MALMESBURY, a market town and municipal borough of Wiltshire, England, 944 m. W. of London by the Great Western railway. Pop. (1931) 2,334. Maildulphus, a Scottish or Irish monk, built a hermitage near the site of the modern Malmes bury (Maildulphi-urbs, Maldelmesburh, Malmesbiri) about 635, and formed the nucleus of the later abbey of which Aldhelm his pupil became the first abbot. Aethelstan, who was buried here, rebuilt and endowed the monastery. Round the abbey the town of Malmesbury grew up, and by the time of the Domesday Sur vey it had become one of the only two Wiltshire boroughs. The first charter purports to have been given by Aethelstan. It granted to the burgesses all privileges and free customs such as they held in the time of Edward the Elder, with additional exemp tions, in return for help against the Danes. The castle of Henry I. gave a further impetus to the growth of the town. In 1645 it was made a free borough under the title of "aldermen and burgesses of the borough of Malmesbury, County Wilts." By this charter it was governed until 1885. The borough returned two members to parliament from 1295 to 1832 when the number was reduced to one, and finally in 1885 its representation was merged in that of the county. In the middle ages the town of
Malmesbury possessed a considerable cloth manufacture, and at the Dissolution the abbey was bought by a rich clothier and fitted with looms for weaving. The trade in wool still flourished in 1751.
It lies on a ridge surrounded on all sides except the north west by the river Avon and a small tributary. The church of St. Mary and St. Aldhelm consists of the greater part of the nave (with aisles) of a Benedictine abbey church. The ruins of the great tower arches now terminate the building eastward. The nave is transitional Norman, with a Decorated superstructure in cluding the clerestory. The south porch is Norman. With the exception of a crypt, the monastic buildings have disappeared. In the market square stands a fine market cross of the 16th cen tury, borne upon an octagonal battlemented basement. Early English fragments of a hospital of St. John of Jerusalem appear in the corporation almshouse. Malmesbury has an agricultural trade, and small manufactures of silk and pillow lace.