Abbey Tales is a five week social prescribing creative project located in the historic Abbey Gardens, Bury St Edmunds, kindly funded initially by The St Edmunds Trust, the project is now in its 3rd year.

During winter 2020 Service Users were encouraged to look closely at trees, identifying them by twigs, bark and leaves. Every week different techniques were introduced and developed including drawing, poetry, collage and pen and ink.

Week three and five centred on finding different stones with the Abbey walls and ruins, imagining what they’ve seen over one thousand years and the stories they could tell. Poems were read by participants live on BBC Suffolk Radio on January 5th 2021.

This project is ongoing and available to social prescribers, now as a 4 week creative wellbeing prescription.

A poem created by a participant on the Abbey Tales project:

Stone souls

Abbey stones

Hold tales of the untold

A rich tapestry of thoughts,

Echoes and patterns

and times ancient by.

Of weathered landscapes

Broken angel wings,

Jumbled thoughts

and crumbling terracotta

Secrets lie beneath.

Of drifting monks

And whispering clouds

Beneath us lies

Hidden skulls

The stone souls.