DURING THE EARLY 1960s, my parents used to take us to Cambridge, where one of my father’s friends,  the late Cyril Sofer, lived with his family. Often, we spent the night before our meeting with the Sofers at Bury St Edmunds. We always slept at the town’s Angel Hotel that faces the park containing the ruins of the monastery attached to the still existing Abbey.

 

This June (2025), my wife and I spent a little time in Bury St Edmunds. The Angel, whose facade is covered with foliage, is still in business. When I used to stay there many decades ago, the bedrooms were equipped with harnesses attached to ropes. These were to enable the occupants to escape from the room during a fire.  I mentioned this to the receptionist during our visit in 2025. She had never heard of these fire escape aids, but then, I stayed at the hotel long before she was born.

 

While looking at the hotel’s facade,  I noticed that the writer Charles Dickens had stayed there at least once. The town figures in “The Pickwick Papers”.

 

While walking in the park opposite the hotel, we came across a sculpture shaped like a teardrop. Placed in 2015, it is a memorial to all victims of genocide.  It also records that 57 Jewish residents of Bury St Edmunds  were massacred near the spot on Palm Sunday in 1190.

 

Brief as was our latest visit, Bury St Edmunds offers many interesting things for visitors to discover