Bury St Edmunds Guildhall

The Guildhall is one of the largest and most impressive secular medieval buildings in the country, and a rare survival of a civic building from this period. The building, which was built with financial support from the wealthy Bury St Edmunds Abbey, dates back to 1220. The Bury Chronicle records that John of Cobham and Walter de Heliun visited the guildhall in 1279. The oldest part is the thirteenth-century stone entrance arch, Its unique roof structure combines East Anglian queen posts with king posts and has been attributed to the fifteenth century, although some suggest it is midfourteenth century. Many timbers are covered in yellow ochre, usually a sixteenth-century feature. During the…