Amesbury is a town and civil parish in the English county of Wiltshire, eight miles north of Salisbury. It is most famous for the prehistoric monument of Stonehenge which is in its parish, and for the discovery of the Amesbury Archer – dubbed the King of Stonehenge in the press – in 2002.

Geography

Amesbury is located in the district of Salisbury in southern Wiltshire. It is on the southern fringes of Salisbury Plain and lies in the River Avon valley. Historically it has been considered an important river crossing area on the road from London to Warminster and Exeter. This has continued into the present with the building of the A303 across the Avon next to the town. Originally the town developed around the water meadows next to several bends in the river, but in time has spread onto the valley hillsides and absorbed the military airfield at Boscombe Down.

History

The land around Amesbury has been settled since prehistoric times, evidenced by the monument of Stonehenge. Other finds in the parish point to large scale prehistoric structures and settlements in the whole area, including the numerous monuments around Stonehenge, the discovery of a Neolithic village in the neighbouring parish of Durrington by the Stonehenge Riverside Project, and continuing excavations at Boscombe Down where Wessex Archaeology found the Amesbury Archer and Boscombe Bowmen.

During the Iron Age a large hill fort now known as Vespasian's Camp was built alongside the Avenue and overlooking the River Avon. The fort could easily have catered for up to 1000 people, and likely was surrounded by smaller settlements and farming communities.

Roman remains are poorly documented at Amesbury, but excavations have revealed roman structures in the Stonehenge Landscape, and Wessex Archaeology have discovered a large Roman graveyard in the area of the Amesbury Archer burial. It is likely that there was a large Anglo Roman settlement overlooking the River Avon at this point.

It has been suggested that the name of Amesbury is derived from Ambrosius Aurelianus - leader of Romano British resistance to Saxon invasions in the 5th Century. If this is the case he is likely to have used the hill fort as a stronghold. It is possible that an order of Monks established a monastery in the area that was destroyed by the Saxons before they settled the area in the 7th Century. Amesbury is also associated with the Arthurian legend: the convent to which Guinevere retired was said to have been the one at Amesbury.

In 979AD a Benedictine abbey, the Abbey of St. Mary and St. Melor, was founded on the site of the previous monastery by Dowager Queen Ælfthryth. In 1177 the abbey was dissolved by Henry II and replaced with a double priory of the Fontevrault order. At some point in time it seems likely that the church became the parish church, and it is possible that this is why it was spared destruction in 1540 when, as part of the reformation, the priory and all other associated buildings were destroyed. Amesbury became an estate and was given to Edward Seymour, 1st Earl of Hertford by the crown.