Bury St. Edmunds

Our first little trip away from base was to a town called Bury St. Edmunds. Every Friday, the Airman & Family Readiness Center has a trip to this town for newcomers. They also give a quick tour of two of the nearby bases. Bury is probably the closest decent shopping in the area, and a lot of people get their cell phones on this trip as well.

The bus parked at Angel Hill, which is a convenient place to park cheaply, since it’s close to a lot of the restaurants and shops. It was a pretty short walk to the pub where we had lunch: The Queen’s Head.

First thing we learned about ordering in a pub: you order & pay right away at the bar. So we got our beers right away (before noon, yikes!).

This was my first time trying Aspall, a delicious British cider. We also had some very yummy baguette sandwiches! I got a bacon, Brie, and cranberry baguette, and Andrew got a steak & mushroom baguette. Mmmmm…they were so good!

Oh…and they came with salads on the side. With no dressing. We were perplexed. We looked in our little condiments dish on the table, and nothing in there looked like salad dressing. So Andrew ate his plain (what a weirdo :-P). I decided to try some English mustard on mine. Wow…that mustard packs a punch! It definitely cleared out my sinuses!

After lunch, Andrew & I waited outside for the rest of the group to finish eating. We were one of the first ones to order, so we were also one of the first ones to finish. Of course, I needed to get this photo:

After everyone finished eating, we headed back toward Angel Hill for a tour of the St. Edmundsbury Cathedral. Here are a few of the pictures from the cathedral tour:

For over 1,000 years, this site has been one of worship and pilgrimage. The death of Edmund, King of the East Angles, at the hands of the Danes in 869 led to the building of an abbey to house his remains. Legend has it that Edmund refused to renounce his strong Catholic faith, so he died a martyr. The Abbey, which dates back to 633, was renamed in his honor, and for the next five centuries, pilgrims from all over the world travelled to worship at the shrine of St Edmunds. In fact, St Edmund was held to be the patron saint of England before St George.

The nave of the cathedral, facing east, as the all were built to face Jerusalem. The ceiling above the altar is just stunning to look at! It took about 11 years to complete and was unveiled in spring 2010 for the public to see. Here is a link if you would like to see more about it.

The picture above is an artist’s depiction of what the site would have looked like before King Henry VIII had it dismantled in 1539 in his efforts to convert the Catholics to the Church of England.

We didn’t have enough time to tour the Abbey gardens, but we went back about a week later to do that. We had a nice day trip to Bury St. Edmunds, and it was nice to get away from base for awhile!