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Local historian Martyn Taylor follows the fortunes of the Brackland area of Bury St Edmunds




In Bury St Edmunds, Brackland was an area of the town between the rivers Lark and Tay, the Tayfen an important resource for the growing of osier willow which was important for basket making. Perhaps one of its most famous inhabitants was a monk of the abbey, Jocelin of Brakelond, who kept a chronicle, Chronica Jocelini de Brackelonda, at the end of the 12th century and beginning of the next.

Burlinghams Mill was a big employer in Bury St Edmunds. Picture: Courtesy Martyn Taylor
Burlinghams Mill was a big employer in Bury St Edmunds. Picture: Courtesy Martyn Taylor

The abbey controlled what we know today as West Suffolk (The Liberty of St Edmund), the town as well as its influence extending as far north as Lakenheath, where eel ponds provided income for it.

The ‘Chronica’ was translated from its monkish Latin and published in 1840 by the Camden Society. Thomas Carlyle, a notable British essayist, historian, and philosopher of the 19th century found it invaluable for his essay on The Ancient Monk included in his book Past and Present.

The Brackland, also meaning ‘broken ground’ had two parts, Short and Long referred by locals at one time as the ‘Borders’, probably because it formed the border of Bury when it was looked upon as one of the poorer areas of the town.

H A & D Taylor, maltsters in Bury. Picture: Martyn Taylor
H A & D Taylor, maltsters in Bury. Picture: Martyn Taylor

During the 19th century it was also a major contributor to industrial Bury, with maltings, mills, gasworks, railway and coal yards, huge employers of labour, this requiring housing, thus numerous two-up, two-down Victorian terraces came about. Sadly, not meeting modern requirements, these in Long Brackland, St Edmunds Place and Cannon Street suffered demolition in the name of progress, so-called slum clearance of the early 1960s.

Bury's once thriving railway yards. Picture; Martyn Taylor
Bury's once thriving railway yards. Picture; Martyn Taylor

A sad conclusion of their removal was that families once the backbone of communities were now dispersed. Also gone were some of the pubs that littered the area, the notion that a working-man had a right to his pint, or most likely pints, at the end of his day’s graft sacrosanct in his mind. Not for nothing did the Salvation Army build its ‘citadel’ nearby in 1889 to look after poor souls and the police in 1891 their station.

Martyn Taylor
Martyn Taylor

Martyn Taylor is a local historian, author and Bury Tour Guide. His latest book, Going Underground: Bury St Edmunds, is widely available.