A protest group in Bury St Edmunds has threatened to invoke a 1,000-year old curse to stop a retail scheme by Centros Miller.
The self-styled Knights of St Edmund have vowed to pronounce the curse, which they claim causes instant insanity, venereal disease and even death, on both the shopping centre and on any companies that take space there.
The scheme, which is proposed for the site of the Suffolk town’s former cattle market, is to be anchored by department store chain Debenhams.
The Knights have told the developers and the department store that they must pull out of the scheme by 18th November or face the consequences.
The curse is said to have been pronounced on Henry VIII after he closed down St Edmund’s Abbey in 1539 and supposedly caused the syphilis which led to his death.
References: EGi News 20/10/05
