Coloured postcard showing a stream and weeping willow in the Abbey Gardens, Bury St Edmunds. The Abbey of Bury St Edmunds was first established in the 7th century, and the abbey church built in the 11th and 12th; the Abbey was dissolved in 1539, and reduced to ruins. In 1831, a landscaping project was begun, apparently modelled on the Brussels Botanic Gardens, by the Marquess of Bristol; in the early 20th century the gardens were opened to the public as a municipal park