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Amesbury History Centre recently marked six months of operations, having reopened in August 2023 following a four-year rebuild that transformed the original site into a purpose-built, two-storey structure funded by the Town Council and run by volunteers.
Its eponymous home lies around two miles from Stonehenge, and over the last two decades the town has come to play a key role in developing our understanding of prehistoric Wiltshire, thanks to the long-running community excavations at Blick Mead, which uncovered evidence of a Mesolithic ‘home base’ where huge numbers of knapped flints and animal bones point to people coming together for feasts and tool-making sessions over thousands of years (see CA 271, 324, 325, and 390).
The Centre’s displays (below) highlight the town’s rich prehistoric past, as well as more recent history, including the foundation of Amesbury Abbey in the late 10th century, and the life of Eleanor of Provence, wife of Henry III, who is thought to have been buried there after her death in 1291 (the precise location of her grave is unknown). The Centre also periodically stages lectures and children’s craft activities, and its team is devising a programme of temporary exhibitions, having recently hosted Her Amesbury Story, which highlighted 21 influential women associated with the town, spanning prehistory to the present day. There is a café and gift shop, too.
The heritage attraction celebrated its half-year anniversary with a talk from David Jacques, who led the Blick Mead excavations, and by accepting the donation of an experimental reconstruction of a hide, hazel, and willow boat created using traditional curragh-/coracle-building techniques and replica Neolithic tools. Its builders, Julian Piercey (who undertook the work for his MA in Archaeology at the University of Buckingham; he and his wife Kim donated the vessel) and Peter Faulkner, have successfully sailed it on the Avon, travelling from Blick Mead to Durrington Walls (below). An application has been made to the Arts Council for funding to support the creation of a life-sized sculpture of an aurochs – a large, now-extinct species of prehistoric cattle that archaeological evidence attests was eaten at Blick Mead, and which left hoofprints beside the spring – to stand outside the building.
Further information: Amesbury History Centre is open 9.30am-3.30pm daily. Entry is free. See www.amesburyhistorycentre.org.uk for more information.
