Steve's World Blog Information and articles on cities, towns and villages around the world.

One of East Anglia’s most historic towns, Bury St Edmunds in Suffolk was considered a royal town by the Saxons and would certainly have been known by the Romans long before this. A monastery was built in Bury St Edmunds in around 633 by order of the King of the East Angles (Sigebert) and it was here that King Edmund was buried in 903 AD. The town grew around the abbey which later became the meeting place of the Barons of England as they formulated the Magna Carta. Much later during the 17^th century the infamous Bury St Edmunds witch trials were held there. There are still remains of the abbey close to the town centre, though it was mostly destroyed during the 16^th century. To the south of Bury St Edmunds, sitting beside the River Stour, Sudbury is another historic Saxon town, recorded in the Saxon Chronicles of 799 AD. Sudbury later grew prosperous through the wool and silk trade, it was also a well known haunt of famous artists such as John Constable who painted scenes of the area. A village which also benefited from the wool trade is Long Melford (located to the north of Sudbury), the proportions of its Holy Trinity Church attest to this, built with ‘wool’ money, it appears more like a cathedral. Two stately homes in the village of Long Melford, also built with ‘wool’ money, are Melford Hall and Kentwell Hall. To the north-west of Bury St Edmunds is the small market town of Mildenhall, which has held a regular market since the 15^th century, Mildenhall made big news in the nineteen forties when a large haul of Roman silver was found there, it is probably best known as the home of the air base RAF Mildenhall. Suffolk Map.