The Town
The town centre has preserved its Norman street plan, a gridiron in which Churchgate was aligned with - and sloped up from - the abbey's high altar. It was the first planned town of Norman Britain and, for that matter, the first example of urban planning in England since the departure of the Romans. Beside the abbey grounds is Angel Hill , a broad, spacious square partly framed by Georgian buildings, the most distinguished being the ivy-covered Angel Hotel , which features in Dickens' Pickwick Papers . Dickens also gave readings of his work in the Athenaeum , the Georgian assembly rooms at the far end of the square. A twelfth-century wall runs along the east side of Angel Hill, with the bulky fourteenth-century Abbey Gate forming the entrance to the abbey gardens and ruins. The abbey ruins themselves are like nothing so much as petrified porridge, with little to remind you of the grandiose Norman complex that dominated the town. The most significant remnants are behind the more modern cathedral on the far side of the public gardens with the rubbled remains of a small part of the old abbey church integrated into a set of unusual Georgian houses. In front, across the green, is the imposing Norman Tower , once the main gateway into the abbey and now a solitary monument with dragon gargoyles and fancily decorated capitals. Incongruously, the tower is next to the front part of Bury's Anglican Cathedral of St James (daily: 8.30am-6pm; GBP2 donation requested), with chancel and transepts added as recently as the 1960s. That its thousand-odd kneelers are often cited as one of its major highlights gives an idea of the paucity of the interior - notwithstanding the hammer-beam roof and a couple of quality stained-glass windows. In fact, it was a toss-up between this place and St Mary's Church (Mon-Sat 10am-4pm, 3pm in winter), further down Crown Street, as to which would be given cathedral status in 1914. The presence of the tomb of the resolutely Catholic Mary Tudor in the latter was probably the clinching factor. Not far away, at the far end of Crown Street, stands Bury's most important industrial concern, the pungent Greene King Brewery (June-Aug Mon-Fri 1-4pm, Sat 11am-4pm, Sun 11am-4pm; rest of year closed Sun), whose powerful Abbot Ale is an intense bittersweet beer to be quaffed with caution. The brewery and the National Trust are joint owners of the neighbouring Regency Theatre Royal , at the junction of Crown and Westgate streets, built in 1819 by William Wilkins and still staging plays. The town's main commercial area is on the west side of the centre, a five-minute walk up Abbeygate Street from Angel Hill. There's been some intrusive modern planning here, but dignified Victorian buildings flank both Cornhill and Buttermarket , the two short main streets, as well as the narrower streets in between. Older still is the Cornhill's flint-walled Moyse's Hall , one of the few surviving Norman houses in England, while the streets to the south are lined by an attractive medley of architectural styles, from elegant Georgian town houses to Victorian brick terraces. You'll see the best by strolling along Guildhall Street and turning left down Churchgate, which brings you back to Angel Hill.
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