Bury St Edmunds Tour Guides Receive TripAdvisor Award

Bury St Edmunds Tour Guides have been awarded the Travellers’ Choice distinction by Tripadvisor which again puts them in the top 10% of things to do worldwide and demonstrates their commitment to hospitality excellence.

The award is based on those who experienced their tours and provided strong reviews.  Of 346 reviews, all but two of them were classified as excellent or very good.  The range of tours have been enjoyed by visitors from 25 different Countries, those from across England and a high proportion of local people.

There is still time to fit in one of their 11am daily tours before the season ends on 31 October, there were 2,228 daily tour bookings in the past year.

Halloween then signals the start of their popular ghostly and macabre tours which continue through the winter months.  Last year there were 903 bookings and already this year over 100 people have booked for an opportunity to be part of these spooky events.  These popular tours see the guides dressing in character and narrating the many spooky and dark stories of the town's history.

In addition, the guides research and produce subject-specific tours, examples being tours that relate to both World Wars and which provide information of an unusual and unique nature. There are also opportunities for people with health or other conditions which prevent them from booking full-length tours, these can sometimes be assisted by volunteer rickshaw riders.

Since July, the Guides have collaborated with Our Bury St Edmunds, Bury St Edmunds and Beyond and 12 local independent businesses to stage food and drink walking tours and along the way, enjoy bite-sized samples of delicious food and drink and be fed nuggets of local history.  Having sold out until the beginning of October, the collaborative venture will continue into 2026 on dates which are published on the website www.burystedmundstourguides.org

Marketing Officer, John Saunders explained, “It is noticeable that many of the tours are being booked as the ideal gift for a relative or friend or by groups that want to gather together but they are very much for everyone and combine to help people to appreciate the town, its history and to have fun, all at a reasonable price.”

Bury St Edmunds Tour Guides comprise 14 active volunteers who are accredited by the Institute of Tourist Guiding to deliver guided tours in Bury St Edmunds.  

Amongst their tours is ‘Masters of the Air’ which recounts life in Bury St Edmunds during the Second World War and includes a visit to the Operations Room at the Guildhall.  Going back further in time, ‘For King and Country’ is a tour that is built from previously unseen records of tribunals of people who appealed against conscription in the First World War.

Tours can be provided, on request, for people who for reasons of health or other conditions, cannot manage to undertake a full tour lasting 90 minutes.  The Guides have collaborated with the local rickshaw team to offer tours lasting 20 minutes of Abbeygate Street or 60 minutes within the Abbey Gardens and these have received positive comments.

Recognising the status of Bury St Edmunds as the most dog-friendly town in the UK, a special tour for the owners of well-behaved dogs was launched last year.