Do you remember when the world's first internet bench arrived in the Abbey Gardens, Bury St Edmunds?

Tucked away just inside the entrance to the Abbey Gardens, in Bury St Edmunds, is something of historical significance it would be easy to miss.

You may have walked past it or you might have sat on it to eat your lunch, but more than two decades ago the humble wooden bench gained international fame.

Back in August 2001 Tony Blair was Prime Minister, Eternal Flame by Atomic Kitten was number one in the UK charts, Shrek and Jurassic Park III were showing at cinemas and the world's media descended on the Abbey Gardens for the unveiling of a major technical innovation.

The internet was still in its infancy, but in an unlikely move MSN (owned by tech giants Microsoft) chose the town as the site for the world's first internet bench.

On Monday, August 6, 2001, reporters from news organisations across the world (and the Bury Free Press) rushed to the popular park for the global first.

The bench, which had been installed with the support of St Edmundsbury Borough Council, allowed four people at a time to plug their laptops into modem jacks for free.

At the time, MSN said it chose Bury after receiving applications from local authorities across the country.

The bench cost about £60 and the modem £30, with MSN agreeing to pay for the modem for three months.

The first user was St Edmundsbury major Brian Bagnall, who plugged his laptop in to send an email.

Cllr Bagnall said at the time: "People might be surprised that we've located a 21st Century cyber seat in the grounds of an 11th century abbey, but Bury is proud to be the only town in the world that can offer this unique opportunity to use the web outdoors.

"Office workers can use it to stay connected, local people can do their shopping online while the children play in the park and the thousands of tourists who visit during the summer can instantly beam pictures of our award-winning gardens back to loved ones anywhere in the world."

Stuart Anderson, marketing manager at MSN, said in 2001: "We're grateful to Bury St Edmunds for helping us offer an attractive outdoor environment from which to access the internet.

"The MSN internet bench supports our vision of making the web relevant and indispensable to our daily lives and we'll be interested to see how people react to it."

In its first days of operation the bench was vandalised when a perpetrator tried to block one of the modem plugs.

Then two teenagers discovered they could use the bench to make international phone calls, for free.

Neil Woodman and Daniel Sanderson, both 17, made one call – to Bill Gates, head of Microsoft in America.

"We managed to speak to his personal secretary but, unfortunately, did not get through to him," said Neil at the time.

After the incident the council instigated an emergency repair, with a spokeswoman saying: "We were aware it was possible to make telephone calls from the bench but we really did not think people would be wandering round the Abbey Gardens with their telephones."

Today, the bench's glittering past is fast becoming a distant memory, although in recent years no doubt thousands of people have sat on it and browsed the web using their smartphones.

Due to advancing technology the bench itself is no longer internet enabled, however it does hold a Guinness World Record for being the oldest internet bench.