Shaftesbury
Shaftesbury is a town and also civil parish in Dorset, England. It is situated on the A30 road, 20 miles (32 kilometres) west of Salisbury, close to the boundary with Wiltshire. It is the only significant hilltop settlement in Dorset, being built about 215 metres (705 ft) above water level on a greensand hillside on the edge of Cranborne Chase. The community looks into the Blackmore Vale, part of the River Stour container. From different perspectives, it is feasible to see at least as far as Glastonbury Tor to the northwest. Shaftesbury is the website of the previous Shaftesbury Abbey, which was founded in 888 by King Alfred and became one of the richest religious facilities in the country, prior to being ruined 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 television ad for Hovis bread. In the 2011 census the town's civil parish had a population of 7,314.
