Maumbury Rings is a Neolithic henge in the south of Dorchester town in Dorset, England (grid reference SY690899).

It is a large circular earthwork, 85 metres in diameter, with a single bank and an entrance to the north east.

It was modified during the Roman period when it was adapted for use as an amphitheatre, and the site was remodelled again during the English Civil War when it was used as an artillery fort guarding the southern approach to Dorchester.

[6] In addition, when archaeologists were digging on the site of the Tudor Arcade/Waitrose development in the 1980s (around 800 metres northeast of Maumbury Rings) they discovered large timber postholes.

[3] The interior was modified by the excavation of an oval, level arena floor, and the cutting of seating into the scarp and bank which was revetted with either chalk or timber.

[3] The site was used as an artillery fort by Parliament supporters in order to guard the southern approach to Dorchester.

[1] Its amphitheatre role was briefly revived in the late 17th and early 18th centuries, as a place of public execution.

In 1705 Mary Channing, a nineteen-year-old woman found guilty of poisoning her husband, was executed by strangulation and burning at the Rings.