Visit the Ruins of the Abbey of St Edmund in Bury St Edmunds

In Medieval times, The Abbey of St Edmund in Bury St Edmunds was one of the richest, largest and most powerful Benedictine monasteries in England. People came from all over England and Europe to visit the Shrine of St Edmund and it became one of the most famous and wealthy pilgrimage locations in England, visited by royalty.
Edmund, King of East Anglia, was killed by The Danes on 20 November 869, after refusing to give up his Christian faith. He was tied to a tree and shot full of arrows before being beheaded.
In 903 the remains of Saint Edmund, the original the Patron Saint of England, were moved to the Anglo-Saxon settlement of Beodericsworth (later known as Bury St Edmunds) where the site had already been in religious use for nearly three centuries.
St Edmund’s body was moved to London in 1010 for safe keeping when The Danes were again marauding through East Anglia but three years later his body was returned to Bedricesworth.
In 1020, King Canute had a stone church built for Edmund's body and the first abbots arrived. This was the beginning of the Abbey of St Edmund and it became a site of great pilgrimage as people from all over Europe came to visit St Edmund’s shrine.
In 1081, Abbot Baldwin embarked on a building programme that was to last well over 100 years, culminating in a Romanesque Abbey church. He was also responsible for laying out the town in 1065, which is considered the oldest purposefully laid out town in the country, the medieval grid is still evident today.