Now a picturesque, skeletal ruin, Bury's once-mighty abbey is still impressive, despite being plundered for building stone after the dissolution of the monasteries. Dotted around a pretty park behind the cathedral (once part of the abbey itself), sections of eroded masonry form fantastical shapes against the greenery, marking out an immense complex that was once one of Britain's largest religious buildings.
You enter the Abbey Gardens via one of two well-preserved gatehouses: the mid-14th-century Great Gate is intricately decorated and ominously defensive, with battlements, a portcullis and arrow slits. You can also enter further up Angel Hill, via the looming, gargoyle-studded, early-12th-century Norman Tower, the original entrance to the abbey church.
Inside the gardens, the Great Court was once a hive of activity, protected safely inside a boundary wall that once included the cathedral (then St James' Church) and St Mary's Church. A dainty dovecote is all that remains of the Abbot's Palace. Note the medieval houses wormholed into the medieval walls on the West Front.