History of Avebury Manor

Published:: 04 December 2025

A wide landscape shot of the south front of Avebury Manor, with a lush green lawn in front of the house and a blue sky in the background. — The south front of Avebury Manor in Wiltshire | © National Trust Images/James Dobson

Avebury Manor, Wiltshire, sits quietly on the edge of the largest prehistoric stone circle in the world. Built in the 16th century on the site of a 12th-century Benedictine Priory, the house is a remarkable survivor, enduring over five hundred years of changing owners and residents.

Early history

In 1114, land at Avebury was given by the Crown to a Benedictine Abbey near Rouen in France and a Royal Charter was granted by Henry I, which gave the monks at Avebury certain freedoms over their lands, including exemptions from taxes and laws of the local area.

A group of French monks travelled to Avebury and established an ‘alien cell’ (a religious house associated with a main Abbey), and they built a priory that had only two monks at a time living there.

The Bishop of Salisbury allowed the monks to have a chapel in the priory where they could hold private religious services. Alongside the two monks, the priory had 600 sheep, two horses, and a store of grain.

In 1378, amidst continuing conflict with France, all monks linked to foreign abbeys were expelled from England. The last prior at Avebury called Stephen Fosse, a monk Brother John Santell, and their servants William Brisey and Tomas Durant, were forced to leave and return to the Abbey in France.

The priory was occupied by a series of royal servants until 1411 when it was owned by the newly established Fotheringhay College, Northamptonshire, and probably rebuilt incorporating parts of the earlier structure.

16th to 18th century owners

The manor was purchased by William Sharington (1495–1553) in 1547, a courtier to King Henry VIII and under-treasurer of the Bristol Mint, who had also purchased Lacock Abbey.

Sharington commissioned a survey of the manor house in 1548 which suggests that the earlier 15th Century building survives as the core of the manor house that can be seen today, although many alterations have taken place since then.

A portrait of Sir William Sharington in the South Gallery at Lacock Abbey — Sir William Sharington purchased Avebury Manor in 1547 | © National Trust Images/John Hammond

In 1551, William Dunch (1508–97), auditor of the Royal Mint, purchased Avebury Manor and erected the stone dovecote that still stands in the Old Farmyard today.

His granddaughter Deborah, Lady Moody (1586–1659) grew up at Avebury after her father Walter Dunch (1552–94) inherited the manor. She emigrated to North America and became one of the first women to found a settlement. Named ‘Gravesend’, this settlement later became part of Brooklyn, New York.

After Walter’s death in 1594, his widow, also called Deborah like her daughter, married the High Sheriff of Wiltshire and together they rebuilt large sections of the manor house.

The Dunch family sold the manor in 1660 to John Stawell (1600–62), a leading Royalist and Member of Parliament for Somerset. He was accused of treason in 1646, for refusing to swear not to bear arms against Parliament, and the estate was seized and sold to George Long in 1652. After his release from the Tower of London in 1653, John took back his property.

In 1694, Avebury Manor was sold by John for £7,500 to Sir Richard Holford (1633–1718), Master in Chancery. Holford married three times and had three sons, one from each marriage. In 1712, Queen Anne is thought to have visited Avebury and dined with Richard.

He died in 1718, and the manor was inherited by his third wife Susanna (d. 1722), who left an endowment to fund a school in the village. The manor was then inherited by a series of Holford half-brothers, eventually being bequeathed in 1789 to a niece, Ann Williamson.

The Williamsons

When Ann Williamson (d. 1794) inherited Avebury, she had been married to Major Adam Williamson (1733–98) for 18 years. He had a successful military career and in 1790 was appointed lieutenant-governor and garrison commander of Jamaica. In October 1791 Ann followed him to Jamaica, and soon after Adam was appointed to the role of Governor.

Adam took over as Governor at a time of uncertainty and British fear of enslaved people in Jamaica resisting and rising up against their masters. Under his rule, any resistance by enslaved people was suppressed with brutal punishments.

In Britain, support for the abolition of trade in enslaved people was increasing and Adam suggested that if it was to be abolished, it would encourage the feared uprisings. Because of this, Adam was popular amongst plantation owners who owned enslaved people, and he was seen as pro-slavery. He owned at least one enslaved person named Moenat who he bought for 180 Jamaican pounds.

In 1794, Ann died in Jamaica and was buried in St Catherine’s Cathedral in Spanish Town. Soon after, her husband was made a Knight of the Bath and appointed Governor of St Domingue, now Haiti.

At this time, the Haitian Revolution had been ongoing for about three years. Ending in 1804, this was the only successful revolt by enslaved Black people in modern history and led to the creation of an independent nation.

Adam was recalled to Britain in October 1795 and arrived back to Avebury in early 1796, bringing with him an enslaved person called Sam. Adam died in 1798 and one of the bequests in his will was ‘And I give to Sam my Mulatto Boy his freedom and five pounds And also one Annuity or clear Yearly Sum of five pounds for and during his natural life’. Nothing is known about Sam after this point.

The manor was owned by distant relatives of the Williamsons until 1873 and then sold to brewer and politician Sir Henry Meux (1817–83), who leased the manor to various tenants.

The Jenners

Lieutenant-Colonel Leopold Jenner (1869–1953) and his wife Nora Jenner (1868–1952) became tenants of Avebury in 1902 and purchased it five years later. They created a new garden in an innovative hybrid style, mixing Edwardian tastes with Arts & Crafts trends, and later building a new west wing with a library.

Designing and adapting their home was one of Leopold’s and Nora’s great passions. They shared this with Leopold’s brother and Nora’s sister, Walter and Flora who were married to each other and lived at Lytes Cary, a property in Somerset that is now in the care of the National Trust.

Sisters Nora and Flora often visited one another and sent many letters detailing their home improvements. In one visit to Avebury in 1917, Flora writes of the new Topiary Garden: ‘The garden looks very nice and the new bit will be charming when finished and grown up a bit. The pond is done and pass down to stone paths, and box hedge, all else has to be done. I love all the masses of shrubs, heaps and heaps, lilacs, syringe and laburnums and the trees as a background.’

For twenty years Leopold and Nora lived happily at Avebury until they experienced financial troubles and were forced to lease Avebury first to the Benson family, and then in 1935 to Alexander Keiller.

Despite then selling the estate a few years later, both Leopold and Nora chose to be buried at Avebury, in a parcel of land which was part of the garden before they gifted it to Saint James Church.

A close up of a large engraved stone memorial plaque dedicated to Leopold and Nora Jenner — A memorial for Leopold and Nora Jenner in the grounds of Saint James Church | © National Trust Images/James Dobson

Alexander Keiller

Alexander Keiller (1889–1955) was a Scottish archaeologist and heir of his family’s successful marmalade business, James Keiller & Sons, who in 1925 bought and excavated the nearby Windmill Hill, a neolithic causewayed enclosure.

In the 1930s he turned his attention to investigating The Avenue, a double row of stones leading away from Avebury towards the south-east and then excavated the henge itself.

He purchased the Avebury estate in 1937 and caused some controversy by demolishing several houses that had been built within the stone circle. Families had to move to the newly built Avebury Trusloe so that views could be opened and stones that had been used to build their cottages could be re-erected in their presumed original positions.

In 1938 he opened the Alexander Keiller Museum in the old stable building at Avebury, so that he could display the artefacts from his excavations.

Alexander married four times. His first marriage to Florence Phil-Morris (1883–1955) lasted throughout his service in the Royal Naval Air Service during WWI, and they divorced afterwards.

From 1924 to 1934, Alexander was married to Veronica Liddell (1900–64) who shared his passion for archaeology and worked on the Avebury excavations alongside her sister Dorothy Liddell (1890-1938).

In 1938, he married for a third time, to Doris Chapman (1903–90) an artist who produced illustrations of the West Kennet Avenue stones. Alexander’s fourth wife Gabrielle Style (1908–95) outlived him and donated the museum collection to the nation.

The National Trust

In 1943, Alexander sold the Avebury estate to the National Trust for £12,000 which was the value of the agricultural land, but the manor house was listed separately and deemed too expensive to buy. In 1986, the Stonehenge and Avebury landscape was added to the UNESCO World Heritage Site List.

The manor house was owned by various individuals until 1991 when the National Trust was able to purchase it. In 2011, the BBC and National Trust launched a project called ‘The Manor Reborn’, a televised restoration of the interiors to reflect different periods of history.

In January 2024 the manor was flooded and is undergoing a project to restore it once again.