St Mary, Bury St Edmunds
St Mary, Bury St Edmunds
St Mary’s on Crown Street is a Grade I civic parish church in Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk, in the Diocese of St Edmundsbury and Ipswich. It is one of the largest parish churches in England, with a hammerbeam nave roof and the tomb of Mary Tudor, Queen of France, sister of Henry VIII.
- Location
- Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk
- Country
- England
- County
- Suffolk
- City / town
- Bury St Edmunds
- Address
- Crown Street, Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk, IP33 1RT
- Postcode
- IP33 1RT
- Built
- Decorated chancel c.1290; nave, aisles and tower 14th–15th centuries; on an earlier site
- Denomination
- Church of England
- Dedication
- Mary
- Diocese
- St Edmundsbury and Ipswich
- Parish
- St Mary, Bury St Edmunds
- Grade
- I
- Style
- Decorated and Perpendicular
- Materials
- Flint and stone, ashlar-faced on the south and west; lead-covered roofs
- Grid reference
- TL 856 639
- Opening hours
- The church is open Monday to Saturday from 10am to 4pm (3pm in the winter). Admission is free.
- Access
- Level access to the main areas. Level access throughout. Accessible toilets in church
- Website
- http://www.wearechurch.net/
Overview
Historic England lists a fourteenth- and fifteenth-century church on an earlier site, in flint and stone, ashlar-faced on the south and west, with lead roofs. The plan is nave and chancel, north and south aisles and a north-west tower. The south aisle runs to fourteen bays; the last four to the east formed a chantry chapel given by Jankyn Smith between 1463 and 1473. The west front has a five-light transomed window and empty canopied niches. The Nottyngham porch of the 1440s is stone-faced, with pinnacles, a crocketed gable and a stone vault. The battlemented fourteenth-century tower is flint-faced in three stages.
Wikipedia records a seventh-century foundation by King Sigeberht and a twelfth-century church by Abbot Anselm; the oldest standing fabric is the Decorated chancel of about 1290. The nave of ten bays has a wide hammerbeam roof with eleven pairs of angels. The west window is claimed as the largest of any English parish church. After the abbey was dissolved, Mary Tudor’s body was moved here from the abbey church; a tablet of 1758 and a marble kerb suggested by Edward VII mark the grave. The church is dedicated to the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, not to Mary Tudor.