Shaftesbury is a town and also civil parish in Dorset, England. It is positioned on the A30 road, 20 miles (32 kilometres) west of Salisbury, near to the boundary with Wiltshire. It is the only significant hilltop negotiation in Dorset, being developed concerning 215 metres (705 ft) above sea level on a greensand hillside on the edge of Cranborne Chase. The town examines the Blackmore Vale, part of the River Stour basin. From various point of views, it is feasible to see a minimum of as for Glastonbury Tor to the northwest. Shaftesbury is the website of the previous Shaftesbury Abbey, which was founded in 888 by King Alfred and turned into one of the richest religious establishments in the nation, prior to being damaged in the Dissolution in 1539. Adjacent to the abbey site is Gold Hill, a steep cobbled road made use of in the 1970s as the setup for Ridley Scott's tv advertisement for Hovis bread. In the 2011 census the town's civil parish had a population of 7,314.