A decade of heritage projects

Our June feature in the Bury Free Press explains our commitment to special heritage projects in Bury St Edmunds

It is ten years ago this month that the Lincoln Magna Carta was displayed as part of the Magna Carta 800 celebrations in 2014. The Bury Society was proud to be a lead partner in this unique way of promoting our town’s heritage and attracting major funding into the town to make it happen.   Today we are significant partners in another special heritage project for our town, the Abbey Heritage Partnership. A grant award from the National Heritage Lottery Fund for £730k towards the Abbey was recently announced.

The Bury Society’s Magna Carta 800 committee was set up in 2011 to develop ideas to deliver a celebration in 2014 and to link with the national Magna Carta 800th Anniversary Commemoration in 2015. A successful Heritage Lottery bid funded the celebrations and a year later, in 2016 we unveiled a lasting memorial in Abbey Gardens.

The Bury Society always wanted the events to be free ‘in the spirit of the Magna Carta’ and accessible to all. The Heritage Lottery bid was based around a free event at the Cathedral and a free Light and Sound event around the town.

Our great success was bringing a copy of the Magna Carta from Lincoln to show in Bury St Edmunds. Over 8,000 adults and children visited the Cathedral to view the Magna Carta and the excellent exhibition. It is with great pride that the Bury Society can say it was involved in a seminal moment in Bury’s history.

In 2016, the Abbey of St Edmund Heritage Partnership was launched to bring together more than 20 partners, led by St Edmundsbury Cathedral and West Suffolk Council, to conserve the historic fabric and explain the heritage of the Abbey to local people and visitors. 

The Bury Society’s interest in the historic fabric of the town meant that it was involved in this partnership from the outset. The Society shared the aims of caring for the whole Abbey area and explaining its heritage to all. Financial and volunteer support was provided to ensure this important project had momentum into the future.

In 2021 the Society helped carry out a Visitor Survey that showed a clear demand for more on-site information and events in and around the Abbey. This and subsequent local community consultations resulted In 2022, the Heritage Partnership being part of the town-wide Abbey 1000 Group which ran an exciting programme of events for the Millennium Celebrations of the foundation of the Abbey in 1020.  It assisted these plans by securing a successful funding bid to the National Lottery Heritage Fund.

Also in 2022, the Partnership worked closely with English Heritage to develop and provide a series of 13 new heritage interpretation panels for the Abbey area, based on the latest research to digitally reconstruct in detail what the Abbey precinct once looked like. Society members were closely involved with that project and raised extra funding from the Town Council to add a further 3 panels. The Society has plans for more interpretation panels and these are under discussion.

Match funding from The Bury Society and a grant from the Town Council has enabled an update and major reprint of the Abbey of St Edmund visitor guide leaflet, ready for the new 2024 tourist season.

This new leaflet is available free from the Tourist Information Point near to the Cathedral.

The Bury Society has proved its commitment to the town’s heritage by initiating and developing these special heritage projects.  On behalf of local residents, it makes large organisations aware of our views on the unique heritage of our town. At the same time this work stimulates tourism and economic growth. If you want to do more to help your local heritage with these special projects, you should consider joining us.