Malmesbury

The abbey

A monastery here goes back to the Irish monk Mailduib and to Aldhelm, abbot from about 675. The church you see was built mostly between about 1160 and 1180. After the Dissolution it was cut down to six bays of the nave, which has been the parish church since 1541; its spire fell by the early 1500s, and its west tower around 1662. It is listed Grade I, and its south porch is carved with Romanesque sculpture.

The abbey opens Monday to Saturday from 9.30am to 4pm and on Sundays from 12.30pm to 3.30pm. Entry is free, with donations welcome, and it has a bookshop and café. It is on Historic England's Heritage at Risk Register. Our South Cotswolds weekend spends its Saturday night here, at the Old Bell beside the abbey, after the Athelstan Museum and a walk along the Avon. Inside, the Abbey Café opens Monday to Saturday from 9.30am to 3.30pm, with soup, toasties and cakes, and tables in the Cloister Gardens in warm weather.

Athelstan and Eilmer

King Athelstan is remembered with a tomb in the abbey. The tomb is fifteenth century and empty: he was buried at Malmesbury, but the exact spot is not known.

William of Malmesbury, writing about a century later, tells how a monk named Eilmer jumped from a tower on wings around the year 1000 and flew about a furlong before he crashed and broke both legs. Eilmer blamed the lack of a tail. He also said he had seen Halley's comet twice, in 989 and 1066, which is how the flight is dated. He is one of our Strange Things.

The Market Cross and the museum

The Market Cross, listed Grade I, is late fifteenth or early sixteenth century: an octagon with a vaulted roof round a central pillar. John Leland wrote in the 1540s that it was built for poor market folk to stand dry when the rain came.

The Athelstan Museum in the Town Hall on Cross Hayes is free, and opens Tuesday to Friday from 10.30am to 4.30pm, Saturdays to 4pm and Sundays from 11.30am to 3.30pm; it is closed on Mondays. Dogs on leads are welcome, and there is a wheelchair lift to the mezzanine. Its exhibition, Malmesbury and the American Connection, runs until at least 20 December 2026; the museum's site also gives 28 February 2027, so check before a winter visit.

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The oldest borough

You will read that Malmesbury is England's oldest borough. The claim goes back to 1381, when the townspeople cited a grant from King Athelstan to protect their privileges, but historians regard that charter as a later forgery, and there were no boroughs as such before the Norman Conquest. Treat it as a proud local tradition. The town did send members to Parliament from 1275, and by the eighteenth century it was a notorious rotten borough with 13 voters. Below the town, the river walk is on our lists of short walks and dog-friendly walks. For a night in the town or the country-house hotels round it, see where to stay in Malmesbury.

Food and drink

For breakfast, Michael's, a family butcher's with a licensed bistro and deli counter about five minutes' walk beyond the abbey, cooks with sausages and ham from its own counter, from 8am to 2pm, Tuesday to Saturday. For dinner in the country, the Vine Tree at Norton, about 3 miles south-west, is a free house with seasonal British cooking, fish and game and a garden terrace; Monday is not among its published hours, so ring before a Monday visit. We have not yet eaten at either.

Every place to eat in the town, with what each suits, is on our page of places to eat in Malmesbury.