Visitor Guide

Welcome to the Abbey of St Edmund.

The Abbey was founded in 1020 by King Canute and includes: the Abbey Gardens; the Cathedral; St Mary’s Church; the Great Churchyard; the Water Meadows and the former Vinefields of the Abbey. Few of the medieval buildings remain but, along with the ruins and the beautiful setting, they talk to us of the past. We treasure and love them, and we hope you will too.

 

 The Abbey Heritage Partnership Interpretation Working Group worked on this leaflet after the new English Heritage panels were installed and the model relocated in June 2022. This leaflet is available free to visitors and is an introduction rather than a detailed account.  The proposed English Heritage guidebook will fulfil that role.

This four fold leaflet has two very different sides which together help people understand the significance of this once great Abbey. One side of the leaflet serves as an attractive introduction and features a large image of the digital reconstruction of the Abbey by English Heritage. The other side has a map with a key and text which shows the locations of the parts of the whole Abbey complex and also where the new interpretation panels can be found.

The leaflet stresses that there is no set starting point for visitors or order in which the panels should be viewed.

You can download a pdf of the leaflet here