Malmesbury is a market town and civil parish located in the southern Cotswolds in the county of Wiltshire, England. Historically Malmesbury was a centre for learning and home to Malmesbury Abbey. Once the site of an Iron Age fort, it is the oldest borough in England, created around 880 AD by charter from Alfred the Great. The hilltop contains several freshwater springs, which helped early settlements. Recent archaeological excavations have revealed stone town wall defences, which have shown history of a Neolithic fort and foundations of a wooden Iron Age fort between 800 and 500 BC,... making Malmesbury arguably the oldest continually inhabited town in England. According to William of Malmesbury, writing in the 12th century, Malmesbury was a pre-Roman "ancient city of the Britons" known as Caer Bladon. Wrestled from control of the ancient Britons by the Saxons in around 600 AD, Malmesbury is recorded by Guinness World Records as the oldest borough in England, although Barnstaple has a counter claim: both were given royal borough status by Alfred the Great around 880 AD. In 925 AD, King Athelstan of Wessex the grandson of Alfred made Malmesbury his capital.
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