Description

BURY ST EDMUNDS

TL8564SE ANGEL HILL 639-1/8/187 (East side) 07/08/52 Cathedral Church of St James

GV I

Parish church; became the Cathedral church of the Diocese of St Edmundsbury and Ipswich in 1914. Early C16, on an earlier site; by John Wastell, master mason at the Abbey of St Edmund. C19 alterations by GG Scott, partly replaced by further extensions of 1960-70 by SE Dykes Bower. Faced in coursed squared limestone on the south and west apart from the clerestory which is in rubble flint. A steeply-pitched stone slate roof to the nave. PLAN: nave, north and south aisles, crossing and transepts, chancel and an incomplete central tower. EXTERIOR: cloister range on the north. The nave, begun in 1503, was completed c1550. In 9 bays. A range of eighteen 2-light windows with cusped heads to the clerestory. 9 bays to each aisle with a range of 3-light windows, panelled and cusped, and stepped full-height buttresses between them. Doors below the windows in the 4th and 8th bays. Battlemented parapets. A 5-light transomed window to the embattled west end of each aisle and a very large transomed 7-light west window to the nave with a decorated base. Diagonal buttresses with ornate panelling to the aisles. The pinnacled west gable was designed by Scott, but the chancel, rebuilt to his design in 1865-9, was demolished to make way for the work of the 1960s, still not fully completed. This is in a Tudoresque style using a combination of Clipsham and Doulting stone with flint flushwork panels to the outer walls. INTERIOR of the nave is very high with arcades of 9 bays to north and south. The piers are lozenge-shaped with 4 thin shafts and 4 broad hollows in the diagonals. The brightly-painted roof, replaced by Scott, has arched-braced hammer-beam trusses and is in 18 short bays. Every alternate hammer-beam has a carved figure bearing a shield. A heavily-decorated cornice and frieze. (BOE: Pevsner N: Radcliffe E: Suffolk: London: 1974-: 141).

Listing NGR: TL8559764117

External Links

• St Edmundsbury Cathedral at Wikipedia
• St Edmundsbury Cathedral official website
• Wikidata Q1989407

External links are from the relevant listing authority and, where applicable, Wikidata. Wikidata IDs may be related buildings as well as this specific building. If you want to add or update a link, you will need to do so by editing the Wikidata entry.

Recommended Books

• 
  Cambridgeshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Listed Buildings: The Law and Practice of History Buildings, Ancient Monuments and Conservation Areas
• 
  Pioneers of Modern Design: From William Morris to Walter Gropius (Penguin Art & Architecture)
• 
  Somerset: North and Bristol: The Buildings of England (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Department for Communities Listed Historic Buildings of Northern Ireland: Information Guide for the 2nd Survey of Historic Buildings
• 
  Worcestershire Revised Edition (Buildings of England) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)