Bury St Edmunds historian Martyn Taylor takes a look at Westgate Street

This week, Bury St Edmunds historian Martyn Taylor takes a look at Westgate Street.

Situated on the south of the medieval grid of the town, this major thoroughfare goes from Maynewater Lane and finishes at Cullum Road.

Number 1, Westgate Street was built by Lot Jackaman in 1884 as his home and shows off his prowess as a builder, as he was responsible for the Corn Exchange of 1861.

Further along the street we meet the wonderful Theatre Royal of 1819, the only working Regency theatre in the country, the site chosen by architect William Wilkins for a theatre because of its natural gradient.

Perhaps its most famous production was that of the risqué farce Charley’s Aunt by Brandon Thomas, which premiéred here, a provincial theatre, in 1892. Unsure because of its content, nevertheless it was a roaring success.

Unfortunately, the theatre closed in 1925 because of competition from cinemas, languishing as a barrel store for then owners Greene King until its triumphant re-opening in 1965. Now reborn and owned by the National Trust on a 999-year lease, its most popular attraction is the seasonal pantomime.

Opposite here is the grade II-listed Greene King brewhouse of 1939, it was plagued with building difficulties due to the strata it was built on and lack of building materials.

As an art-deco build, it is a triumph for those involved. Architect Bill Mitchell, Greene King managing director Major Lake, head brewer Colonel Oliver and designer/engineer Mark Jennings. The adjacent Beer Café is very popular these days, as are brewery tours.

With the recent announcement that Greene King intends to move its operations to Suffolk Business Park, the future for its town centre sites is in the balance.

Opposite here at number six Westgate Street, there is an oval plaque to theatre critic and essayist William Bodham Donne. The plaque is one of 12 put up in 1907 to reinforce the heritage and history of the pageant of that year.

Greene King’s former main offices at no7 have on their exterior a Royal Doulton oval plaque with 1799 on – a much debated date for the origins of Greene King, which actually was formed with the merger of Edward Greene’s Westgate Brewery and Fred King’s St Edmunds brewery in 1887. By the way, look for a small pargeted mouse on no 8b!

Nearby is Westgate House, the former residence of Edward Greene 1815-91, who purchased it in 1865. His second wife, Lady Dorothea Hoste, lived here at one time with her then husband Rear Admiral Sir William Legge Hoste, who died in 1868.

Years later, West Suffolk Council had its architects’ department on the top floor, the building eventually becoming Peatling & Cawdron’s wine merchants soon after the amalgamation of the East and West Suffolk Councils in 1974. A successful gated development Greene Mews has been built to the rear.

As you would expect, Greene King has a long association with this area, none more so than that opposite, the former Rink Maltings where in years gone by barley was laboriously raked over the wooden floors.

The Rink name came from a skating rink made from Spanish Asphalt whatever that was to the rear in College Street. No trace remains now, garages built in its stead.

The former maltings have now been sympathetically redeveloped and extended, though one small vestige remains, the double gated entrance with E G & S 1880 on a keystone. The gate with spiked tops featured in an episode of the TV series Lovejoy: a loveable rogue antique dealer. He is seen leaving the postern door of the gate then being used as of all things, entrance to Bury Gaol.

Moving on, we pass, 56 Westgate Street, a former YMCA, Bernard Batt House named after a doctor of Angel Hill Surgery. The house, renamed Batt House, is now run by the YMCA Trinity Group.

On the corner with Whiting Street is the popular Rose & Crown, once a beer-house it did not obtain its full licence until 1939; in its day ‘a spit and sawdust’ pub. It has a ‘Jug & Bottle’, a small vestige entranced from Whiting Street when in days gone by a customer could collect draught beer here in a receptacle for home consumption, this feature the only one left in the town is protected as it should be.

Over Whiting Street there is a terrace of eight houses, nos40 to 48. They were built in 1835 by baker Robert Harvey, a fact recorded on the chimneys as R H 1835.

Opposite here is the Roman Catholic Church of St Edmund, built to designs by Charles Day of Worcester and dedicated in 1837. Note the east facing side of the church, there are no windows low-down as it still was a time where anti-Catholic feelings could still arise.

A relaxation of the laws in this country towards the end of the 18thC against Roman Catholic worshipping and the final Catholic Relief Act of 1829 allowed more involvement in public life, emancipation and freedom of worship.

Along further, at number 21, is the Presbytery of the Roman Catholic Church of St Edmund, a chapel existed at the rear where mass was celebrated in 1762 and would have been the oldest surviving chapel in the country had it not been put to other uses. Nearby at no24 is Turret Close; mention of a building here as The Turret is recorded in Jankyn Smyth’s will of 1481.

Crossing over is Noodle King, replacing previous Chinese takeaways and also a Co-op butchers shop.

We then come to the end of Westgate Street with the mention of Hellfire Corner, supposedly named after the vicar of St Peter’s Church preaching hellfire and damnation for those who did not repent down at the nearby Butts water meadows. This was before St Peter’s was finished in 1858.

At Hellfire Corner were Fursland and Maltby Fruiterer and Greengrocers and ‘Darkie Double’ bookmaker next door, it would be taken over by Harold Beeson.

Finally, where the roundabout is today stood the Westgate, its name replacing The Blackboy pub, in Guildhall Street. According to an 1804 book on Bury by Edmund Gillingwater, his quote on the Westgate says: “Here was formerly a chapel, called Our Lady’s Chapel of which there are no visible remains. Near the gate-space stood (before the reformation) a hermitage, which is now made use as a cow-house.”

— Martyn Taylor’s latest book, Bury St Edmunds Through Time Revisited, is widely available.