Forest

Amesbury dates back to at least 973; it is the nearest town to Stonehenge, and has a population of about 6,000. In 980, Amesbury Abbey was founded for Benedictine nuns. It became a priory of the Order of Fontevrault for men and women in 1177. Royal and noble ladies favoured the priory in the 13th and 14th centuries, when about 100 nuns and a few chaplains and clerks inhabited the priory. Strange to tell, the domestic parts of the priory were such a distance from the main building that it is questionable whether the church is for the parish or was the priory church.
An extract from from"Wiltshire Churches Photographic Memories".

St Mary and St Melore’s is basically Norman, large and built mainly of flint; its large squat Early English tower rests on triple chamfered arches and has three wide-spaced single bell openings. The east window is the work of Butterfield, who restored the church in 1853, ten years before he began work on Aldbourne. He put in the vivid coloured tiles on the east wall, and he is responsible for the Perpendicular south aisle and west end. The outline of a chapel remains in the east side walls. The jambs of an early 13th-century doorway west of the north-west corner of the truncated nave have been reset, but the door’s purpose remains a mystery. The south aisle is early Perpendicular, and has a two-bay arcade with a pier of four shafts and four hollows, decorated capitals and arches of two hollow chamfers. The font is 12th-century and of Purbeck marble with shallow blank arches; a wooden pulpit, by Butterfield, stands on a chunky stone base. The stained glass is worth studying, as are the 15th- and 16th-century carved roofs. The clock on the tower came from Amesbury Abbey nearby - it was given to the church in 1971. Its mechanism is 15th- century, but it was altered to take a pendulum.
An extract from from"Wiltshire Churches Photographic Memories".

The cylindrical Norman font is stunning: it has intersected arches, big scrolls and two big serpents with twisted tails, their heads looking at a saintly bishop, who is wearing a typical Norman pleated cassock and holding a crozier. The lower parts of the excellent Perpendicular rood screen and lofts were largely restored in the 1900s. Parts of the stalls are 17th-century, but few survived the Reformation. The Manor nearby was built on the site of a small Benedictine foundation of the early 12th century, dissolved in 1414. Fragments of it were used in the construction of the house, which was built in 1557 and enlarged in 1600. Another manor house, Trusloe, is connected to the churchyard by a footbridge across a stone bridge.
An extract from from"Wiltshire Churches Photographic Memories".

The eastern chapel was the Horton family’s worshipping place. The stained glass in the south window has several Netherlands roundels of the 16th century and later. Brasses commemorate the great clothier Thomas Horton and his wife. There are also memorials to Anne Long, 1601, in brass, and to Charles Steward, 1701: a standing figure (by Nost) is in front of a blank arch, with mourning putti left and right. Father and son John Thresher, 1741, have an architectural tablet with two putti outside holding draperies. Anthony Methuen, 1737, is a standing monument by Rysbrack, with a grey sarcophagus framed with Ionic columns carrying a pediment.
An extract from from"Wiltshire Churches Photographic Memories".

Perhaps the chapel was built to house the relics of St Edward the Martyr, which were moved there from Shaftesbury. St Aldhelm built an ecclesiola at Bradford, and a monastery is recorded in a deed of 705 when he was Abbot. Irvine believed the building to be late, rather than early, Saxon, as is suggested by the decoration. The controversy continues on the date of the construction. The outside walls have three horizontal tiers and gables in the nave and chancel.
An extract from from"Wiltshire Churches Photographic Memories".