Y ou can find us in the The Long Barn, at Fornham Business Court, on the north side of Bury St Edmunds. Fornham Business Court is a development of heritage farm buildings, set in beautiful farm surroundings, strategically located beside the A14. The new office is the next step in our journey as we grow our team and client base in the west of our region. To mark the opening of our new Bury St Edmunds office, Jack Deal, Business Advisory Partner celebrates the rich history of agriculture in the area. Readers will be familiar with Bury St Edmunds’ modern agricultural landscape. Local farmers grow significant volumes of sugar beet, onions, and potatoes, alongside wheat, barley and rapeseed. The town has grown rapidly in recent years, with large new housing and commercial developments providing land sale opportunities to landowners. The area remains relatively unsaturated and has seen small numbers of farm diversifications, including event venues, farm shops and café/restaurants, overnight accommodation, storage and renewables.
There is plenty of evidence of agricultural activity in Bury St Edmunds in prehistoric times, and during the Roman occupation of Britain agricultural practices expanded with the cultivation of wheat, barley, oats and vegetables, along with raising cattle, sheep and pigs. After the Romans departed, 5th century Anglo-Saxon settlers continued to cultivate crops and raise livestock, and this history is celebrated at the Anglo-Saxon Museum at West Stow. By the medieval period Bury St Edmunds was a thriving market town and traditional markets are still held on Wednesdays and Saturdays, along with regular farmers markets in the town centre. The Benedictine Abbey owned vast areas of local land which were largely occupied by tenant farmers. This period re-shaped the agricultural landscape, with the introduction of the three-field system and the origins of crop rotations. Bury St Edmunds faced serious challenges during the 16th and 17th centuries. The dissolution of the monasteries by King Henry VIII in the 1530’s led to the dismantling of the abbey and the redistribution of its lands. The enclosures movement started in the early 1600’s, meant that much common land was privatised, resulting in smaller plots of land for individual farmers and that, added to the
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