Salisbury Cathedral

I was listening to one of my favourite podcasts You’re Dead to Me about Medieval Christmas and they spoke about the Boy Bishops of Salisbury and it seemed to me to be an interesting introduction to the city and cathedral.

Salisbury is in the southeast of Wiltshire, near the edge of Salisbury Plain. at the confluence of the rivers Avon, Nadder and Bourne. Stonehenge, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, is 8 miles (13 km) northwest of Salisbury.

Salisbury Cathedral was formerly north of the city at Old Sarum. Following the cathedral's relocation, a settlement grew up around it which received a city charter in 1227 as New Sarum, which continued to be its official name until 2009, when Salisbury City Council was established.

The first Salisbury cathedral or Old Sarum Cathedral was a Norman cathedral built between 1092 and 1220. Only its foundations remain, in the northwest quadrant of the circular outer bailey of the site. The cathedral was the seat of the Bishops of Salisbury during the early Norman period and the original source of the Sarum Rite.

The current Salisbury Cathedral, formally the Cathedral Church of the Blessed Virgin Mary, is regarded as one of the leading examples of Early English Gothic architecture. Its main body was completed in 38 years, from 1220 to 1258.

The spire, built-in 1320, at 404 feet (123 m), has been the tallest church spire in the United Kingdom since 1561. The cathedral has the largest cloister and the largest cathedral close in Britain at 80 acres (32 ha). It contains a clock that is among the oldest working examples in the world and has the best surviving of the four original copies of the Magna Carta. In 2008, the cathedral celebrated the 750th anniversary of its consecration.

In 2018 Novichok poisonings occurred in Salisbury, England, and then subsequently in Amesbury. One of the more bizarre aspects of this was an interview with two men claiming to be the suspects named by the UK that was aired on Russian television on 13 September 2018 with Russia Today editor Margarita Simonyan. They said they were ordinary tourists who had wished to see Stonehenge, Old Sarum, and the "famous ... 123-metre spire" of Salisbury Cathedral. So, even alleged poisoners are attracted to Salisbury Cathedral.

To get you ready for your visit, here are some photos of this lovely building.