Day 18: Bury St. Edmunds to Newmarket

September 24, 2022

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Bury St. Edmunds downtown has a totally different character from the new suburban development with the young families that we rode through on the way in yesterday. Today what we encountered first was ancient churches. First on our route were the ruins of the Bury St Edmunds Abbey.

"The relics of the martyred Anglo-Saxon king St Edmund, whose remains were moved to this site in 903, and his shrine became a place of pilgrimage. The abbey itself was founded in 1020 and grew in power and wealth up until its suppression in 1539."

Directly by the abbey ruins is the Church of St Mary. Lots of churches have stood on this site, starting in the seventh century, but the oldest part of the currently existing church is from 1290. There were renovations from the 14th to 16th century and there was a restoration in 1831, so it's hard to give an age to the church. Tidbits in Wikipedia are also fascinating, such as: "Mary Tudor, Queen of France, favourite sister of Henry VIII (not to be confused with his daughter Mary I of England), died and was buried in the abbey church. When the abbey was destroyed, her body was removed and reburied here in St Mary’s. Her tomb is in the sanctuary directly to the north of the Lord's table. The church, however, is dedicated to Mary, the mother of Jesus, and not, as some mistakenly believe, to Mary Tudor.

The gate of the church is a separate structure, with a plaque that can be read a bit on screen:

Beside the St. Mary's church is St Edmundsbury Cathedral. The nave was built in 1503, but the oldest glass in the building is dated around 1480. I guess we could just say the cathedral is about 500 years old (though churches had been on the spot for a further 500 years earlier).

The main downtown portion of Bury included quite a few shop lined streets, more than "usual". However they were still the same relatively humble ones we have seen in almost all the other towns. There are betting shops and barber shops, and used goods shops run by charities like the Heart Foundation and Oxfam.

Every barber in every town we have passed through makes a reference to Turkish barbering. What is this?

Bury had a market going on today. While it was not like Arles, or some other major European centre, it was reasonable, with some bakers, a fish monger, etc. I stopped at a baker and noted what I would call a "cinnamon bun", but this was corrected to Chelsea Bun. It was good, with lots of allspice flavour, and many currants, all in a kind of gooey syrup.

I liked these two vendors: Gooey Puds and Henry's Hog Roast.

We seemed able to get out of Bury without too much of what has become the noodling through suburbs, and I think we were also helped by some bike path type lanes. Soon we were in very beautiful countryside, and for quite a time were free of roadside hedges. A lack of hedges gives a much better chance of seeing what the rest of the landscape is like.

Here is a modern but traditional house along the way.

Dodie was having trouble appreciating this new landscape, because her wrist pain was forcing her to concentrate more on riding than on looking. She said she would have to rely on the photos later for her to appreciate what we rode through.

We had set Newmarket as a very modest goal, thinking that we could arrive early and regroup, deciding if we would jump a train to further down our route, or carry on riding. Since we still are going at only half speed (half daily distance), some kind of train assist will be needed to help us get round our circuit and then get out of this darn country!

For the time being, though, we have the very interesting Newmarket. Even if we had not had some idea about Newmarket and horse racing, it became apparent as we began to pass well groomed estates, though we actually saw no horses.

Although separated cycle paths may be a bit rare here, we encountered separated horse galloping paths galore, with lots of signage.

The horses gallop on their separate path to the left, while we fight it out on road with the cars.

When we got into the town, we were surprised to find a massive traffic jam. Even in London we had not seen cars backed up like that. I turned out that this is a race day. Someone told us all these drivers were going down to the track this afternoon, and in evening they would return drunk.

We found a story board that depicted the whole history of horse racing in this town. It involved quite a few panels!

Here on one of the first panels in the line, we learn that the first recorded horse race was in 1619.

In one of the last entries, we learn that Kylie Minogue broke a jockey club record by selling out a show in 47 minutes!

We reverted to our native form, shunning any corporate type hotel in favour of a small room above a pub, at the White Hart. We were warned that the room was small (11 square meters) and the bar noisy, especially on a race night like this. But the bikes got a large room for themselves, which counts for a lot, and the small room we got did have both a desk and lots of electrical outlets, so we are actually happy.

With a bit of time to relax and think, we decided to continue cycling into Cambridge. We will look around and then train over to Oxford for a look around. From Oxford we'll continue the cycle odyssey, north towards Birmingham and Shrewsbury.

Today's ride: 33 km (20 miles)
Total: 610 km (379 miles)

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