Bury St Edmunds historian Martyn Taylor explains how the town’s Hellfire Corner got its name

Memories of this corner with St Andrew’s Street South and Westgate Street were kindly given to me by Barbara Clements née Curry, who lived at 31 Westgate Street until she was 16 years old.

She said: “The house was old with a stone ram on the top and beams inside, there were gas mantles to see by, no inside water and a shared outside toilet! The houses were demolished due to re-development. When the farmers brought their cattle up Out Westgate to the Wednesday market we would run out of our back yard to see them. Opposite was a blacksmith’s forge, and we would watch the horses being shod. In the mornings, the corporation’s heavy horses came up the west from Holywater Meadows to their yard in King’s Road - they were taken back again at 5.30pm.

“We had a ‘midnight coalman’, a Mr Sharman, who would have candles in lamps at the back of his dray. Also, Les Freeman, a rag and bone man that bought our rabbit skins for sixpence, just enough for the cinema!

“Several shops were on Westgate Street, including Fursland and Maltby, they had lovely fruit you could buy some for a penny; next door was a barber called Freddie Caldwell. When they pulled his place down they took the mirrors out and put them in the Theatre Royal! Then there was a sweet shop, the man who had it, ‘Darkie’ Double, ran a bookies around the back, not exactly legal in those days.

“Sometimes an old tramp would knock on our door for some water to put it in his old tin can as he made his way up to the ‘Spike’, the workhouse in Mill Road which later became St Mary’s Geriatric Hospital. They used to give him an old straw mattress to sleep on. Another old character who lived at the top of Out Westgate was ‘Muggy’ Warren; he wore Wellington boots all the time. Most days he would walk to Great Welnetham Church to keep an eye on it but he never spoke a word!

As children we played a lot up on Hardwick Heath and often saw the POWs marching about.”

-- Martyn Taylor is a local historian, author and Bury Tour Guide. His latest book, Bury St Edmunds Through Time Revisited, is widely available.