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Amesbury
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"AMESBURY, (or Ambresbury), a parish in the hundred of Amesbury, in the county of Wilts, 7 miles to the N. of Salisbury, and 78 miles from London, or 104 miles by the South Western railway. The town is situated in a valley, on the river Avon, and includes the hamlet of West or Little Amesbury. It was formerly a market town, but the market has been discontinued. It is a place of considerable antiquity. Its name is derived, according to some authorities, from Ambrosius, a Roman and a descendant of Constantine, who became the sovereign of Britain; but according to others, from Ambrius, or Ambrosius, a British monk, the founder of a large monastery, which was destroyed by the Saxons; but both derivations are purely conjectural.
During the reign of Edgar, a synod met at Amesbury for the arrangement of disputes between the monks and the clergy. Towards the close of the 10th century, a mitred Benedictine nunnery was founded here, by Elfrida, the widow of Edgar, who hoped, perhaps, thereby to expiate the assassination of her son, at Corfe Castle. The nunnery was dedicated to St. Mary and St. Melorius, a saint of Cornwall. Henry II. expelled the inmates, in 1177, for incontinence, and in the same year placed in it a prioress and nuns from the abbey of Fontevrault, to which it was made a cell. Eleanor, Queen of Henry III., was afterwards abbess in this convent, and died here, in 1291. The establishment continued till the Dissolution, when its revenue amounted to £496. In 1540 it was conferred, with the manor of Amesbury, on Edward, Earl of Hertford. A mansion was erected on its site, by Inigo Jones, for the Duke of Queensberry. This mansion was occupied for some years by a company of nuns from Louvaine, refugees in this country, after the French revolution, in 1789. It is now called Amesbury House, and is the seat of Sir E. Antrobus, Bart."
[Description(s) from The National Gazetteer of Great Britain and Ireland (1868) - Transcribed by Colin Hinson ©2003]
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Common to all parishes is a description of Church Records and Indexes for Wiltshire, including a complete Marriage Index for the county.
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Indexes and registers of the parish church of Amesbury, The Virgin & St Melorius:
- WSRO registers: Chr 1579-1960, Mar 1599-1987, Bur 1599-1949
- VRI Chr 1579-1930, Mar 1599-1906
- White Horse Baptisms 1579-1840
- Wiltshire Index Service Burials 1752-1837
- A transcription of the section for Amesbury from the National Gazetteer (1868).
- The entry for Amesbury from A Vision of Britain through time.
- Ask for a calculation of the distance from Amesbury to another place.
- The entry for Amesbury from British History Online.
- The entry for Amesbury from Wiltshire Community History.
You can see maps centred on OS grid reference SU153413 (Lat/Lon: 51.170755, -1.782618), Amesbury which are provided by:
- OpenStreetMap
- Google Maps
- StreetMap (Current Ordnance Survey maps)
- Bing (was Multimap)
- Old Maps Online
- National Library of Scotland (Old Ordnance Survey maps)
- Vision of Britain (Click "Historical units & statistics" for administrative areas.)
- English Jurisdictions in 1851 (Unfortunately the LDS have removed the facility to enable us to specify a starting location, you will need to search yourself on their map.)
- Magic (Geographic information) (Click + on map if it doesn't show)
- GeoHack (Links to on-line maps and location specific services.)
- All places within the same township/parish shown on an Openstreetmap map.
- Nearby townships/parishes shown on an Openstreetmap map.
- Nearby places shown on an Openstreetmap map.
You can also see Family History Societies covering the nearby area, plotted on a map. This facility is being developed, and is awaiting societies to enter information about the places they cover.