[Illustration:  GATE-HOUSE, AMESBURY ABBEY.]

Another route which keeps on the east bank of the Avon through a sometimes rough by-way, starts from the Salisbury side of the Avon bridge, close to Old Sarum, and passes through the hamlets of Little Durnford, Salterton and Netton to Durnford, where there is a fine church, partly Norman, with an imposing chancel arch and north and south doors of this period.  The remainder of the building is mainly Early English.  Some old stained glass in the Perpendicular windows of the nave should be noticed and also the chained copy of Bishop Jewel’s Apologie or Answer in Defense of the Churche of Englande, dated 1571, in the chancel.  The pulpit dates from the early seventeenth century and is a well-designed piece of woodwork with carving of that period.  A brass to Edward Young and his family, two recessed tombs in the south wall, a few scraps of wall painting, and the fine Norman font with interlaced arches and sculptured pillars, are some of the other interesting items in this old church.  Ogbury Camp rises above the village to the east; a lane to the north of it leads in rather more than three miles to Amesbury.

In the mist of legend and tradition that surrounds the towns and hamlets of the Plain the origin of Amesbury is lost.  The name is supposed to be derived from Ambres-burh—­the town of Aurelius Ambrosius—­a native British king with a latinized name who reigned about the year 550.  In the Morte d’Arthur “Almesbury” is the monastery to which Guinevere came for sanctuary, and romantic tradition asserts that Sir Lancelot took the body of the dead Queen thence to Glastonbury.  We are on firmer ground when we come to the time of the tenth-century house of Benedictine nuns dispersed by Henry II for “that they did by their scandalous and irreligious behaviour bring ill fame to Holy Church.”  It had been founded by a royal criminal, that stony-hearted Elfrida of Corfe, who murdered her stepson while he was a guest at her door.  But very soon there was a new house for women and men—­a branch of a noted monastery at Fontevrault in Anjou—­of great splendour and prestige in which the women took the lead.  To this Priory came many royal and noble ladies, including Eleanor of Brittany, granddaughter of Henry II and Eleanor of England, widow of Henry III.  The Priory met the same fate as most others at the Dissolution and its actual site is uncertain.  Protector Somerset obtained possession of the property and afterwards a house was built by Inigo Jones, most of which has disappeared in subsequent additions and alterations.  While the Queensberry family were in possession the poet Gay was a guest here and wrote, in a sham cave or grotto still existing on the river bank, the Beggar’s Opera, that satire on certain aspects of eighteenth-century life which, strangely enough, became lately popular after a long period of comparative oblivion.