St Edmund
Posted by on July 9, 2010Saint Edmund the Martyr (died 20 November 869) was a king of East Anglia who was venerated as a martyr saint soon after his death at the hands of Danish Vikings. Contemporary evidence for his life and death is largely confined to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle and his coinage. In the late 10th century, Abbo of Fleury was commissioned to write a life of the saint, which was translated into Old English by Ælfric of Eynsham. According to Abbo, Edmund was captured and tortured by the Great Heathen Army and died the death of a martyr. He is venerated as a saint and a martyr in the Eastern Orthodox Church, the Roman Catholic Church and the Anglican Communion. It is said that the king’s body was ultimately interred at Beadoriceworth, the modern Bury St Edmunds, where the pilgrimage to his shrine was encouraged by the 12th century monks’ enlargement of the church. Edmund’s popularity among the Anglo-Norman nobility helped justify claims of continuity with pre-Norman traditions; a banner of St. Edmund’s arms was carried at the Battle of Agincourt. The earliest and most reliable accounts represent Edmund as descended from the preceding kings of East Anglia of the Wuffing line. Other accounts state that his father was King Æthelweard. Geoffrey of Wells claimed that Edmund was the youngest son of Alcmund, a Saxon king. Edmund was said to have been crowned by Bishop Humbert of Elmham on Christmas Day 855. He succeeded to the East Anglian throne in 855, while still a boy. Edmund was a King of East Anglia. According to Abbo of Fleury, followed by John of Worcester, he came “ex antiquorum Saxonum nobili prosapia oriundus,” which when translated seems to mean that Edmund was of foreign origin and that he belonged to the Old Saxons of the continent. This is a very doubtful tradition, as there is no evidence that his alleged father, King Alcmund, ever existed. The earliest and most reliable accounts represent Edmund as descendant of the preceding kings of East Anglia; the Wuffing line. Nevertheless, the story of Old Saxon origins was later expanded into a full legend which spoke of Edmund’s parentage, his birth at Nuremberg to the otherwise unknown Alcmund, his adoption by King Æthelweard of East Anglia, his nomination as successor to the king, and his landing at Hunstanton to claim his kingdom. Other accounts state that his father was King Æthelweard. What is certain is that the king died in 854, and was succeeded by Edmund when the boy was a fourteen-year-old. Thus, his birthyear is 841. Edmund was said to have been crowned by St Humbert on 25 December 855 at Burna (probably Bures St Mary, Suffolk), which at that time functioned as the royal capital. Almost nothing is known of the life of Edmund during the next fourteen years. It was recorded that Edmund was a model king who treated all with equal justice and was unbending to flatterers. It was also written that he retired for a year to his royal tower at Hunstanton and learned the whole Psalter, so that he could recite it from memory. In the year 869, the Danes who had wintered at York, marched through Mercia into East Anglia and took up their quarters at Thetford. Edmund engaged them fiercely in battle, but the Danes under their leaders Ubbe Ragnarsson and Ivar the Boneless had the victory, killed King Edmund, and remained in possession of the battlefield. The conquerors may have simply killed the king in battle, or shortly after. The more popular version of the story, which makes Edmund die as a martyr to Danish arrows when he had refused to renounce Christ or hold his kingdom as a vassal from heathen overlords, dates from comparatively soon after the event. It is not known which account is correct. According to Abbo of Fleury, Edmund’s earliest biographer, the story came to Abbo by way of St Dunstan, who heard it from the lips of Edmund’s own sword-bearer. Given accepted birth and death days, this is just chronologically possible. In Abbo of Fleury’s alternative version of events Edmund refused to meet the Danes in battle himself, preferring to die a martyr’s death, with conscious parallels to the Passion of Christ: King Edmund stood within his hall of the mindful Healer with Hinguar (Ivar), who then came, and discarded his weapons. He willed to imitate Christ’s example, which forbade Peter to fight against the fierce Jews with weapons. Lo! to the dishonorable man Edmund then submitted and was scoffed at and beaten by cudgels. Thus the heathens led the faithful king to a tree firmly rooted in Earth, tightened him thereto with sturdy bonds, and again scourged him for a long time with straps. He always called between the blows with belief in truth to Christ the Saviour. The heathens then became brutally angry because of his beliefs, because he called Christ to himself to help. They shot then with missiles, as if to amuse themselves, until he was all covered with their missiles as with bristles of a hedgehog, just as Sebastian was. Then Hinguar, the dishonorable Viking, saw that the noble king did not desire to renounce Christ, and with resolute faith always called to him; Hinguar then commanded to behead the king and the heathens thus did. While this was happening, Edmund called to Christ still. Then the heathens dragged the holy man to slaughter, and with a stroke struck the head from him. His soul set forth, blessed, to Christ. The traditional date of his death, quoted by most reference works, is 870. However recent research has led to the claim that he actually died in 869, and this date is now accepted as fact in most new histories. This uncertainty arose because the compilers of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle dated the start of the year from September, so an event that took place in November 869 according to the modern calendar would be considered by them to take place in 870. The Great Heathen Army conquered the Kingdom of Northumbria in 866. They then invaded Wessex, the English kingdom whose history from that time is best documented, in December 870. The uncertainty raises the question of whether they did so within a few weeks of killing Edmund, or whether they spent a year pillaging and consolidating their position in East Anglia. One possible location for the battle is at Hoxne near Eye in Suffolk, some 20 miles east of Thetford. Local legend has is that, after being routed in battle against the Danes, King Edmund of East Anglia hid under the Goldbrook bridge. The reflection of his golden spurs glinting in the water revealed his hiding place to a newly wed couple. Nice couple that they were, they gave away his position to the Danes who promptly captured Edmund and demanded he renounce his faith. He refused and was tied to a nearby oak tree. After whipping him, the Danes shot spears at him until he was entirely covered with their missiles – like the bristles of a hedgehog. Even then he would not forsake Christ and so was beheaded and the head was thrown into the woods. Another candidate is in Dernford, Cambridgeshire while Bradfield St Clare, near Bury St Edmunds is also a possible site for the martyrdom. The king’s body was ultimately interred at Beadoriceworth, the modern Bury St Edmunds. The shrine of Edmund soon became one of the most famous and wealthy pilgrimage locations in England and the reputation of the saint became universal. The date of his canonisation is unknown, although Archdeacon Hermann’s Life of Edmund, written in the late 11th century, seems to state that it happened in the reign of Athelstan (924–939). Edmund’s popularity among the English nobility was lasting. It is known that his banner was borne in the Irish expedition of the Anglo-Normans and also when Caerlaverock Castle was taken in 1300. A banner with Edmund’s crest was also carried at the Battle of Agincourt. Churches dedicated to his memory are found all over England, including Christopher Wren’s St Edmund the King and Martyr in London. There are also a number of colleges named after St Edmund. His shrine at Bury St Edmunds was destroyed in 1539, during the English Reformation. His feast day in the Orthodox, Roman and Anglican traditions is 20 November. Abbo of Fleury’s vita continues the narration of Edmund’s decapitation without a break. His severed head was thrown into the wood. Day and night as Edmund’s followers went seeking, calling out “Where are you, friend?” the head would answer, “Here, here, here,” until at last, “a great wonder”, they found Edmund’s head in the possession of a grey wolf, clasped between its paws. “They were astonished at the wolf’s guardianship”. The wolf, sent by God to protect the head from the animals of the forest, was starving but did not eat the head for all the days it was lost. After recovering the head the villagers marched back to the kingdom, praising God and the wolf that served him. The wolf walked beside them as if tame all the way to the town, after which it turned around and vanished into the forest. After giving the head and body a speedy burial, the kingdom rebuilt itself for several years before finally erecting a church worthy of Edmund’s burial. Legend told that upon exhumation of the body, a miracle was discovered. All the arrow wounds upon Edmund’s corpse were healed and his head reattached to his body. The only evidence of his previous decapitation was a thin, red line around his neck. Despite being buried for many years in a flimsy coffin, his skin was soft and fresh as if he were merely sleeping the entire time. These details induced the writers of the British Museum’s account of the bog body called Lindow Man to suggest that the body of St Edmund recovered in the fens “was in fact a prehistoric bog body, and that in trying to find their murdered king, his people had recovered the remains of a sacred king of the old religion still bearing the marks of his ritual strangulation.” Edmund is seen as the patron saint of various kings, pandemics, torture victims, and wolves, the Roman Catholic diocese of East Anglia, the English county of Suffolk, Douai Abbey and the French city of Toulouse. The Orthodox and Catholic Churches have considered him patron saint of England, but he is no longer mentioned in the national liturgical calendar of the Catholic Church in England. In 2006, a group that included BBC Radio Suffolk and the East Anglian Daily Times saw the failure of their campaign to get St Edmund named as the patron saint of England. Edward III replaced Edmund as a national saint by associating Saint George with the Order of the Garter. The Bury St Edmunds MP David Ruffley had taken up the cause and helped deliver a large petition to the government in London. BBC Radio Suffolk also called for a change of the English flag from the Cross of St George (Argent, a cross Gules or a red cross on a white field) to the new Flag of Suffolk. This consists of three gold crowns on a field of blue (Azure, three crowns Or). This is a heraldic banner introduced during the Norman period. Prime Minister Tony Blair rejected the request, however their attempt was successful on another level: “St Edmund (was) named patron saint of Suffolk…the high point of a successful campaign which was launched by Breakfast show presenter Mark Murphy and producer Emily Fellows in the autumn of 2006. St Edmund was originally the English patron saint but was ousted by St George.” Until the middle of the 19th century, an old tree stood in Hoxne Park and it was believed that it was the tree on which Edmund had been martyred. In 1849, the old tree fell down and was chopped up. According to the story, in the heart of the tree an arrow head was found. Pieces of the tree were kept and one of them was used to form part of the altar of a church which was dedicated to Edmund. In Percy Dearmer’s The Little Lives of the Saints, we are told of Edmund’s posthumous revenge on the Danes: “the last heathen Danish king, Sweyen (the father of Canute), tried to destroy (Bury St Edmunds). He laid siege to it, and demanded all the treasure of the church, else he threatened to destroy the church and kill all the clergy; and this he said with many taunting words about the saint who lay buried there. But as he was sitting on his war–horse, waiting to attack the town, he saw in the sky St Edmund coming towards him, a crown on his head and a long bright lance in his hand. ‘Help, friends!’ he cried. ‘Edmund is coming to kill me!’ Then he fell down, and died in convulsions.” Sweyn’s son, King Canute, converted to Christianity and rebuilt the abbey at Bury St Edmunds. In 1020, he made a pilgrimage there and offered his own crown upon the shrine as atonement for the sins of his forefathers. In the Bernard Cornwell book The Last Kingdom King Edmund talks himself into martyrdom when he tries to convince Ivar the Boneless of the greatness of God. The Danes recreate the maytyrdom of Saint Sebastian to see if a miracle would happen and God would protect Edmund from the arrows. One hundred and fifty years before the cars forum Norman Conquest the remains of St Edmund were moved from their first resting place close to the site of the martyrdom to Baedericesworth on the River Lark. Less than 50 years after the removal of the bedroom furniture remains to the new location the later King Edmund made a major grant of land in 945 to the monastery, securing the whole area of the later town within the boundary known as The Banleuca. Bury St Edmunds, as it later became known, was on the way to becoming one of the most wealthy and influential Abbeys in England. But what of the Saint from whom it has taken its name? Edmund, King of the East Angles, is known only from two near contemporary sources: the Anglo Saxon Chronicle written by a monk between 877 – 899 and the remarkable memorial coinage, issued in around 890 and which continued for some 20 years. Beyond this date the well known details of the martyrdom of King Edmund, and the miracles attributed to him, come from sources increasingly distant from the date of his death, making it difficult to disentangle fact from enthusiasm. The ‘Kingdom’ of East Anglia had its origins in the 5th century migrations of Angles and Saxons from North Germany and Denmark. Their settlements and culture are uniquely illustrated by the excavations and reconstructions of the early Anglo-Saxon village at West Stow, some seven miles to the west of Bury St Edmunds. By the early 7th century towns began to be established, particularly Ipswich, signalling the dramatic changes taking place with continental trade, political and sell my car regal development and the introduction of Christianity. East Anglia, that is Suffolk, Norfolk and most of Cambridgeshire, was an established kingdom based on the Royal House of the Wuffings. Their most notable King, Redwald, was buried in astonishing splendour at Sutton Hoo in 625. After the death of Redwald, who had been recognised as the ‘High King of England’, the fortunes of the kingdom fluctuated, with increasing pressures from and eventual domination of the Midland Kingdom of Mercia by 793 and Northumbria by 821. By the 9th century the East Anglian kings were eclipsed by their more powerful neighbours to a point where most are hardly known. The bald statement about Edmund’s death in the Anglo Saxon Chronicle for the year 869 may have passed unnoticed if it were not for the remarkable reputation for miracles which tinnitus treatment rapidly accrued to his remains. The development of the story of St Edmund is laid out below. It shows not only the year of the event (AD) but also how long each event was in distance of years from the time of the death of King Edmund. In a letter to Archbishop Dunstan, Abbo says he heard the Archbishop relate the story and that he said he heard it as a young man from a very old man who claimed to have been fat burning furnace review King Edmund’s armour bearer at the time of his death. It is likely therefore, that the basics of the story are correct. The account recorded by Abbo is this: Two Danish leaders, Hinguar and Habba, came to Northumbria, which they overran. Hinguar proceeded to the east with a fleet and surprised a city which they sacked. Eventually Edmund was taken prisoner, whipped and tied to a tree and shot with arrows ‘until he bristled with them like a hedgehog or thistle’. He was then beheaded and the head thrown into bramble thickets in Hegelisdun Wood. The date was given as November 20th which remains St Edmunds’ Feast Day today. The survivors searched for the head and found it guarded by a wolf and calling ‘here, here, here’. The king was buried in a small chapel built for the purpose where the body remained for many years before being moved to Bedericsworth. There are many accounts of miracles associated with the Saint and of the incorrupt nature of the body until at least 1198 when it was examined after a disastrous fire. Even if the later and more colourful details are stripped away as accumulations around the core there remain three key sources which relate to the story: the bald statement in the Anglo Saxon Chronicle which pinpoints the date of the death of an otherwise unrecorded King of East Anglia; the memorial coinage issued only twenty years later and current within the Danelaw which solidly attests the veneration already attached to the martyred king; and the account of Abbo, writing at Ramsey Abbey, recording the events related by the Kings’s armour bearer to Archbishop Dunstan. We do not know the sources used by Herman in 1095 but his addition of a ‘Sutton’ as the first burial place has aroused much discussion. The site of the martyrdom as reported by Abbo was at a place called Haegelisdun. Hoxne was claimed to be the site in 1101 but ‘Hoxne’ cannot be derived from Haegelisdun. It is suggested that there were political reasons for the Bishop of East Anglia to make the claim at the time to counter the growing influence of Bury Abbey, which was outside his jurisdiction. ‘Hellesdon’ (near Norwich) can be derived from ‘Haegelisdun’ has also been suggested but has no other supporting evidence. ‘Sutton’ has been equated with Sutton Hoo but there is no other evidence than the name. In Bradfield St Clare some six miles south of Bury there is an old field name, ‘Hellesdon’. This is not too much to go on, but there are other suggestive associations. To the north, there is a group of ‘Kingshall’ place names, and to the South a ‘Sutton’ Hall. This grouping of place names, so close to Bury itself, and not far from the winter head quarters of the Danish army at Thetford, is surely worthy of serious consideration. The influence of St Edmund, the martyred king of East Anglia, survived the times of Danish domination and the Norman Conquest to become the focal point for the development of one of the greatest abbeys of England, whose abbey church was the largest in Europe, larger even than Norwich, built about the same time. The reconstructions and interpretation of the Anglo-Saxon village at West Stow examine the very foundations on which the culture, wealth and influence of later Saxon England were built and find echoes in the ruins of the once great abbey of St Edmund. Bury St Edmunds is a historic market town in the county of Suffolk, England and formerly the county town of West Suffolk. It is the main town in the borough of St Edmundsbury and known for the ruined abbey near the town centre. Bury is the seat of the Diocese of St Edmundsbury and Ipswich, with the episcopal see at St Edmundsbury Cathedral. The town is known for brewing and malting (with the large Greene King brewery) and for a British Sugar processing factory. Many large and small businesses are located in Bury, which traditionally has given Bury an affluent economy with low unemployment, with the town being the main cultural and retail centre for West Suffolk. Tourism is also a major part of the economy, plus local government. Bury St Edmunds (Beodericsworth, St Edmund’s Bury), supposed by some to have been the Villa Faustina of the Romans, was one of the royal towns of the Saxons. Sigebert, king of the East Angles, founded a monastery here about 633, which in 903 became the burial place of King Edmund, who was slain by the Danes in 869, and owed most of its early celebrity to the reputed miracles performed at the shrine of the martyr king. The town grew around Bury St Edmunds Abbey, a site of pilgrimage. By 925 the fame of St Edmund had spread far and wide, and the name of the town was changed to St Edmund’s Bury. In 942 or 945 King Edmund had granted to the abbot and convent jurisdiction over the whole town, free from all secular services, and Canute in 1020 freed it from episcopal control. Edward the Confessor made the abbot lord of the franchise. Sweyn, in 1020, having destroyed the older monastery and ejected the secular priests, built a Benedictine abbey on St Edmund’s Bury. The town is associated with Magna Carta. In 1214 the barons of England are believed to have met in the Abbey Church and sworn to force King John to accept the Charter of Liberties, the document which influenced the creation of the Magna Carta. By various grants from the abbots, the town gradually attained the rank of a borough. Henry III in 1235 granted to the abbot two annual fairs, one in December (which still survives) and the other the great St Matthew’s fair, which was abolished by the Fairs Act of 1871. In 1327, the Great Riot occurred, in which the local populace led an armed revolt against the Abbey. The burghers were angry at the overwhelming power, wealth and corruption of the monastery, which ran almost every aspect of local life with a view to enriching itself. The riot destroyed the main gate and a new, fortified gate was built in its stead. However in 1381 during the Great Uprising, the Abbey was sacked and looted again. This time, the Prior was executed; his severed head was placed on a pike in the Great Market. Thomas Warren’s map of Bury St Edmunds, 1776. The town developed into a flourishing cloth-making town, with a large woollen trade, by the 14th century. In 1405 Henry IV granted another fair. Elizabeth I in 1562 confirmed the charters which former kings had granted to the abbots. The reversion of the fairs and two markets on Wednesday and Saturday were granted by James I in fee farm to the corporation. James I in 1606 granted a charter of incorporation with an annual fair in Easter week and a market. James granted further charters in 1608 and 1614, as did Charles II in 1668 and 1684. Parliaments were held in the borough in 1272, 1296 and 1446, but the borough was not represented until 1608, when James I conferred on it the privilege of sending two members. The Redistribution of Seats Act 1885 reduced the representation to one. The borough of Bury St Edmunds and the surrounding area, like much of East Anglia, being part of the Eastern Association, supported Puritan sentiment during the first half of the 17th century. By 1640, several families had departed for the Massachusetts Bay Colony as part of the wave of emigration that occurred during the Great Migration. Bury’s ancient grammar school also educated notable puritan theologians such as Richard Sibbes, the master of St. Catherine’s Hall in Cambridge and noteworthy future colonists such as Simonds D’Ewes and John Winthrop, Jr. The town was the setting for the Bury St. Edmunds witch trials between 1599 and 1694. On 3 March 1974 a Turkish Airlines DC10 jet Flight 981 crashed near Paris killing all 346 people on board. Among the victims were 17 members of Bury St Edmunds rugby club, returning from France. The town council election on 3 May 2007 was won by the “Abolish Bury Town Council” party. The party lost its majority following a by-election in June 2007 and, to date, the Town Council is still in existence. Near the gardens stands Britain’s first internally illuminated street sign, the pillar of salt. When built, it needed permission because it did not conform to regulations. Bury St Edmunds is terminus of the A1101, Great Britain’s lowest road. There is a network of tunnels which are evidence of chalk-workings, though there is no evidence of extensive tunnels under the town centre. Some buildings have inter-communicating cellars. Due to their unsafe nature the chalk-workings are not open to the public, although viewing has been granted to individuals. Some have caused subsidence in living history. Among noteworthy buildings is St Mary’s Church, where Mary Tudor, Queen of France and sister of Tudor king Henry VIII, was re-buried, six years after her death, having been moved from the Abbey after her brother’s Dissolution of the Monasteries. Queen Victoria had a stained glass window fitted into the church to commemorate Mary’s interment. The name Bury is etymologically connected with borough , which has cognates in other Germanic languages such as the Old Norse “borg” meaning “wall, castle”; and Gothic “baurgs” meaning “city”. They all derive from Proto-Germanic *burgs meaning “fortress”. This in turn derives from the Proto-Indo-European root *bhrgh meaning “fortified elevation”, with cognates including Welsh bera (“stack”) and Sanskrit bhrant- (“high, elevated building”). There is thus no justification for the folk etymology stating that the Cathedral Town was so called because St Edmund was buried there. The second section of the name refers to Edmund King of the East Angles, who was killed by the Vikings in the year 869. He became venerated as a saint and a martyr, and his shrine made Bury St Edmunds an important place of pilgrimage. The formal name of both the borough and the diocese is “St. Edmundsbury”. Local residents often refer to Bury St Edmunds simply as “Bury”. In the centre of Bury St Edmunds lie the remains of an abbey, surrounded by the Abbey Gardens, a park. The abbey is a shrine to Saint Edmund, the Saxon King of the East Angles. The abbey was sacked by the townspeople in the 14th century, and then largely destroyed during the 16th century with the Dissolution of the Monasteries but Bury remained prosperous throughout the 17th and 18th centuries, falling into relative decline with the Industrial Revolution. Bury St Edmunds Cathedral was created when the Diocese of St Edmundsbury and Ipswich was formed in 1914. The cathedral was extended with an eastern end in the 1960s, commemorated by Benjamin Britten’s Fanfare for St Edmundsbury. A new Gothic revival cathedral tower was built as part of a millennium project running from 2000 to 2005. The opening for the tower took place in July 2005, and included a brass band concert and fireworks. Parts of the cathedral remain uncompleted, including the cloisters. Many areas remain inaccessible to the public due to building work. The tower makes St Edmundsbury the only recently completed Anglican cathedral in the UK. Only a handful of Gothic revival cathedrals are being built worldwide. The tower was constructed using original fabrication techniques by six masons who placed the machine-pre-cut stone individually as they arrived. St. Mary’s Church is the civic church of Bury St. Edmunds and the third largest parish church in England. It was part of the abbey complex and originally was one of three large churches in the town (the others being St. James, now St. Edmundsbury Cathedral, and St. Margaret’s, now gone). The Theatre Royal, Bury St Edmunds was built by National Gallery architect William Wilkins in 1819. It is the sole surviving Regency Theatre in the country . The theatre, owned by the Greene King brewery, is leased to the National Trust for a nominal charge, and underwent restoration between 2005 and 2007. It presents a full programme of performances and is also open for public tours. Moyse’s Hall Museum is one of the oldest (c. 1180) domestic buildings in East Anglia open to the public. It has collections of fine art, for example Mary Beale, costume, e.g. Charles Frederick Worth, horology, local and social history; including Red Barn Murder and Witchcraft. Bury St Edmunds Art Gallery is located in The Market Cross, restored by Robert Adam in the late 1700s. The Gallery was established in 1972 and today hosts a programme of changing contemporary art and craft exhibitions and events by British and international artists. Artists featured in the Gallery have included Cornelia Parker, David Batchelor, Anri Sala and Mark Fairnington. The town holds a festival in May. This including concerts, plays, dance, and lecturers culminating in fireworks. Bury St Edmunds is home to England’s oldest Scout group, 1st Bury St Edmunds (Mayors Own). The town’s main football club, Bury Town, is the fourth oldest non-league team in England.[14] They are members of the Southern Football League Division One Midlands. Team Bury, associated with the football academy at West Suffolk College play in Division One of the Eastern Counties League. Suffolk County Cricket Club play occasional games at the Victory Ground which is also the home ground of Bury St Edmunds Cricket Club. The UK’s largest British-owned brewery, Greene King, is situated in Bury, as is the smaller Old Cannon Brewery. Just outside the town, on the site of RAF Bury St Edmunds, is Bartrums Brewery, originally based in Thurston. Another beer-related landmark is Britain’s smallest public house, The Nutshell, which is on The Traverse, just off the marketplace. Bury’s largest landmark is the British Sugar factory near the A14, which processes sugar beet into refined crystal sugar. It was built in 1925 and processes beet from 1,300 growers. 660 lorry-loads of beet can be accepted each day when beet is being harvested. Not all the beet can be crystallised immediately, and some is kept in solution in holding tanks until late spring and early summer, when the plant has spare crystallising capacity. The sugar is sold under the Silver Spoon name (the other major British brand, Tate & Lyle, is made from imported sugar cane). By-products include molassed sugar beet feed for cattle and LimeX70, a soil improver. The factory has its own power station, which powers around 110,000 homes. A smell of burnt starch from the plant is noticeable on some days.