Tisbury is a large village and civil parish approximately 13 miles (21 km) west of Salisbury in the English county of Wiltshire.

Evidence of early human activity comes from the Middle Gravel at Swanscombe, Kent, a 400,000-year-old stratum,[2] in which skull fragments of a young woman were found.

The coral-bearing chert found at Swanscombe has been interpreted as being intentionally carved to represent the profile of a hominid head, making Tisbury the source of materiel used in what is possibly one of the world's oldest pieces of art.

[11] The abbey's administration centre was the monastic grange, where the 14th-century building, now a house at Place Farm is Grade I listed,[12] as are the outer and inner gatehouses, built in limestone in the 15th century.

[13][14] The thatched tithe barn is also Grade I listed;[15] it is now used as a multi-purpose gallery and arts centre, managed by Messums Wiltshire.

[16] The village's 13th-century prosperity came from the quarries that produced stone for the building of Salisbury Cathedral, and from the wool that supported a local cloth industry.

[18][19] Some idea of the population of the area in the 14th century is given by the number assessed as being liable to the poll tax of 1377: every lay person over the age of 14 years who was not a beggar had to pay a groat (4d) to the Crown.

[24] The estate is currently the seat of Alastair Morrison, 3rd Baron Margadale, who owns land and property in Tisbury including the former abbey site at Place Farm.

The original plan for a railway west of Salisbury was to bypass Tisbury and Shaftesbury but the Quaker activist John Rutter campaigned for the line to be routed through both settlements.

[32] The first record of the church is in the early 12th century[24] and there are fragments of masonry from that time in the north and west walls of the nave.

Thomas Osmond was a resident of The Clockhouse on The Avenue and is buried at St John's, his gravestone showing a clockface.

[46] The Roman Catholic Church of The Sacred Heart was built on the lower High Street in 1898 with support from the Arundells of Wardour.

[24] Thomas Mayhew (1593–1682), who in 1642 established the first English settlement at Martha's Vineyard in North America, was born in Tisbury.

William Jay (1769–1853, preacher); Christopher Hinton (1901–1983, nuclear engineer); and Gillian Lewis (stage and television actress).

Sir Matthew Arundell of Wardour Castle, a great landowner and a cousin of Queen Elizabeth, was entombed in the parish church in 1598.

The Tisbury stonemasons Joseph and Josiah Lane, father and son, were responsible for the construction of many grottos during the 18th century in England.

According to one source, "After a long and distinguished artistic career in India, the Kiplings moved to a residence along Hindon Lane which they renamed 'The Gables'.

Their famous son visited them here and, whilst working on his novel Kim, his father (his illustrator) used the drawings of one of the pupils from Tisbury Boys' School as the model for the main character.

[62] Other Tisbury residents included Northern Irish colonial administrator and politician Henry Clark (1929–2012),[63] army officer and campaigner for refugees Major Derek Cooper (1912–2007) and businessman John Meade, 7th Earl of Clanwilliam (1919–2009).

[citation needed] Charles "Snaffles" Payne (1884–1967), humorous painter, lived and worked at Tisbury from the late 1940s.

[68] In August 2016 Wiltshire Council opened the Nadder Centre, which provides leisure activities and is home to the local library.

[72] The village has an amateur dramatic society, the Tisbury Arts Group, which also hosts regular musical events.

[79] Tisbury railway station is on the West of England Main Line, placing its residents within commuting distance of London.

[81] The village is also served by TISBUS, a community transport organisation which provides weekly shopping trips to Salisbury, Gillingham, Warminster and Shaftesbury.

[85] In March 2023, crowd-funding organised by Tisbury residents raised over £15,000 for potential legal costs to challenge the development.

[88] Fonthill Lake was used for riverside scenes in the 2000 film Chocolat, starring Juliette Binoche and Johnny Depp.