Avenbury was mentioned on the Domesday Book.[2] The village that was centred on the church of St Mary has now disappeared leaving the parish consisting of a series of farms and hamlets.[3]
In the post-medieval period the village had a barn and several lime kilns as well as houses.[4]
Parish church
The church was founded ca. 840 AD but rebuilt in Norman times; the tower was built in the 13th century.[5] The church was closed in 1931.[6] Many of the Baskerville family are buried in the churchyard. Three of the bells were rehung in St Andrew by the Wardrobe, London, in 1933.[7]
In May 2007 the church, which had been acquired by a pagan[8] and artist named Leszek Skuriat in the 1970s was put up for sale and a trust created to buy it for preservation.[5][9] In June 2009 St Mary's church was bought by a local archaeologist.[10] In conjunction with English Heritage, restoration work on the church has commenced: St Mary's is a Grade II* listed building, a scheduled monument and is on the Heritage at Risk Register.[11]
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
