Bury (st.edmund's) in Suffolk County England History and Geography

BURY (ST.EDMUND'S), a borough and market town having separate jurisdiction, locally in the hundred of Thingoe, county of SUFFOLK, 26½ miles (N.W. by W.) from Ipswich, and 71 (N.E. by N.) from London, containing 9999 inhabitants. This was a place of importance long before the introduction of Christianity into Britain, and is by some antiquaries supposed to have been the Villa Faustina of the Romans; it evidently was in the possession of that people, from the discovery of many Roman antiquities, among which are four antique heads of colossal dimensions, cut out of single blocks of freestone, representing some of their divinities, that were found in digging up an old foundation. Soon after the settlement of the Saxons it was made a royal burgh, and called Beodrics worthe, signifying the dwelling of Beodric, to whom it belonged at the time of the heptarchy, and who, at his death, bequeathed it to Edmund, afterwards canonized as a martyr, from whom it was named St. Edmund's Bury. Edmund, having succeeded to the kingdom of East Anglia on the death of Offa, was crowned here in the fifteenth year of his age, and being taken prisoner by the Danes, who in 870 made an irruption into this part of the country, was cruelly put to death. The circumstances attending his death and burial are thus superstitiously related: on his refusal to become a vassal to the conquerors, they bound him to a tree, pierced his body with arrows, and striking off his head, threw it into a neighbouring forest. After the enemy had retired, the East Anglians assembled to perform the last sad duty to the remains of their sovereign; having found the body, they went into the forest to search for the head, and discovered it between the fore paws of a wolf, which immediately resigned it on their approach: the head, on being placed in contact with the trunk, is then said to have re-united so closely, that the juncture was scarcely visible. The subject of this fabulous story has been assumed for the device of the corporate seal.

The remains of Edmund were interred at Hoxne, in a small chapel built of wood, forty days after his death, and the report of miracles wrought at his tomb being promulgated and credulously believed, they were removed to this place in 903. A new church was built in honour of St. Edmund, by some secular priests, who were incorporated into a college by King Athelstan about the year 925. Sweyn, King of Denmark, having nearly destroyed the town and the church in 1010, they were restored by Canute, who being warned, as it is said, by a vision, raised the town to more than its former splendour, rebuilt the church and monastery, and endowed them with great possessions; and, expelling the secular canons, placed in their stead monks of the Benedictine order. The monastery of St. Edmund in process of time became one of the most splendid establishments in the kingdom; and, in magnificent buildings, costly decorations, valuable immunities, and rich endowments, was inferior only to that at Glastonbury. It had the royalties, or franchises, of many separate hundreds, and the right of coinage; its abbot sate in parliament, and possessed the power of determining all suits within the franchise, or liberty of Bury, and of inflicting capital punishment. These high privileges were frequently the cause of strife and bloodshed; and in the year 1327, the townsmen and neighbouring villagers, assembling to the number of twenty thousand, headed by their alderman and capital burgesses, made a violent attack upon the monastery; they demolished the gates, doors, and windows, and reduced a considerable part of the building to ashes; they wounded the monks, pillaged the coffers, from which they took the charters, deeds, and other valuable property, including plate, £5000 sterling, and three thousand florins of gold. The king having been informed of this outrage, sent a military force to quell the tumult, when the alderman and twenty-four of the burgesses were imprisoned, and thirty carts loaded with rioters were sent to Norwich; of these, nineteen were executed, and one was pressed to death for refusing to plead: thirty-two of the parochial clergy were also convicted as abettors; and the inhabitants were adjudged to pay a fine of £140,000, but this was afterwards mitigated on the restoration of the stolen property.

The monastery remained in possession of the Benedictine monks for five hundred and nineteen years, but in 1539 the abbot and his brethren were expelled. It contained within its precincts the churches of St. Margaret, St. Mary, and St. James: its revenue, at the dissolution, was £2336. 16. The remains consist chiefly of the abbey gate, which is still entire, and displays some elegant features in the decorated style of English architecture; the abbey bridge, in good preservation; and detached portions of the walls, that still exhibit traces of its former magnificence. About the year 1256, a fraternity of the Franciscan order came to Bury, but they were compelled by the abbot to remove beyond the precinets of the town, where their establishment continued till the dissolution. Henry I., on his return from Chartres, repaired to the shrine of St. Edmund, where he presented a rich offering, in gratitude for his safe return to his own dominions; and in 1173, Henry II. having assembled a large army at this place, to oppose his rebellious sons, caused the sacred standard of St. Edmund to be borne in front of his troops, and to its inflnence was ascribed the victory that he obtained over them in the battle of the 27th of October. In 1214, King John was met here by the barons, who compelled him to confirm the grant of Magna Charta, to abolish the Norman laws, and to govern the kingdom by those of Edward the Confessor. Henry III. held a parliament here in 1272, which may be regarded as the outline of a British House of Commons; and in 1296, Edward I. visited this town, where he also held a parliament. In 1381, Sir John Cavendish, then Lord Chief Justice, was brought hither and beheaded by the Suffolk and Norfolk insurgents, amounting to fifty thousand men, who afterwards attacked the abbey, executed the prior, Sir John Cambridge, and continued their career of lawless outrage till they were finally dispersed by the exertions of Spencer, the martial Bishop of Norwich. In 1526, the Dukes of Suffolk and Norfolk assembled their forces here, to quell a dangerous insurrection of the inhabitants of Lavenham and the adjacent country; and on the death of Edward VI. in 1553, John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland, made this place the rendezvous of his forces, when he caused Lady Jane Grey to be proclaimed successor to the throne. In 1555-6, twelve persons were burned at the stake, in the persecutions on account of religious tenets during the reign of Mary: in 1583, her successor Elizabeth visited Bury, where she was magnificently entertained.

The town is delightfully situated on a gentle eminence on the western bank of the river Larke, otherwise called Bourne, in the centre of an open and richly cultivated tract of country: the streets are spacious, well paved, and lighted with oil, under an act of parliament passed in the 51st of George III., and extended for general improvement in the 1st of George IV. The houses are, in general, uniform and handsomely built, and the inhabitants are amply supplied with water: the air is salubrious, the environs abound with interesting scenery, and the peculiar cleanliness of the town, together with the number and variety of its public institutions, render it desirable as a place of residence. The subscription library, formed by the union of two separate institutions, one of which was established in 1790, and the other in 1795, contains a valuable collection, and is liberally supported: there are also a news-room, four circulating libraries, and a billiard-room. The botanical gardens, containing a well arranged assortment of plants, and forming an agreeable promenade, are supported by an annual subscription of two guineas: the theatre, a neat building erected in 1819, is opened during the great fair by the Norwich company of comedians. Concerts take place occasionally in the old theatre, built in 1780, which has been converted to this use; and assemblies are held during the season at the subscription rooms, erected in 1804, and handsomely fitted up. A mechanics' institution has been recently established. There is not any branch of manufacture carried on: the spinning of yarn was formerly the principal source of employment for the poor, and the halls in which the wool was deposited are standing. About a mile from the town the river Larke becomes navigable to Lynn, whence coal and other commodities are brought hither in small barges. The market days are Wednesday and Saturday; the former for corn, &c.; the latter for meat and poultry. Fairs are held on the Tuesday in Easter week, for toys, &c.; October 1st, for horses, cattle, butter, and cheese: the great fair commences on the 10th of the same month, and generally continues about three weeks; and December 1st, for cattle, butter, cheese, &c.

The government, by charter of incorporation granted in the 4th of James I., is vested in an alderman, recorder, twelve capital burgesses, and twenty-four common councilmen, assisted by a town-clerk, four serjeants at mace, and subordinate officers. The alderman, who is chosen annually from among the capital burgesses, coroner, and recorder, are justices of the peace; there are also five assistant justices chosen either from the burgesses, or from the inhabitants generally: these magistrates exercise exclusive jurisdiction. The freedom of the borough is acquired by servitude and gift, but is never taken up. The corporation hold courts of session for the trial of capital offenders, and a court of pleas to the amount of £200: a court for the recovery of debts under 40s. is held under the chief steward of the liberty of Bury. The assizes for the county and liberty are also held here; there is always a separate commission for the borough. The shire-hall, on the site of the ancient church of St. Margaret, is a neat modern building, containing two courts for civil and criminal causes. The guildhall, where the borough courts are held, has a beautiful ancient porch of flint, brick, and stone, on it are sculptured the arms of the borough; the hall contains some good portraits of members of the corporation, and representatives of the borough, among which is a portrait of Admiral Hervey, by Sir Joshua Reynolds: over the entrance is a chamber wherein the records of the corporation are deposited. The town bridewell, situated on the Hog-hill was formerly a synagogue; the circular windows bespeak its antiquity, and it appears, from other parts, to have been of Norman origin. The new county gaol, erected in 1805, is a spacious building upon the radiating principle, the keeper's house being in the centre: the buildings are surrounded by a stone wall twenty feet high, enclosing an octagonal area, the diameter of which is two hundred and ninety-two feet; they consist of four wings, and have been lately enlarged; a treadwheel has also been recently added. The house of correction, near the gaol, enclosed within a high wall, is arranged with a dueregard to classification; and the internal regulations are superior to those of most others in the country. The borough first received a precept to return representatives to parliament in the 30th of Edward I., but made no subsequent return till the 4th of James I., since which it has continued to send two members: the right of election is vested exclusively in the alderman and thirty-six burgesses, who are in the interest of the Duke of Grafton, and the Marquis of Bristol: the alderman is the returning officer, and has the casting vote.

Bury comprises the parishes of St. Mary and St. James; the living of each is a donative, in the patronage of the Corporation. The church, completed about the year 1433, is a spacious and elegant structure in the later style of English architecture, with a low massive tower; the north door is in the decorated style, and the porch, the roof of which is singularly beautiful, is of later date: the roof of the nave is finely carved, and supported upon slender-shafted columns; the roof of the chancel is painted and gilt, and highly embellished in compartments: on the north side of the altar is a monument of white marble to the memory of Mary Tudor, third daughter of Henry VII., wife of Louis XII. of France, and afterwards of Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk. The church is a large and handsome edifice in the later style of English architecture, of which the western end is a rich and beautiful specimen: the church gate, leading to the precinet of the abbey, is surmounted by a fine Norman tower containing the bells: the chaneel has been much altered from its original character, by the insertion of modern windows. There are two places of worship for Independents, and one each for Baptists, the Society of Friends, Methodists, and Unitarians, besides a Roman Catholic chapel.

The grammar school, founded by Edward VI., is open to the sons of inhabitants upon the payment of two guineas entrance, and the same sum per annum; it has four exhibitions of the value of £20 each, and two of £25 each per annum, to either of the universities, a scholarship at Corpus Christi College, and another at Jesus' College, Cambridge; there are one hundred scholars on the foundation: a new school-house has been erected by public contribution; over the entrance is a bust of the founder, with an appropriate inscription, and adjoining the school-room is a good house for the master: the institution has long occupied a high station among the schools in the country, and several distinguished individuals have received the rudiments of their education at it. There are three charity schools, in one of which forty boys, and in the others fifty girls, are instructed and clothed, supported partly by an endowment of £70 per annum, and partly by subscription. A Lancasterian school for boys, and one for girls, were established in 1811. The almshouses, ninety-eight in number, were founded by Mr. Edmund King, Mrs. Margaret Drury, and others, and are under the superintendence of trustees, in whom funds, amounting to £2000 per annum, have been at various times invested for charitable uses. Clopton's hospital was founded for the support of six aged widowers and the same number of widows, being decayed housekeepers, by Boley Clopton, M.D., who endowed it with property producing £300 per annum; it is a neat brick building with projecting wings, having the arms of the founder over the entrance in the centre. The general hospital, established in 1825, and supported by subscription, was originally built by government for an ordnance dep''t, but was afterwards purchased and converted to its present use; it contains accommodation for forty patients, and is under the superintendence of a president, vice-presidents, and governors, and gratuitously attended by the physicians and surgeons in the town and neighbourhood. Near the north gate, on the road to Thetford, are the ruins of St. Saviour's hospital, founded in the reign of King John, with an income of 153 marks, where the Good Duke of Gloucester is believed to have been murdered. A little beyond it stood St. Thomas' hospital and chapel, now a private dwelling; and about half a mile distant may be traced the site of the old priory. Various other ruins connected with the abbey and its early history are visible; many minor institutions were dependent on it, of which there are not at present any remains: among these may be noticed, a college of priests, dedicated to the Holy Name of Jesus, founded in the reign of Edward IV., and suppressed in that of Edward VI.; an hospital, dedicated to St. John, founded by one of the abbots in the reign of Edward I.; an hospital, dedicated to St. Nicholas, founded also by an abbot of St. Edmund's, the revenue of which, at the dissolution, was £6. 19. 11.; and St. Peter's hospital, founded in the latter part of the reign of Henry I., or the beginning of that of Stephen, the revenue of which, at the dissolution, was £10. 18. 11. This is the native place of Sir Nicholas Bacon; Bishops Gardiner and Pretyman; and of Dr. Blomfield, the present Bishop of London. Bury confers the title of viscount on the family of Keppel, earls of Albemarle.

From Lewis's Topographical Dictionary of England 1831, courtesy of Databases 4 Sale