He became venerated as a saint and a martyr, and his shrine made Bury St Edmunds an important place of pilgrimage.

In 942 or 945, King Edmund I had granted to the abbot and convent jurisdiction over the whole town, free from all secular services, and Canute in 1020 freed it from episcopal control.

In the 12th and 13th centuries the head of the de Hastings family, who held the Lordship of the Manor of Ashill in Norfolk, was hereditary Steward of this abbey.

In 1214 the barons of England are believed to have met in the abbey church and sworn to force King John to accept the Charter of Liberties, the document which influenced the creation of Magna Carta,[13] a copy of which was displayed in the town's cathedral during the 2014 celebrations.

[13] The borough of Bury St Edmunds and the surrounding area, like much of East Anglia, being part of the Eastern Association, supported Puritan sentiment during the first half of the 17th century.

By 1640, several families had departed for the Massachusetts Bay Colony as part of the wave of emigration that occurred during the Great Migration.

[20] Bury's ancient grammar school also educated such notables as the puritan theologian Richard Sibbes, master of St Catherine's Hall in Cambridge, antiquary and politician Simonds d'Ewes, and John Winthrop the Younger,[21] who became governor of Connecticut.

[27] Near the abbey gardens stands Britain's first internally illuminated street sign, the Pillar of Salt, which was built in 1935.

[29] Among noteworthy buildings is St Mary's Church, Bury St Edmunds, where Mary Tudor, Queen of France and sister of Tudor king Henry VIII, was re-buried, six years after her death, having been moved from the abbey after her brother's Dissolution of the Monasteries.

According to Usman Majeed, head of Honington, the latter ceased weather observations in 2003, while Brooms Barn remains operational.

The tower makes St Edmundsbury the most recently completed Anglican cathedral in the UK, and was constructed using original fabrication techniques by six masons who placed the machine-cut stones individually as they arrived.

It is renowned for its magnificent hammer-beam "angel" roof, and is the final resting place of Mary Tudor, Queen of France, Duchess of Suffolk and favourite sister of Henry VIII.

[68] The theatre, owned by the Greene King brewery, is leased to the National Trust for a nominal charge, and underwent restoration between 2005 and 2007.

It has collections of fine art, for example Mary Beale, costume, e.g. Charles Frederick Worth, horology, local and social history, including Witchcraft.

[71] It holds an original death mask of William Corder who was hanged for the infamous 1827 Red Barn murder.

There was an annual Christmas Fair in the town up until 2019, with food, drink, local crafts and fairground rides available, stretching from the Abbey Gardens to the Arc Shopping Centre.

Bury St Edmunds Rugby Football Club has an extensive history,[75] including the devastating plane crash that killed several members who had attended a 1974 Five Nations Championship match.

[76] Nowton Park hosts a parkrun every Saturday morning where runners, joggers and walkers can take part free-of-charge, supported by volunteers.

[77] A junior parkrun is held every Sunday morning at Ten Acre Field on the Moreton Hall estate, where 4-14 year olds can participate for free, cheered on by volunteers.

The Greene King pub The Nutshell is situated in the centre of the town, and is one of several that claim to be Britain's smallest public house.

Neumann was invited by the British government to oversee the refinement of sugar in Bury St Edmunds and, with his family, immigrated to the United Kingdom.

[104] Notable people from Bury St Edmunds include Bishop of Winchester and Lord High Chancellor of England Stephen Gardiner,[105] the 18th-century landscape architect Humphry Repton,[106] the hymn writer Alice Flowerdew, the artist and photographer William Silas Spanton, the author Maria Louise Ramé (also known as Ouida), the engineer and inventor Hiram Codd,[107] the cyclist James Moore, and the portrait painter Rose Mead.

More recent figures from the town include artist and printer Sybil Andrews, artist and suffragette Helen Margaret Spanton, Canadian World War II general Guy Simonds, Winston Churchill's secretary Elizabeth Nel, theatre director Sir Peter Hall, Norwich City footballer Liam Gibbs, Canadian journalist and author Richard Gwyn, actors Bob Hoskins[108] and Michael Maloney,[109] speedway rider Danny Ayres,[110][111] television presenter Becky Jago, digital writer and artist Chris Joseph, and writer/director Adrian Tanner.

[112] Sir James Reynolds, junior, Lord Chief Baron of the Exchequer, lived in the town for much of his life and was buried in the Cathedral in 1739.

Messenger Monsey, later physician to the Royal Hospital Chelsea and a man notorious in London society for his bad manners, practised in Bury in the 1720s.

[114] Notable bands and performers from Bury St Edmunds include Jacob's Mouse, Miss Black America, The Dawn Parade, Kate Jackson of The Long Blondes and Paul Hopfensperger of The Teazers.

[123] The college was set to expand in September 2018, following a £7m government grant to help pay for an £8m energy, engineering and manufacturing teaching centre.

[125] Bury St Edmunds railway station serves the town, operated by Greater Anglia, on the Ipswich to Ely Line.

There are regular bus services to the neighbouring towns of Brandon, Cambridge, Diss, Haverhill, Ipswich, Mildenhall, Newmarket, Stowmarket, Sudbury and Thetford and many of the villages in between.

Author Norah Lofts, though born in Shipdham, Norfolk, bases many of her stories in Baildon, a fictionalised Bury St Edmunds, where she was educated and lived.