Bury St Edmunds historian Martyn Taylor explores the origins of town’s Angel Hill and The Angel Hotel

Angel Hill known in medieval times as Le Mustowe, after To Muster was also called God’s Square. Here French Queen Mary Brandon (Tudor), Duchess of Suffolk literally held court when attending the popular Bury Fair in her own pavilion. This was when she and her husband Charles Brandon lived up the road at Westhorpe.

The important Bury Fair from medieval times was where over time people would attend hoping to meet their prospective partners in marriage. It was held annually in late September until being abolished in 1871 by an act of parliament for being ‘well past its sell by date’. Three inns, The White Bear, Angel Inn and The Castle overlooked the hill, the current Angel Hotel now dominating it.

A William Tassell, owner of the Angel and Castle gave these to the Guildhall Feoffees in 1557 for the repair and maintenance of the towns two parish churches and relief of the poor, the Feoffees being the hotel’s owners until 1917. In 1775 to designs by Harleston born architect, John Redgrave the inns were demolished and the fine looking Angel hotel came into being.

The hotel has extensive cellars, three storeys and attics and a quite amazing survivor from the 13th century, a stone groined under-croft!

There are various tales of tunnels emanating from here especially one of a fiddler who disappeared whilst leading his merry band of revellers towards the abbey! Whilst this might not be entirely believable, an indisputable fact is that Charles Dickens the famous Victorian author certainly did stay at the Angel in room 15 (now 215) in 1859 and 1861 when he gave readings of his work at the nearby Athenaeum.

A Blue Plaque was put up by the Bury Society in 2012 to celebrate 200 years after the birth of Charles Dickens, Mary Gough of the Angel Hotel owners, Gough Hotels, very generously putting on a champagne reception.

As part of his first book, The Pickwick Papers, Dickens has his eponymous hero Samuel Pickwick staying at the Angel where Pickwick’s servant Sam Weller ‘performed his ablutions’ at the pump in the yard, alas now gone.

Receptions here were of the norm during the days of pre-secret voting, the enfranchised members of the community were embraced and stuffed silly by the usual well-heeled parliamentary candidates, this changed with later reforms.

The Angel, a coaching inn, (the stabling for numerous horses kept in Angel Lane), was one of the most important in the town and in 1818 an extension by William Steggles was built to the left of the large entrance archway where the coaches went through. The 20thC saw this as The St Edmunds Hotel and was absorbed as part of the Angel Hotel in 1963.

With the coming of the railway, carriages that went to and from the station were later superseded by the taxi, the Angel even had their own garage.

Over the years there has been much in the way of re-furbishment to this Grade II* building though one continuation is of the wonderful Angel frontage, the magnificent Virginia Creeper and floral displays especially of Petunias, provides the Angel with a resplendent appearance.

One thing that is puzzling is that the name of the Angel in wrought iron on the portico is barely visible. This is the only signage to indicate that when you arrive as written by Dickens “And this,” said Mr Pickwick looking up “is the Angel.”

Further usage of the Angel Hotel as a backdrop on Angel Hill happened with a modern interpretation of the film remake in 2019 of Dicken’s novel David Copperfield, the Personal history of David Copperfield starring Dev Patel.

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