St Edmundsbury Cathedral

St Edmundsbury Cathedral

The Cathedral
St Edmundsbury Cathedral
Abbey House
Angel Hill
Bury St Edmunds
Suffolk
IP33 1LS

Tel: 01284 748 720
E-Mail: reception@stedscathedral.org

Web: St Edmundsbury Cathedral

About St Edmundsbury Cathedral

Bury St Edmunds was once the place where the Saxon kings resided, and a monastery was founded during the 7th century on the site of the present day abbey remains. When Abbot Baldwin began building the Norman abbey church in the latter part of the 11th century, he also built a new church for the use of the townspeople. In less than 50 years, the parish church dedicated to St Denis had been demolished to make way for the enlargement of the abbey church, and a new parish church dedicated to St James was built on the site of the present St Edmundsbury Cathedral. Details of this Norman church are scarce but it is known that the chancel was rebuilt at the turn of the 14th century, and work on remodelling the nave began early in the 16th century. Throughout the next 400 years the building underwent several structural changes and, eventually, at the hands of Sir Gilbert Scott, St James's took its final shape as a parish church in the 1870s.
In 1914 the new diocese of St Edmundsbury and Ipswich was created and the lovely parish church became St Edmundsbury Cathedral. Unlike the vast medieval cathedrals, formerly the grand abbey churches of monastic foundations, St Edmundsbury Cathedral presents a far less imposing feature on the high street of this Suffolk market town.The long, rectangu