The Parish Church of St Mary and St Melor is the only Grade 1 Listed building in Amesbury, and it has been a Parish Church for centuries. What you are looking at today is hundreds of years of architectural additions, expansions, and changes that tell the story of the people that lived in this community. A Grade I listed building is judged to be of exceptional architectural or historic interest. It is the highest level of listing protection with only approximately 2.5% of listed buildings falling into this category.

 

The building was only ever a church being founded in 979 for an Abbey of Benedictine nuns by Queen Elfrida. She ruled England after the death of her husband, King Edgar before her son Ethelred was of age to rule. There were two churches associated with the original Abbey, with this being the smaller Parish church where the locals could worship. Benedictine monks supported the Abbey of nuns as well as held services several times a day in this church. 

 

In 1177, it is reported that King Henry II “expelled the thirty nuns from Amesbury for their alleged ill lives and re-founded the house as a Priory, a cell of the French Abbey of Fontevraud with a prioress and twenty-four nuns.” This seems to be quite a wealthy priory due to the tithes (money given regularly to the church), extensive land ownership and the royal connections.
 

It is recorded that an illuminated manuscript (a handwritten medieval prayer book filled with colourful artwork, gold decoration and religious images) called the Amesbury Psalter was from this Priory around 1250. It is currently housed in the All Souls College, in Oxford. Queen Eleanor of Provence, entered the priory here in 1286, 14 years after the death of her husband, King Henry III in 1272.

 

There were extensive buildings associated with the Priory all of which were demolished (except for this Parish church) in the English Reformation in 1534. Monasteries were wealthy and so all the items associated with the Priory (the building and anything inside it) were seized by the Crown. In the case of the Priory everything was documented as it was dismantled and this was overseen by Edward Seymour (Earl of Hertford, brother to Jane Seymour - one of Henry VIII wives). If you walk around the back of the church, there is still evidence of where the priory cloisters (covered outdoor walkways) would have been. Check out the markings on the walls where the roof of the cloister was attached to the outer church wall. There is also the remnant of a doorway that possibly lead to the cloisters which was uncovered in an excavation in 1978. 

 

Four bells of the Priory Church were carefully removed in the Reformation and the lantern tower was converted into a bell tower on this Parish Church to accommodate them. There is extra reinforcement of the interior support for the bell tower inside the church as the original church building could not support the extra weight. Now there are eight bells in the tower and they were most recently re-tuned and re-hung in 1999 in time for the Millennium celebrations.

 

Fast forward (from the English Reformation of 1534) to 1852, and the Parish Church is needing a bit of repair. An architect named William Butterfield was tasked to restore it. Butterfield made many changes to the structure, roofs, windows, and access to the bell tower. He reinforced the walls by adding additional buttresses around the outside of the church which blended in with the original building. Heating was added and a shed was made to house the coal. You can see the shed just to the left of the large entrance door by the wall. As the church is a Grade I listed building, it is very difficult to get permission today to make changes like those which were done during the mid 1800s by Butterfield. 

 

In the 1980s more renovations took place to update the building. The main entrance door was once again the big door on the left where people now enter. The smaller door in the middle of the church (which had been the main entrance during Butterfield’s renovations) is now used by the vicar and the choir. in 1983, a 200 year old organ (from 1777 with 1,248 pipes) was moved from St Edmund’s church in Salisbury and installed in the Amesbury Parish Church to replace the one in the church that was badly in need of repair. If the church is open you are welcome to go in and see it. 

As you enter the church gravel driveway, there is a path leading to the church to your left. You will see a commemorative plaque in the ground on the right. It is in front of a tree where Prince Charles (now King Charles III) planted a sapling in 1979, when the Parish Church celebrated it’s thousand years of continuous use. You can see the sapling has grown into a lovely tree almost 50 years later.

 

The Parish Church has seen many services, Christenings, weddings, celebrations, musical performances, memorials, and funerals, during it’s thousand years in operation. Today there are weekly Church of England services held with the organ accompanying the choir, and yes, there are bell ringers who ring the eight bells in the bell tower. 

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Ruth Davies - Amesbury History Walk 2026