Is St Edmund’s body buried beneath a Suffolk tennis court?

Here in St Edmundsbury cathedral, a bunch of clerics and local bigwigs are preparing for a most unusual anniversary. Throughout 2020 the inhabitants of this historic market town will be celebrating the 1,000th birthday of a building that ceased to exist nearly 500 years ago.

The Benedictine Abbey of Bury St Edmunds was founded by King Canute in 1020 to house the body of King Edmund, England’s original patron saint. Traditionally said to have been born in 841 and crowned King of East Anglia in 855, Edmund was captured in 869 by the Danes, who told him he could be their puppet king if he renounced Christianity. He refused, so the Danes tied him to a tree, shot arrows at him and chopped his head off. When his head was reunited with his mutilated body (with the help of a talking wolf) he became a saint. Monks carted his uncorrupted corpse around for 150 years, until Canute built this abbey.