After
a delicious cooked breakfast at the hotel, we packed our stuff into the car (in
pouring rain) set the GPS to take us to Salisbury. It rained for the first part
of our journey and at times during the day, but wasn’t too bad. At Salisbury,
we had lunch in a local café before walking the short distance to Salisbury
Cathedral. As a response to
deteriorating relations between the clergy and the military at Old Sarum, the
decision was taken to resite the cathedral and the bishopric was moved to its
present place in Salisbury. The move occurred during the tenure of Bishop
Richard Poore, who was a wealthy man and donated the new land for construction.
The new cathedral was also paid for by donations, principally by all the canons
and vicars of South East England, who were asked to contribute a fixed annual
sum until its completion. Legend has it that the Bishop of Old Sarum shot an
arrow in the direction he would build the cathedral; the arrow hit a deer and
the deer finally died in the place where Salisbury Cathedral is now.
The
foundation stone was laid on 28 April 1220. Much of the freestone for the
cathedral came from Teffont Evias quarries. Due to the high water table in the new
location, the cathedral was built on only four feet of foundations, and by 1258
the nave, transepts and choir were complete. The west front was ready by 1265.
The cloisters and chapter house were completed around 1280. Because the
cathedral was built in only 38 years, it has a single consistent architectural
style, Early English Gothic. The only major sections of the cathedral built
later were the cloisters, chapter house, tower and spire, which at 404 feet
(123 m) dominated the skyline from 1320. Although the spire is the cathedral's
most impressive feature, it has also proved to be troublesome. Together with
the tower, it added 6,397 tons (6,500 tonnes) to the weight of the building.
Without the addition of buttresses,
bracing arches and anchor irons over the succeeding centuries, it would have
suffered the fate of spires on later great ecclesiastical buildings (such as Malmesbury
Abbey) and fallen down; instead, Salisbury remains the tallest church spire in
the UK. To this day the large supporting pillars at the corners of the spire
are seen to bend inwards under the stress. The addition of reinforcing tie
beams above the crossing, designed by Christopher Wren in 1668, arrested
further deformation. The beams were hidden by a false ceiling, installed below
the lantern stage of the tower.
Significant
changes to the cathedral were made by the architect James Wyatt in 1790,
including replacement of the original rood screen and demolition of the bell
tower which stood about 320 feet (100 m) north west of the main building.
Salisbury is one of only three English cathedrals to lack a ring of bells, the
others being Norwich Cathedral and Ely Cathedral. However it does strike the time
every 15 minutes with bells. The chapter house is notable for its octagonal
shape, slender central pillar and decorative medieval frieze. It was
redecorated in 1855-9 by William Burgess. The frieze circles the interior above
the stalls and depicts scenes and stories from the books of Genesis and Exodus,
including Adam and Eve, Noah, the Tower of Bable, and Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.
The chapter house also displays the best-preserved of the four surviving
original copies of the Magna Carta.
This copy came to Salisbury because Elias of Dereham, who was present at
Runnymede in 1215, was given the task of distributing some of the original
copies. Elias later became a canon of Salisbury and supervised the construction
of the cathedral. The west front is composed of two stair turrets at each
extremity, with two niched buttresses nearer the centre line supporting the
large central triple window. The stair turrets are topped with spirelets and
the central section is topped by a gable which contains four lancet windows
topped by two round quatrefoil windows surmounted by a mandorla containing
Christ in Majesty. At ground level there is a principal door flanked by two
smaller doors. The whole is highly decorated with quatrefoil motifs, columns,
trefoil motifs and bands of diapering. The west front was almost certainly
constructed at the same time as the cathedral. This is apparent from the way in
which the windows coincide with the interior spaces. The entire façade is about
33 metres high and wide.
The
front accommodates over 130 shallow niches of varying sizes, 73 of these niches
contains a statue. The line of niches extend round the turrets to the north,
south and east faces. There are five levels of niches (not including the
mandorla) which show, from the top, angels and archangels, Old Testament
patriarchs, apostles and evangelists, martyrs, doctors and philosophers and, on
the lower level, royalty, priests and worthy people connected with the
cathedral. The majority of the statues were placed during the middle of the
19th century, however seven are from the 14th century and several have been
installed within the last decade. The Salisbury Cathedral clock dating from
about AD 1386 is supposedly the oldest working modern clock in the world. The
clock has no face because all clocks of that date rang out the hours on a bell.
It was originally located in a bell tower that was demolished in 1792.
Following this demolition, the clock was moved to the Cathedral Tower where it
was in operation until 1884. The clock was then placed in storage and forgotten
until it was discovered in 1929, in an attic of the cathedral. It was repaired
and restored to working order in 1956. In 2007 remedial work and repairs were
carried out to the clock.
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| Salisbury Cathedral |
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| Salisbury Cathedral |
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| the Medieval Clock in Salisbury Cathedral |
Our
destination was our “home” for the next week – Coleridge Lodge at Strete – near
Plymouth. The afternoon of driving was very long. We stopped along the way at
an off road café for a drink and snack and to stretch our legs. We travelled on
a combination of A & B roads and on the M5 for a short time. We arrived at
Plymouth just after 4.00pm, found the local Sainsbury’s and did some grocery
shopping. Then it was time to find the cottage! We set the GPS for Strete and
it took us along all these very narrow lanes – some barely a car width wide. We
eventually arrived at the cottage at around 5.00pm, unpacked the car and
settled in. We are really pleased with the cottage – it has two good sized
bedrooms, two bathrooms, a well-appointed kitchen and a very comfortable living
room. We are across the road from the ocean and have a fabulous view. Once we
were unpacked, I did a load of washing before we had toasted ham sandwiches for
dinner. Keith rang his cousin, Tricia, to organise to catch up with her. We are
meeting them for lunch on Monday. Later we had a short visit from the owner of
the cottage to check that all was ok at the cottage. After watching TV for a
while we decided it was time to call it a day.
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