Stadium Field, Newmarket Road, Bury St Edmonds, Suffolk IP33
Another temporary Greyhound Racing venue found in the vicinity of Bury St Edmunds, was the one just set back off Newmarket Road. Applications for the track had been submitted during 1947, yet after two years of refusal the venue did eventually stage a handful of meetings in 1949.
The venue known as Stadium Field, was located less than a mile west of Bury’s town centre, on a sports field adjacent to the west side of the Gibraltar Army Barracks, dissected only by a bridle path known as Beeton’s Footpath. It is presumed that the venue had minimal structures and was not enclosed.
Distances of 350 and 500 yards were staged, yet its existence was only brief lasting for just eight meetings only during July and August of that year. Newspaper cuttings suggested that the reason for it not becoming a more permanent venue was its failure of obtaining a betting license, the courts blaming it on gatherings that would possibly create traffic congestion along Newmarket Road, but maybe it’s close proximity to the West Suffolk Greyhound Stadium did not help matters.
Today, the site is now covered by a large car park on Olding Road, which is located at the rear of houses on the present A1302 Newmarket Road. The Bridleway Beetons Path is now tarmacked, yet still lingers along the old barracks perimeter wall, which eventually links you to an access road called Beetons Way, which approaches from the north, and directs you back to where the venue once possibly lay.
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