Bury St Emunds historian Martyn Taylor explains the link between the town’s Abbeygate Street and the transportation of criminals

Abbeygate Street has always been a main thoroughfare of Bury St Edmunds and today it has achieved recognition as a location of ‘café culture’, alluding to the high number of coffee shops and restaurants there.

At one time it was even described as the Bond Street of Bury, this sobriquet referring to the high-end retailers of fashionable goods situated in the heart of Mayfair, London. However, in medieval times Abbeygate Street was known as the Cook Row, incorporating Barbour Row, Frenchman’s Street and Spicers Row.

As part of the medieval grid of the town, the footprint of which was laid out by Abbot Baldwin in 1065, it was and still is an integral and influential part of the town. This was born out when, in 1327, the townspeople rioted against the control and taxation by the abbey – a year also remembered for the grim demise of Edward II. Suffice to say, cartloads of burning straw and hay were rolled down the street aimed directly at the Abbeygate, which was eventually destroyed.

Interestingly, the Abbeygate – secular entrance to the Abbey and in Norman architecture – was rebuilt by 1347 in the English Decorated style, with niches for statues and embellishments, but not in its original position. No longer opposite today’s Abbeygate Street it is further along now – obviously there was no point in moving rubble and stone twice, nor having the same possible destruction happen again.

By the 18th century, Bury was being recognised as somewhere ‘genteel society’ and those of ‘the better sort’ could come to live, timber-framed houses were being Georgianised, brick or stucco facades hiding the less popular jetted properties. The Cook Row did not escape this so-called modernisation because the shops, no better than open-fronted glorified stalls, were being enclosed and by 1782 the street had a name change to what we know today as Abbeygate Street. It attracted upmarket businesses, there was a wealth of clock makers here for instance.

A few years before, in 1776, the transportation of criminals to the North American colonies (to become the USA) ceased. An alternative solution had to be sought: Australia. It was common practice for JPs, mostly landowners, to sentence criminals – many repeat offenders – for transportation to this faraway continent. So, 17 years after Captain Cook discovered Australia in 1770, the first ships left Portsmouth, the eight-month journey taking a toll on the lives of those wretched miscreants. Strange as it may seem, only 15 per cent of these were women out of an astonishing 162,000 that went from this country between 1787 and 1868 (last ship carrying transportees) their sentences in years ranging from seven, 14 and life.

For those receiving the shorter terms, staying in Australia actually gave them a new start in life, something England at the time could not offer.

Not all transportees though were criminals, some were victims of political retribution, the celebrated Tolpuddle Martyrs who tried to form a trade union a case in point.

Amazingly, a large number of those who arrived in the penal colony at Botany Bay were sentenced at the Suffolk Assizes in Bury, their crimes ranging from poaching, burglary and larceny. However those convicted of capital crimes suffered the full penalty of hanging.

So what is the connection between Abbeygate Street, Australia and crime? Well, if ships returning to ‘good ole Blighty’ could bring cargo back with them it made sense, as well as providing ballast to steady the ship in times of foul weather. This is how Jarrah Wood (eucalyptus marginate), a very dense hardwood from Western Australia and ideal for construction, made it back to England. Cut into brick-sized blocks they were soaked in tar and laid sideways down Abbeygate Street, the purpose, to deaden the noise made from early morning traders such as milkmen.

Eventually, heavier modern-day vehicle traffic made the blocks superfluous to requirements, not fit for purpose and, in 1952, the street was closed and they were lifted with the street then resurfaced with asphalt. The Abbeygate Street photo is before 1935 when the ‘Pillar of Salt’ was erected, you can see it is not in the picture.

— Martyn Taylor is a local historian, author and Bury Tour Guide. His latest book, Bury St Edmunds Through Time Revisited, is widely available.