page_title: Amesbury Abbey
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Amesbury Abbey / History
caption_attribution_description: Amesbury Abbey
context_page_description: Amesbury Abbey was a Benedictine abbey of women at Amesbury in Wiltshire, England, founded by Queen Ælfthryth in about the year 979 on what may have been the site of an earlier monastery. That foundation was dissolved in 1177 by Henry II, who founded in its place a house of the Order of Fontevraud, known as Amesbury Priory.
  The name Amesbury Abbey is now used by a nearby Grade I listed country house, built in the 1830s, which is currently in use as a nursing home.
context_section_description: Amesbury was already a sacred place in pagan times, and there are legends that a monastery existed there before the Danish invasions. There may have been an existing cult of St Melor which led Ælfthryth to choose Amesbury. Melor, the son of a leader of Cornouaille and a boy-martyr, was buried at Lanmeur and venerated in Brittany, but a later tradition claims that some of his relics were brought to Amesbury and sold to the abbess. Edward was another boy-martyr. However, the 12th-century life of St Melor says the nunnery at Amesbury was founded before Melor's relics arrived.  The cult of St Melor is commemorated in the dedication of the current Amesbury parish church.
caption: Church of St Mary and St Melor, Amesbury
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