BURY ST EDMUNDS - ABBEY GARDENS

Abbey Gardens stand in the heart of Bury St Edmunds on the site of a great Benedictine abbey. The gardens contain magnificent floral displays and impressive ruins of the abbey. They stand adjacent to St Edmundsbury cathedral that is only now in the final stages of completion after nearly 500 years with the addition of a central tower.

The ivy clad Angel Hotel standing on Angel Hill is a 15th century former coaching inn.

The Abbey gate is the main entrance to the gardens but this was not the original gate, that was damaged in an uprising in 1327 when townsfolk plundered the abbey and kidnapped the abbot. The present gate was built alongside the original in the mid 14th century.

Abbey gate from inside in what was the Great Court.

St Edmundsbury Cathedral was originally the parish church of St James and only became a cathedral in 1914, although building work began in 1503 it is still in the process of being finished with the addition of a central tower which is hoped to be completed in 2004, 500 years after building began.

Magnificent floral displays adorn the gardens.

The colours are stunning but these pictures cannot really do justice to the magnificence of the displays

Note the squirrel in the edge of the flowerbed.

One of the local inhabitants of the gardens, everywhere you looked you could see squirrels.

A model of how the Abbey would have looked, the small building halfway up the right hand side wall is the present cathedral so you can see how magnificent the Abbey must have looked.

Ruins of the cloisters.

The ancient Abbot's bridge over the River Lark.

Impressive ruins of the Abbey of St Edmunds.All that is left of these once great pillars are the rubble cores.

Ruins of the North Transept.

Another one of the abbey gardens is this Old English Rose Garden, the construction of which is due to the generosity of Mr John T Appleby of the US 8th Air force who was stationed near Bury St Edmunds during the war.

Even the trees in the gardens come in a variety of different colours.

A maze of scaffolding erected for the building of the cathedral tower.

Norman Tower was built between 1120 and 1148 by Abbot Anselm to be both the principal gateway to the abbey precinct and the bell tower to the church of St James.