Salisbury & Stonehenge

Climbin' up on Salisbury Hill
I could see the city light

- Peter Gabriel

This weekend Anna, Jan and I went on a day trip to Salisbury (pronounced Sols-bree), in Wiltshire to the west of London. Dating back to the iron age, the city of “Old Sarum” has the usual history we’ve come to expect in England – the Romans built a fortified crossroads on the site, the Normans developed a walled castle, and a cathedral was erected by 1092.

Due to tensions between the clergy and the military stationed nearby (who were taking pot shots at the stained glass windows), the cathedral was resited at “New Sarum” (current day Salisbury). According to legend, Bishop Poore fired an arrow into the air and erected the cathedral where it fell. Given that this is some miles away, it now claimed that the arrow hit a white deer, which continued to run and died on the spot where the Cathedral now exists.

The rest of Old Sarum was eventually destroyed, and the remains are visible just outside the city in the form of a large grassy hill, rather like a pa.

Salisbury Cathedral

The new cathedral, however, is a thing of wonder. It was built entirely in 38 years, which means that it is contiguous in style - in contrast to the motley appearance of most English cathedrals, built over several intervening stylistic periods. The spire is 123 metres, and is the tallest in the UK.

Due to the marshy landscape, the cathedral is built on a bed of gravel chips. During drought, when the water tables recede, there is fear that the gravel will dry out and crumble. There is a plumbline in the floor where the transept intersects the nave, so that they can test the water levels with a long pole.

Displayed in the nave are a medieval clock - Europe’s oldest - from AD1386, and the tomb of William de Longespée, 3rd Earl of Salisbury. It was always suspected that he was poisoned by Hubert de Burgh. Bizarrely, when the tomb was opened in 1791, the well-preserved corpse of a rat was found inside his skull. Scientists have since discovered traces of arsenic in the rat. Mystery solved! The rat is now on display in a case at the Salisbury and South Wiltshire Museum.

Finally, the cathedral chapter house (through the magnificent adjoining cloister) displays the best-preserved of the four surviving original copies of the Magna Carta, the “Great Charter of Freedoms” from 1215 by which “the will of the king could be bound by law”.

After a tense wait for lunch at the slowest pub in England, we only just made it back in time for our coach to Stonehenge!

Stonehenge

Our coach took a nice ride through the countryside, where we were able to see lots of thatched houses, Sting’s palatial estate (where Madonna and Guy Ritchie met, and later honeymooned), and a view of Old Sarum.

We arrived at Stonehenge, now fenced off and abutted by a motorway. Somewhat shabby treatment for a UNESCO World Heritage site. The beautiful sun we had enjoyed all day disappeared behind a cloud. But the sky was still suitably atmospheric.

Stonehenge is a Neolithic and Bronze Age megalithic monument, composed of earthworks (the “henge” part) surrounding a circular setting of large standing stones. The famous aspect (i.e. the stones) were erected between 2500 BC and 2000 BC, though the surrounding circular earth bank and ditch have been dated to about 3100 BC, and even this was preceded by a wooden monument dating to 8000 BC. Stonehenge was not built by the druids. Rather, they rediscovered it.

The work and intelligence behind the site is very impressive. 43 of the smaller “blue” stones were brought from a quarry in Wales, over 250 km away. 30 enormous “sarsen” stones were brought from 40 km away. Only a third to a half of these stones is visible above ground (!). The site is aligned northeast–southwest, and references the solstice and equinox points such that, on a midsummer's morning, the sun rises close to the Heelstone, and the first rays fall directly into the centre of the monument between the horseshoe arrangement. (Special thanks to the aliens who assisted in its construction, of course.)

Obviously it was disappointing not to be able to go up to the stones, but given that people had been chipping away souvenirs and sitting down to picnics on the Heelstone, I think we all accept that the site must be preserved for the future. Now if only they would get rid of the birds nesting in the sarsen stones!

Interestingly the surrounding landscape is littered with Neolithic long barrows (i.e. trapezoidal earth mounds traditionally interpreted as collective tombs).