'Delight' at lottery grant to protect abbey's ruins

The abbey's ruins are in Abbey Gardens, which attract more than one million visitors a year

A project to protect the ruins of one of the greatest abbeys in medieval England has won support from the National Lottery.

Founded in 1020, the Abbey of St Edmund once towered over Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk.

Now the National Heritage Lottery Fund has awarded £730,000 to the first phase of a plan to conserve its extensive remains and attract more visitors.

St Edmundsbury Cathedral is one of the project's partners. The dean said he was "delighted".

Joe Hawes added it would benefit those "who are yet to discover the abbey and be captivated by its place in our culture, history and heritage."

The scheme includes building a visitor centre, a west cloister and a network of footpaths.

The grant means St Edmundsbury Cathedral, West Suffolk Council and English Heritage can now work together to apply for more lottery funding, which could be millions.

'Unique heritage'

Eilish McGuinness, heritage fund chief executive, also said she was "delighted".

She added: “The Abbey of St Edmund holds a thousand years of history within its ruins and surrounding gardens, inspiring and connecting generations of people to its unique heritage as a place of worship and medieval pilgrimage, dating back to the Magna Carta."

The abbey would have towered over Bury St Edmunds

The ruins, in public gardens in the centre of Bury St Edmunds, attract over one million visitors a year.

Throughout its history, pilgrims came from around the world to see the shrine of martyred East Anglian king St Edmund.