Amesbury

Town in Wiltshire, England; population (2001) 8,300. It is situated 13 km/8 mi north of Salisbury, by the River Avon, on Salisbury Plain; Stonehenge, Woodhenge, and a Roman rampart are all nearby.

Amesbury Abbey, the former residence of the dukes of Queensberry, was built by Inigo Jones; John Gay wrote The Beggar's Opera while staying as a guest here in 1727. The nunnery of Elfreda, wife of King Edgar, was erected in Amesbury in 980. St Mary's Church, an example of Early English architecture, was later built on this site.

Amesbury

Town in Essex County, extreme northeast Massachusetts, USA; population (1998 est) 16,100. It is situated on the northern shore of the Merrimack River at the New Hampshire border, 69 km/43 mi north of Boston. Settled in 1642 as part of Salisbury, it was incorporated as a town in 1668, and as a city in 1996. Amesbury was a shipbuilding port and early textile and hat manufacturing centre. From the 1830s to the 1900s the backbone of the town's industry was the manufacture of carriages. More than 100 companies were involved, and a carriage museum is a reminder of this industry. An important industrial centre, the first factory in North America to produce nails made by machine was here, and modern industries include high tech, defence, furniture, metal, and plastic production.

Amesbury has the oldest chain bridge in the USA, and it bridges the Merrimac river. Sites on the national register of historic places include the home (1836-76; now a museum) of John Greenleaf Whittier, the 19th-century poet and opponent of slavery, many of whose poems describe the community and surrounding countryside. Other historic places are a Quaker Meeting House, a dam, a hat factory, a boat shop, a post office, and a stadium. The Powow River conservation area protects an artificial lake formerly used to supply water power to Amesbury.