Exploring Bury Saint Edmunds with M. R. James

If you know me well, and I think you do if you've been reading my tales of mystery, suspense, and horror, you'll not be surprised to learn that after arriving at London Heathrow at five-oh-ridiculous in the morning and catching the Tube to the British Library to explore what I suspect is the most fascinating exhibition ever dedicated to Agatha Christie, I was still hungry for more mystery, atmosphere, and literary tourism. And so, hopping back over to King's Cross Station, I caught a Great Northern train to Cambridge, where I'd booked myself a room for two nights. While waiting for my room to be available at three o'clock, I paid the Fitzwilliam Museum a visit, and didn't regret the decision; mediaeval armoury, Egyptian artefacts, and an art collection including the likes of Canaletto, Constable, Turner, Cézanne, Van Gogh, Monet, and Picasso. That, however, is not the subject of this post. What you see below is.

After a good night's sleep, I got an early train to Bury Saint Edmunds, a town boasting some of England's most important ruins (and that's saying a lot for a land full of the ruins of past glories) as well as one of the haunting grounds of a former director (1893–1908) of the aforementioned museum, but better known as one of the most brilliant mediaevalists and antiquarians of his age, and even better known as the Father of the Modern Ghost Story and arguably of Folk Horror as a modern genre. I am, of course, talking about Montague Rhodes James. Good old M. R. 

I'm not going to get all cheesy by telling you that it felt as though M. R. was right there beside me as I strolled through the ruins, graveyards, and gardens of Bury, but I did catch a couple of passers-by giving me odd looks as though I'd been talking to "myself". One thing's for sure, it's no exaggeration to say that you do get an agreeably eerie chill walking in his footsteps here where he discovered the resting place of five abbots in 1902, after being led to where they lay by studying a manuscript fragment. The man didn't just write ghost stories, he dug them straight out of hallowed ground. 

Not all the bodies have been located, however, and the mystery remains as to what happened to the man Bury is named after; Saint Edmund (Edmund the Martyr), King of East Anglia, who died 869. He was originally buried in a wooden chapel near where he was killed, and later translated to a shrine at Beodricsworth (as Bury was then called) in Suffolk. His shrine in the abbey church was a pilgrimage site throughout the Middle Ages, but the location of his remains following the Dissolution of the Monasteries (1536–1541) is unknown.

If you've ever read one of James' ghost stories and you happen to be passing through East Anglia, make sure you pay Bury Saint Edmunds a visit. Needless to say, but I'll say it anyway, if you haven't read any of James' work, put that right as soon as possible. Oh, and if you love mediaeval architecture as much as I do, make sure you set a few hours aside to visit the nearby village of Lavenham when you come to Bury. Stay tuned for that post!