Shaftesbury is a town in North Dorset, England, situated on the A30 road near the Wiltshire border 20 miles west of Salisbury. In 2001, the town had a population of 6,665 with 3,112 dwellings, only a small increase from 1991. Major employers include Pork Farms, Stalbridge Linen (a commercial laundry), HMP Guy's Marsh, Wessex Electrical and the Royal Mail. Many of the older buildings in the town are of the local greensand, while others built from the grey Chilmark limestone, much of which was salvaged from the demolished Shaftesbury Abbey, and have thatched roofs. Tourism is one of the main industries in the town. The town is famous for Gold Hill, a steep cobbled street featured on the cover of countless books about Dorset and rural England. The town features in Thomas Hardy's Wessex as Shaston, of particular significance in Jude the Obscure.
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