SECLUSION IN SUFFOLK
This picture-perfect part of England is largely off the tourist map, but full of history, says Peter Baber
SOME YEARS AGO, my then boss was organising her hen weekend. She wanted to go somewhere in the country, but not too far out of London. She fancied Suffolk, but didn’t know much about the place. So she rang the English Tourist Board to see what they could tell her. She was rather surprised at the response. “Where did you say?” “Suffolk.” Long silence. “Never heard of it. Are you sure you don’t mean south Norfolk?”
The ignorance of even some employees of our tourism organisations about Suffolk’s charms isn’t entirely surprising. Somehow, when people think of East Anglia, they inevitably gravitate to the Norfolk Broads, or those (admittedly wonderful) North Norfolk beaches. The rolling hills of inland Suffolk seem to be awaiting discovery.
At least that’s what I think after two visits to the area around Bury St Edmunds, the county town, earlier this year – before and after the lockdown – in our long-term-test Adria Altea Aire (p50).
Traditional shops
At first sight, Bury itself seems charming, but rather like any other English country town – lots of cloned shops and restaurants. And while it has not one, but two corn exchanges, one of these has been turned into a Wetherspoon pub.
The centre of the town is pleasantly pedestrianised, however, and there are plenty of places to park for relatively little. I spotted a traditional tailor’s shop, which is a good sign that a town is not dying.
The really interesting part of Bury comes downhill from the shops. The town’s gardens house the remains of the St Edmundsbury Benedictine Abbey, first commissioned by King Canute 1000 years ago, in honour of the saint after whom the town is named.
St Edmund the Martyr, to give him his full title, is little known now, but his story is worth telling. If this were a just world, he would still be England’s national saint. (St George is actually a Turkish interloper adopted in later centuries, initially by the crusading Richard I.)
Edmund was a Saxon king, defeated by the Danes in 970. When he refused to renounce his Christianity, they beheaded him. Legend has it that they claimed to have thrown away his head, but when his devoted followers went to look for it, they were alerted to its location by, of all things, a talking wolf, which had been guarding it.
Edmund’s separated head and body were duly given Christian burial, but when he was disinterred 30 years later to be moved elsewhere, it was found that his head and body had joined back together, with only a thin line where the cut had been. A miracle!
Perhaps it is not surprising that in 1214, the Archbishop of Canterbury chose this abbey’s grounds to meet a group of barons and swear that they would get King John to sign the Magna Carta – something they (briefly) achieved a year later.
Sadly, the abbey was devastated by
Henry VIII’S dissolution of the monasteries in 1539. The abbot was thrown out and moved just down the road, where he died, forgotten, a year later.
The cathedral in the grounds is a much later development. It was only consecrated as a cathedral in 1914, and the tower was completed as recently as 2005. While there is some stained glass that dates from 1480, much of the interior is modern and I found it a bit dull - with one striking exception.
In a small side chapel, there’s a wonderfully stark crucifixion by sculptor Elisabeth Frink, who came from this area. It’s a thoughtprovoking piece from someone better known for big-headed men (and even larger horses), including another sculpture that she made of St Edmund.
The gardens are certainly worth a stroll, and just down the road from the cathedral is Bury St Edmunds’ other big attraction, the Greene King Brewery, which offers tours of the premises, with beer tasting and great views from the roof. It also provides a handy Ale Trail town map.
Religion and brewing
The Ale Trail highlights 22 establishments in the town centre alone. Perhaps the most famous of these is The Nutshell. At 15ft by 7ft, it is “officially” Britain’s smallest pub, although I have come across others vying for that title.
In particular, don’t miss The Angel Hotel, where Charles Dickens was a frequent guest. Famous novelists, religion, brewing
– a quintessentially English mix.
Heading south from Bury towards the River Stour and the Essex border, you run past a series of small towns.
Lavenham, just off the A134, is a pretty place and perhaps the best example of the wool towns that sprang up around here thanks to the buoyant textile trade in the 14th and 15th century. The great boom is said to be one of the reasons why many of these towns and villages have churches that are much larger than their subsequent growth would have warranted.
Lavenham’s streets are lined with timbered houses in all sorts of candy colours. A fair few have been turned into charming shops and galleries. So when you have viewed the medieval guildhall where Elizabeth I stayed, two years before the Armada invasion, you can still enjoy an hour or two of browsing,