.
17 The Traverse, Bury Saint Edmunds IP33 1BJ
Open 12pm to 11pm Sunday to Friday, 12pm-12am Saturdays.
9. Dinner!
Bury St Edmunds is known as Suffolk's foodie capital and has a huge range of independent and chain restaurants. Here are a few recommendations to get your mouth watering:
Cheers - this popular steakhouse gives you the opportunity to cook your own meat on a hot stone.
Damson & Wilde - part of the local Gusto Pronto family, Damson & Wilde serves a sumptuous menu including chestnut mushroom soup with parmesan toast, butterflied seabass and spiced aubergine schnitzel.
Gastrono-me - self confessed Flavour Junkies, the Gastrono-me team offer a menu of delicious comfort food including pasta, tacos, souvlaki and burgers alongside colourful cocktails.
Giggling Squid - a quirky Thai chain well known for its seafood, alongside a menu of familiar staples.
Maison Bleue - This French restaurant offers stylish fine dining with set priced menus that include amuse bouche, starter, main course, dessert and petits fours.
Masons Arms - historic pub with cask ale and a year round courtyard garden, specialising in traditional British pub grub like fish and chips, ham, egg and chips, Scampi and Hunters chicken.
Oakes Barn - award winning real ale pub serving homemade food using local produce wherever possible
The One Bull - Featured in the Guardian's "30 UK best pubs for Sunday Lunch", this pub brews its own craft beer and serves locally roasted coffee alongside a delicious seasonal menu.
For information about things to see and do visit Bury's official tourism board website: www.burystedmundsandbeyond.co.uk
If you're spending longer in the area, you might find these blogs useful:
9 awesome things to do in Clare, Suffolk's smallest town (33 mins drive)
Top things to do in Saffron Walden, Essex (38 mins drive away)
Paddle boarding through beautiful Cambridge: a complete guide (39 mins drive away)
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