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The first settlement on the hilltop site of Shaftesbury was probably established, like many high points in the area, about 8000 years ago in the middle of the Stone Age. Shaftesbury only really came to prominence from around 880 AD when the Saxon King Alfred the Great established a large abbey for nuns here. It became one of the richest abbeys in the country with lands and property from Bradford-on-Avon in the north to Purbeck in the south. King Canute died in Shaftesbury Abbey and Edward the Martyr is said to have been buried there. The Abbey prospered for nearly 700 years until the Reformation of Henry VIII when it was pulled down and the materials, notably the unusual green sandstone, used to build local houses. Despite the loss of the Abbey, the town remained an important place in the network of market towns in the area particularly as it stands between the Blackmore Vale in the West and the drier chalklands to the east. During the stagecoach era the town was an important crossroads and resting place with some 30 inns including three major coaching inns. In 1820 the town was bought by the Grosvenor, later Westminster, family and their noble if controversial patronage helped the town to survive the loss of the coaching trade with the coming of the railways in the mid 1800s. In 1919 the town was sold to local shopkeepers and householders and it again became relatively prosperous with the arrival of the motor car era, when the main A30 road passed through the centre of the town en route to further parts of the west country. Shaftesbury is now an attractive and important tourist centre surrounded by the most beautiful countryside in England
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