Historian Martyn Taylor looks into how Bridewell Lane, in Bury St Edmunds, has evolved

As part of the medieval grid of Bury St Edmunds laid out by Abbot Baldwin in 1065, this street in its early years was known as Mr Andrews Street.

It is shown as such on a map by Bury’s most famous cartographer Thomas Warren in 1776; whoever Mr Andrews was, has been lost in the midst of time.

The Bridewell was a former London Tudor palace given by King Edward VI to the City of London Corporation for orphans and fallen women. The name has come to be associated with a local jail or ‘nick’ for miscreants as a house of correction.

The position of the Bridewell though not exact was somewhere on the street’s western side near Churchgate Street.

Greene King brewery dominates the southern part of the lane; its co-founder Benjamin Greene with partner William Buck purchased Wrights Brewery to become the Westgate Brewery in 1805, not the erroneous date of 1799 as often quoted. Matthias Wright’s initials and date of 1789 are up high on part of the brewery facing the yard of the Dog and Partridge.

The brewery fire brigade finished in 1997, having provided over many years a professional fire-fighting service, supplementing the boroughs. Their buildings are still there from 1968, built on the former Watsons timber yard which had moved down to Southgate Street several years earlier.

Adjacent is the Guildhall Feoffment School, part of the predilection of the Victorian age for new schools; this from 1843, one of two (the other in College Street) built to designs by Henry Kendall at a cost of £1,650. The large hall here is listed with a fine ‘Jacobean style’ hammer beam roof. In 1882, further classrooms were added and repairs undertaken.

Next to the entrance is the former headmaster’s house whose pay in 1844 was £70 per year and one old penny for each boy per week. The school had a capacity for 300 pupils so unsurprisingly it was in his interest to make sure it was well attended.

After World War Two, temporary huts with the acronym HORSA, Hutting Operation for Raising of School Leaving Age, were added. Constructed from prefabricated concrete walls, asbestos roofs and metal-framed windows they were replaced with new extensions, with the mandatory archaeological dig uncovering remnants of flint walls from a medieval kitchen.

The Guildhall Feoffment School is now very popular with a large catchment area, though school drop-off and collection times contribute to a logistical nightmare.

The medieval grid’s streets, courts, yards and squares proliferated the town, Bridewell Lane no exception with Church Walks and Tuns Lane still there. The Three Tuns pub, in Crown Street, lending its name to this thoroughfare.

St Mary’s Place, a row of eight cottages at right angles to Bridewell Lane have gone, while relatively new cottages of nos. 2 and 3 are opposite. They were built on the former builder’s yard of Lennie Sewell, who lived at Hardwick Manor and was mayor of Bury in 1964.

No trace of the eight houses in Finsbury Square exist, garages now there; it was named after the Finsbury Arms (no.18) which closed its doors in 1922, it was once part of a 15th century hall house with its neighbour (no.16).

When Blomfield House, in Lower Baxter Street, was demolished to make way for a clinic, its Greek Doric door-case was added to number 16s portico, fluted columns and all.

The Blackbirds pub at no.14 finally called time in 1973. The last landlord of this popular pub was Neville Green whose ambition was that one day he would be able to have his own pub, this he achieved when he won the football pools, so I have been told.

As with some other clubs in the town, the Roundel Club alas is no more and has now reverted to a private house called Bethany; a date stone on the rear gives a date to this Dutch gabled house of 1793.

The Roundel Association (RAF) was formed in 1944 and was popular for socialising having a thriving concert club in the 1960s, cribbage and darts teams. Alas membership waned and the premises closed in the 1990s.

Another dedicated drinking establishment, the Queens Head, on the corner of the lane with Churchgate Street, is now called Queens Bar and Grill, reflecting its emphasis more on food now.

A disastrous fire in the Queens Head kitchen in 2013 precipitated a change of ownership a few years later.