Since Bob and I saw so much of the St Edmundsbury Cathedral yesterday during our walk around the abbey grounds, we decided to go back today to get a tour of the inside of the church/now cathedral. As we learned, the building is the epitome of both old and new, although the construction succeeded in melding the two so that it looks like a cohesive whole.
The building began as the Church of St James, and the old building (originally constructed in the 11th century) is the part that you first enter.
and built in 1503, and looking towards the 20th century addition which makes this now a cathedral.
in the upper middle large window was used
on stamps in England in the 70s.
including both James and Edmund,
was added by Sir Gilbert Scott in 1860.
The tour guide stated that the Diocese of St Edmundsbury and Ipswich was created in 1914, which required the creation of a cathedral. Since this was at the end of WWI, followed by financial constraints and then WWII, the construction of the cathedral didn’t get started until after 1943 when Stephen Dykes Bower was selected as the architect. Normally, Ipswich, being the larger and the county seat, would have been the chosen location. However, all of the historic churches in Ipswich are located in the city center with no room for expansion, so the St James church in Bury was selected.
from the communion altar to the high altar
which wasn’t completed until 2005
and the colorful ceiling wasn’t added until 2010.
a Romanesque artist of the 12th century
who illustrated the first volume of the Bury Bible.
The colors of the ceiling in the Milennium Tower
were based on the colors from that book.
from the cathedral expansion
who was born in Bury. It hangs in the St Edmund’s Chapel.
After our tour, we stopped in the lovely cathedral gift shop and also in the tourist information center, where we picked up lots of additional information on what to do in the local area.
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