Amesbury Abbey

<div style="float:right;clear:right"> </div> 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. 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.