Three Months in Albion: 18.08.12 - Day trip to Salisbury, UK

(Sailsbury, UK)

Old Sarum sits atop a two-bailey hill at about a mile's walk from Salisbury. The site, as I see it today, comprised of the ruins of a Norman castle at the inner bailey (the centermost land surrounded by a ditch), and the stone outline of an abbey in the outer bailey (the second ring of land, surrounded by a ditch). It's structure is such that the outer bailey is elevated and ditched from the surrounding environment, to protect the town from raiders, but the inner bailey is elevated even higher and ditched, to protect the nobility in the castle and tower from the rest of the town. Both would have had retractable bridges from one section to the other, making it an effective defensive structure when it was functional. Together, it is one of the best preserved ruins of a medieval town in England.

I arrive at Old Sarum by hoofing it north along the River Avon, high-tailing it through a small town called Stratford-Sub-Castle, and cutting through a large field whose parking lot houses the Salisbury Caravanner's Club. The top of this field allows a very beautiful view of Salisbury, Salisbury Cathedral, and the surrounding towns. I go up to the castle first. The castle is just under four pounds to visit, but the rest of Old Sarum is free to the public. This is another National Heritage site, so it is decently preserved, and unlike Hasting's Castle, they don't sit you in front of a cheesy video about William the Conqueror.

Speaking of kings, William would have inherited this castle from the previous King of England, Harold. Old Sarum was in-use for a great long time, until about the early thirteenth century.

An old royal privy.

The Castle is what most people would call "just some more ruins" and he or she'd be right, but what's fascinating is how the walls and the remnants of the lower portions of the castle and courtyard, together with the city's unmistakable shape and location, allow us to see what a medieval town would have looked like. You can close your eyes and still see where the bits would be and what the great hall, the tower, the palace, the church of the inner bailey, and the soldiers' barracks would have looked like during the twelfth century.

You can imagine how bustling this town must've been, since it's not that large, and since it is not far from the River Avon, which would have been an important source of water and transportation both for peoples during the Anglo-Saxon period and after the Norman Conquest. The hall, which might have been used as a courthouse, was built approximately at the turn of the thirteenth century for King John, but it fell into disrepair before 1247, and in 1301, the roof fell in. The walls were still up by the second half of the fourteenth century, but then the city was no longer in its prime, and Salisbury had risen in the south as the actual centre of commerce, trade, and culture.

As I walk around, a helpful sprinkling of placcards give artists' renditions of what these structures would have looked like, and they're fairly convincing. Other than the castle ruins, there are also white chalk stone circumscribing the inner bailey, made by Celts during the Iron Age. There's no real understanding on the signs, other than idle speculation, for what the Celts used Old Sarum, but they might have seen it as a sacred place.

The outer bailey has been overgrown by grass, and so the site is less striking than the inner bailey. That said, the foundations of a cathedral built in the late eleventh century by Roger of Caen is visible from the inner bailey.

What's interesting about the cathedral isn't so much the thing itself, but how it fits into the relatively diminutive town of Old Sarum, sort of fit a rigid brick into a circular tube, and how important this building would have been to medeival life.

After visiting Old Sarum, I decide to see Salisbury Cathedral (of course!), and I'm not disappointed that I do. Salisbury Cathedral is visible from everywhere in the area. It's so large that people keep taking cautious steps backwards in order to frame it all in their photos. It's really hot today. Near the entrance to Salisbury Cathedral Close, a large group of people enjoy ice cream cones. I've no time for that. Need to see things, need to get places. Onward.

This is Salisbury Cathedral, and it's huge.

The tomb of William Longspee, Earl of Salisbury, illegitimate son of King Henry II and half brother to King John. d. 1226, first person to be buried in the cathedral.