Shaftesbury is a community and also civil parish in Dorset, England. It is situated on the A30 road, 20 miles (32 kilometres) west of Salisbury, close to the boundary with Wiltshire. It is the only significant hill negotiation in Dorset, being built about 215 metres (705 ft) above water level on a greensand hill on the edge of Cranborne Chase. The town looks into the Blackmore Vale, part of the River Stour basin. From various perspectives, it is possible to see at least as for Glastonbury Tor to the northwest. Shaftesbury is the website of the previous Shaftesbury Abbey, which was founded in 888 by King Alfred and turned into one of the wealthiest spiritual facilities in the nation, before being destroyed in the Dissolution in 1539. Beside the abbey site is Gold Hill, a steep cobbled street made use of in the 1970s as the setup for Ridley Scott's tv advertisement for Hovis bread. In the 2011 census the town's civil parish had a population of 7,314.