about our town
taken from Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia
Bury St Edmunds is a town in the county of Suffolk, England. It is the main town in the borough of St Edmundsbury and is probably most famous for the ruined abbey which stands near the town centre. The abbey is a shrine to Saint Edmund, the Saxon King of the East Angles, who was killed by the Danes in 869 AD. The town initially grew around Bury St Edmunds abbey, a site of pilgrimage, and developed into a flourishing cloth-making town by the 14th century. the town is closely associated with Magna Carta, in 1214 the barons of England met in the Abbey Church and swore that they would force King John to accept the Charter of Liberties, later known as Magna Carta.
The abbey was largely destroyed during the 16th century with the dissolution of the monasteries but Bury remained a prosperous town throughout the 17th and 18th centuries. As would be expected of a town in such a rural area, Bury fell into relative decline with the onset of the industrial revolution but remains an attractive market town.
More details from Wikipedia here