King Henry I gifted lands that included the site of the present Avebury Manor to William de Tancarville, Chamberlain of Normandy and England and a close adviser to the king.

In 1114, William de Tancarville, bequeathed this land to the Benedictine Abbey of St. Georges de Boscherville near Rouen which created an English cell at Avebury and a Priory was established shortly thereafter. This was known as an ‘alien priory’ as it was controlled by the French abbot from the Abbey near Rouen.

The monks were granted freedom from the shire by Henry I and this continued under Henry II and Richard I; they were also granted permission to create a chapel in the Manor House at Avebury.

The Benedictines never controlled the advowson (ie. the right to put forward a person as parish priest) of the Parish Church of St James which belonged to Cirencester Abbey and this created ongoing tension between the two Abbeys.

Avebury was sold in 1411 to Fotheringhay College which was part of the Church of St Mary and All Saints in Fotheringhay Northmptonshire. The college held the lands until the Dissolution of the Monasteries in the mid-16th century under Henry VIII.

It’s thought that the current Avebury Manor is built either on or very close to the original priory structure.

Fragments of the religious foundation were incorporated into the later house. In the room above the kitchen there is a fireplace that may date from the original priory.

Following the dissolution of the monasteries there were numerous opportunities for Tudor courtiers to acquire the defunct religious properties and lands, of which Avebury was no exception. The crown granted the Avebury estate to Sir William Sharington (c.1495-1553), who in 1540 had paid £783 for Lacock Abbey, situated just 15 miles west of Avebury, and converted it into his private residence.

Sharington was an entrepreneur with interests in ships, wool, land and even moneylending. However, he became involved in defrauding the newly formed Bristol Mint of which he was under-treasurer and even worse embroiled in a plot with Thomas Seymour against the young Edward VI. In 1549 Seymour was to lose his head and Sharington, through various political connections and with the luck of the devil, was eventually pardoned.

William Sharington sold the Avebury Estate to William Dunch (1508-1597) in 1551 for the sum of £2000. Dunch was a wily courtier who managed to avoid becoming embroiled in the intrigues and religious power struggles of the Tudor Court apart from in 1549 when he was imprisoned for a short spell, the reason for which is unclear.

He rose to prominence in the Royal Household and served under four monarchs of both Catholic and Protestant faiths, Henry VIII, Edward VI, Mary Tudor and Queen Elizabeth – a quite remarkable feat.

The Dunch family seat was in Little Wittenham, Oxfordshire which like Avebury has an iconic prehistoric landmark known as Wittenham Clumps in the vicinity.

It’s not clear when William Dunch purchased the Avebury lands whether there was a building still in situ, but it does seem that he constructed the initial wing of Avebury Manor that we see today during the mid-late 16th century. This oldest part of the property is now the Kitchen and the Parlour.

In 1937 Alexander Keiller (1889-1955), heir to a marmalade empire, purchased Avebury Manor so that he could be closer to the enormous archaeological excavations at Avebury that he had initiated after purchasing 950 acres of land in the area.

It’s thanks, in great part, to Keiller that Avebury monument has been reconstructed to what we see today and in 1943 he sold the land to the National Trust for just £12,000 – this being the agricultural value of the 950 acres.

He offered to sell Avebury Manor to the Trust at the same time but the offer was declined. However, the National Trust finally acquired the property in 1991 and leased the property for almost twenty years to tenants.

The National Trust finally acquired the property in 1991 and leased the property for almost twenty years to tenants.

In 2011 the National Trust decided to revamp Avebury Manor and in conjunction with the BBC produced a television series called The Manor Reborn.

The premise of the programme was to refurbish the rooms in the style of previous owners spanning five hundred years from when the house was first built and recounting the history of Britain at that particular moment in time.

Perhaps the most attractive decor is that of the late 18th-century dining room that has become known as the Governor of Jamaica’s Dining Room and is designed to reflect the life of one of the occupants – Sir Adam Williamson, a professional soldier who became Lieutenant-Governor and Garrison Commander of Jamaica.

The whole house has been designed to be an immersive experience which is a far cry from most other National Trust properties.