Bury St Edmunds is a town in West Suffolk on the Lark River, a tributary of the Ouse, 26 miles northwest of Ipswich. It is of ancient origin, said to have been the site of a Roman villa and later a royal Saxon town. It is named for St Edmund, a king of the East Angles, killed by the Danes about 870, who is buried here. Bury St Edmunds early importance resulted from the fame of the miracles which were supposed to have been performed at the martyred king's shrine. There are remains in the borough of a magnificent Benedictine abbey built in 1020. Its church gate is one of the finest specimens of early Norman architecture in England.