Salisbury

A reconstruction of Old Sarum in the 12th century

Salisbury viewed from Old Sarum

The hilltop at Old Sarum lies near the Neolithic sites of Stonehenge and Avebury and shows some signs of early settlement.[10] It commanded a salient between the River Bourne and the Hampshire Avon, near a crossroads of several early trade routes.[11] During the Iron Age, sometime between 600 and 300 BC, a hillfort (oppidum) was constructed around it.[11] The Romans may have occupied the site or left it in the hands of an allied tribe. At the time of the Saxon invasions, Old Sarum fell to King Cynric of Wessex in 552.[12] Preferring settlements in bottomland, such as nearby Wilton, the Saxons largely ignored Old Sarum until the Viking invasions led King Alfred (King of Wessex from 871 to 899) to restore its fortifications.[11] Along with Wilton, however, it was abandoned by its residents to be sacked and burned by the Dano-Norwegian king Sweyn Forkbeard in 1003.[13] It subsequently became the site of Wilton's mint.[11] Following the Norman invasion of 1066, a motte-and-bailey castle was constructed by 1070.[11] The castle was held directly by the Norman kings; its castellan was generally also the sheriff of Wiltshire.

In 1075 the Council of London established Herman as the first bishop of Salisbury,[14] uniting his former sees of Sherborne and Ramsbury into a single diocese which covered the counties of Dorset, Wiltshire, and Berkshire. In 1055, Herman had planned to move his seat to Malmesbury, but its monks and Earl Godwin objected.[15] Herman and his successor, Saint Osmund, began the construction of the first Salisbury cathedral, though neither lived to see its completion in 1092.[14] Osmund served as Lord Chancellor of England (in office c. 1070–1078); he was responsible for the codification of the Sarum Rite,[16] the compilation of the Domesday Book, which was probably presented to William at Old Sarum,[11] and, after centuries of advocacy from Salisbury's bishops, was finally canonised by Pope Callixtus III in 1457.[17] The cathedral was consecrated on 5 April 1092 but suffered extensive damage in a storm, traditionally said to have occurred only five days later.[18][19] Bishop Roger was a close ally of Henry I (reigned 1100–1135): he served as viceroy during the king's absence in Normandy[20] and directed, along with his extended family, the royal administration and exchequer.[21] He refurbished and expanded Old Sarum's cathedral in the 1110s and began work on a royal palace during the 1130s, prior to his arrest by Henry's successor, Stephen.[20] After this arrest, the castle at Old Sarum was allowed to fall into disrepair, but the sheriff and castellan continued to administer the area under the king's authority.[22]

The Great West Front of Salisbury Cathedral

The 15th-century Doom painting in St Thomas' church

A picture of Minster Street, c. 1870

Bishop of Salisbury Hubert Walter was instrumental in the negotiations with Saladin during the Third Crusade, but he spent little time in his diocese prior to his elevation to archbishop of Canterbury.[23] The brothers Herbert and Richard Poore succeeded him and began planning the relocation of the cathedral into the valley almost immediately. Their plans were approved by King Richard I but repeatedly delayed: Herbert was first forced into exile in Normandy in the 1190s by the hostility of his archbishop Walter and then again to Scotland in the 1210s owing to royal hostility following the papal interdiction against King John. The secular authorities were particularly incensed, according to tradition, owing to some of the clerics debauching the castellan's female relations.[22] In the end, the clerics were refused permission to reenter the city walls following their rogations and processions.[24] This caused Peter of Blois to describe the church as "a captive within the walls of the citadel like the ark of God in the profane house of Baal". He advocated

Let us descend into the plain! There are rich fields and fertile valleys abounding in the fruits of the earth and watered by the living stream. There is a seat for the Virgin Patroness of our church to which the world cannot produce a parallel.[25]

Herbert Poore's successor and brother Richard Poore eventually moved the cathedral to a new town on his estate at Veteres Sarisberias ("Old Salisburies") in 1220. The site was at "Myrifield" ("Merryfield"),[26] a meadow near the confluence of the River Nadder and the Hampshire Avon. It was first known as "New Sarum"[25] or New Saresbyri.[24] The town was laid out on a grid.

Work on the new cathedral building, the present Salisbury Cathedral, began in 1221. The site was supposedly established by shooting an arrow from Old Sarum, although this is certainly a legend: the distance is over three kilometres (2 mi). The legend is sometimes amended to claim that the arrow struck a white deer, which continued to run and died on the spot where the cathedral now rests. The structure was built upon wooden faggots on a gravel bed with unusually shallow foundations of 18 in (45 cm) and the main body was completed in only 38 years. The 123 m or 404 ft tall spire, the tallest in the UK, was built later. With royal approval, many of the stones for the new cathedral were taken from the old one; others came from Chilmark. They were probably transported by ox-cart, owing to the obstruction to boats on the River Nadder caused by its many weirs and watermills. The cathedral is considered a masterpiece of Early English architecture. The spire's large clock was installed in 1386, and is one of the oldest surviving mechanical clocks in the world.[27] The Cathedral also contains the best-preserved of the four surviving copies of Magna Carta.

New Sarum was made a city by a charter from King Henry III in 1227[28] and, by the 14th century, was the largest settlement in Wiltshire. The city wall surrounds the Close and was built in the 14th century, again with stones removed from the former cathedral at Old Sarum. The wall now has five gates: the High Street Gate, St Ann's Gate, the Queen's Gate, and St Nicholas's Gate were original, while a fifth was constructed in the 19th century to allow access to Bishop Wordsworth's School, in the Cathedral Close. During his time in the city, the composer Handel stayed in a room above St Ann's gate. The original site of the city at Old Sarum, meanwhile, fell into disuse. It continued as a rotten borough: at the time of its abolition during the reforms of 1832, its Member of Parliament (MP) represented three households.

In May 1289, there was uncertainty about the future of Margaret, Maid of Norway, and her father sent ambassadors to Edward I. Edward met Robert the Bruce and others at Salisbury in October 1289, which resulted in the Treaty of Salisbury, under which Margaret would be sent to Scotland before 1 November 1290 and any agreement on her future marriage would be delayed until she was in Scotland.[29]

The Parliament of England met at New Sarum in the years 1324, 1328, and 1384.[30]

In 1450, a number of riots broke out in Salisbury at roughly the same time as Jack Cade led a famous rebellion through London. The riots occurred for related reasons, although the declining fortunes of Salisbury's cloth trade may also have been influential. The violence peaked with the murder of the bishop, William Ayscough, who been involved with the government. In 1483, a large-scale rebellion against Richard III broke out, led by his own 'kingmaker', Henry Stafford, 2nd Duke of Buckingham. After the revolt collapsed, Buckingham was executed at Salisbury, near the Bull's Head Inn. In 1664, an act for making the River Avon navigable from Christchurch to the city of New Sarum was passed[31] and the work completed, only for the project to be ruined shortly thereafter by a major flood.[32] Soon after, during the Great Plague of London, Charles II held court in Salisbury's cathedral close.

Salisbury was the site chosen to assemble James II's forces to resist the Glorious Revolution. He arrived to lead his approximately 19 000 men on 19 November 1688. His troops were not keen to fight Mary or her husband William, and the loyalty of many of James's commanders was in doubt. The first blood was shed at the Wincanton Skirmish, in Somerset. In Salisbury, James heard that some of his officers had deserted, such as Edward Hyde, and he broke out in a nosebleed, which he took as an omen that he should retreat. His commander in chief, the Earl of Feversham, advised retreat on 23 November, and the next day John Churchill defected to William. On 26 November, James's own daughter, Princess Anne, did the same, and James returned to London the same day, never again to be at the head of a serious military force in England.[33]

Secret Spitfire Memorial, view from the south

Following the destruction by the Luftwaffe of the factories building Supermarine Spitfires in 1940 in Southampton, production was dispersed to shadow factories elsewhere in the south of England. Salisbury was the major centre of production, supplemented by Trowbridge and Reading. Several factories were set up in the centre of Salisbury and manned by predominantly young women who had no previous mechanical experience but were trained for specific tasks in the aircraft construction process. Supporting the factories were many workers producing small components in home-based workshops and garden sheds. Sub-assemblies were built in the city centre factories and then transported to High Post airfield (north of the city, in Durnford parish) and Chattis Hill[34] (northeast, near Stockbridge), where the aircraft were assembled, test flown and then distributed to RAF airfields across England. A total of over 2000 Spitfires were produced. The whole process was carried out in secret without the knowledge of even the local people and only emerged into public knowledge after the production of a film describing the whole process.[35] In July 2021 a memorial to the workers, in the form of a life-size fibreglass model Mk IX Spitfire, was unveiled in Castle Road, Salisbury on the site of one of the factories.[36][37]

At the time of the 1948 Summer Olympics, held in London, a relay of runners carried the Olympic Flame from Wembley Stadium, where the Games were based, to the sailing centre at Torbay via Slough, Basingstoke, Salisbury, and Exeter.

The 1972 Local Government Act eliminated the administration of the City of New Sarum under its former charters, but its successor, Wiltshire County's Salisbury District, continued to be accorded its former city status. The name was finally formally amended from "New Sarum" to "Salisbury" during the 2009 changes occasioned by the 1992 Local Government Act, which established the Salisbury City Council.

On 4 March 2018, former Russian double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter, Yulia Skripal, were poisoned in Salisbury with a Novichok nerve agent.[38]

Salisbury has many areas and suburbs, most of them being former villages that were absorbed by the growth of the city. The boundaries of these areas are for the most part unofficial and not fixed. All of these suburbs are within Salisbury's ONS Urban Area, which had a population of 44,748 in 2011.[40] However, not all of these suburbs are administered by the city council, and are therefore not within the eight wards that had a combined population of 40,302 in 2011. Two parishes are part of the urban area but outside Salisbury parish.

Surrounding parishes, villages and towns rely on Salisbury for some services. The following are within a 4-mile radius of the city centre and are listed in approximately clockwise order:

Salisbury Museum, housed in the King's House.

The Salisbury Museum is housed in the King's House, a Grade I listed building whose history dates back to the 13th century, opposite the west front of the cathedral.

The permanent Stonehenge exhibition gallery has interactive displays about Stonehenge and the archaeology of south Wiltshire, and its collections include the skeleton of the Amesbury Archer, which is on display.

The Pitt Rivers display holds a collection from General Augustus Pitt Rivers.

The costume gallery showcases costume and textiles from the area, with costumes for children to try on while imagining themselves as characters from Salisbury's past.

The former home of Sir Edward Heath, Arundells in the Cathedral Close, is now open as a museum.

The main transport links for the city are the roads. Salisbury lies on the intersection of the A30, the A36 and the A338 and is at the end of the A343, A345, A354 and A360. Car parks around the periphery of the city are linked to the city centre by a park and ride scheme (see details in the bus section below). The A36 forms an almost complete ring road around the city centre. The A3094 comprises the southwestern quadrant of the ring road, passing through the city's outer suburbs.

The lack of adequate roads is a cause of concern to the people of Salisbury as there are no motorway links to the ports of Southampton and Bristol. The closest motorway access is at junction 2 of the M27 at Southampton, and at junction 8 of the M3 near Basingstoke. Traffic passes around the city centre on the A36 to Bath.

Salisbury bus station in 2010 (since closed)

There are bus links to Southampton, Bournemouth, Andover, Devizes and Swindon, with limited services on Sundays. Salisbury Reds, a brand of Go South Coast, is the main local operator. Wheelers Travel provide services to Shaftesbury and Andover, as well as intermediate-distance services.[60] Other operators include Stagecoach (Amesbury, Tidworth, Andover); Beeline (Warminster); and First (Warminster, Trowbridge, Bath).[61]

Salisbury has a Park and Ride bus scheme with five sites around the city. The scheme attempts to relieve pressure on the city centre, but as of 2010, ran at an annual loss of £1 million.[62]

Salisbury bus station, which opened in 1939, closed in January 2014 due to high operating costs and low usage.[63] Situated in Endless Street, on the northeastern edge of the city centre, the site was later developed into retirement homes, which opened in February 2018.

Salisbury railway station is the crossing point of the West of England Main Line, from London Waterloo to Exeter St Davids, and the Wessex Main Line from Bristol Temple Meads to Southampton Central. The station is operated by South Western Railway. Great Western Railway hourly trains call from Cardiff Central, Bristol Temple Meads, Bath Spa to Southampton Central and Portsmouth Harbour.

• John of Salisbury (c.1120–1180)[66] author, educationalist, diplomat and bishop of Chartres, born at Salisbury
• Simon Forman (1552 in Quidhampton, Fugglestone St Peter – 1611)[67] astrologer, occultist and herbalist
• John Bevis (1695 in Old Sarum – 1771)[68] doctor,[69] electrical researcher and astronomer, discovered the Crab Nebula in 1731
• James Harris (1709–1780)[70] politician[71] and grammarian, born and educated in Salisbury
• James Harris, 1st Earl of Malmesbury (1746 in Salisbury – 1820)[72] diplomat, politician and MP
• Sir John Stoddart (1773 in Salisbury – 1856)[73] writer and lawyer, and editor of The Times
• Sir George Staunton, 2nd Baronet (1781 at Milford House near Salisbury – 1859)[74] traveller and Orientalist
• Henry Fawcett PC (1833 in Salisbury – 1884)[75] academic, statesman and economist
• John Neville Keynes (1852 in Salisbury – 1949)[76] economist and father of John Maynard Keynes
• Sir James Macklin (1864 in Harnham – 1944)[77] jeweller, farmer and six times Mayor of Salisbury 1913/1919
• Herbert Ponting (1870 in Salisbury – 1935)[78] professional photographer, the expedition photographer and cinematographer for Robert Falcon Scott's Terra Nova Expedition
• Lieutenant James Cromwell Bush (1891 in Salisbury – 1917) World War I flying ace
• Lieutenant Colonel Tom Edwin Adlam (1893 in Salisbury – 1975)[79] recipient of the Victoria Cross

• William Golding (1911–1993)[80] novelist, schoolteacher, taught Philosophy in 1939, and English from 1945 to 1961 at Bishop Wordsworth's School
• Daphne Pochin Mould (1920 in Salisbury – 2014)[81] photographer, broadcaster, geologist, traveller, pilot and Ireland's[82] first female flight instructor
• John Rowan (1925 in Old Sarum – 2018 in London) author, one of the pioneers of Humanistic Psychology and Integrative Psychotherapy
• Iona Brown (1941 in Salisbury – 2004 in Salisbury)[83] violinist and conductor, from 1968 to 2004 lived in Bowerchalke
• Ray Teret (1941 in Salisbury – 2021)[84] radio disc jockey and convicted rapist,[85] sentenced to 25 years in prison in 2014
• Sir Jeffrey Tate (1943 in Salisbury – 2017)[86] conductor of classical music
• John Rhys-Davies (born in 1944 in Salisbury), actor known for playing Gimli in The Lord of the Rings film series
• Anthony Daniels (born in 1946 in Salisbury), actor known for playing C-3PO in the Star Wars franchise
• Jonathan Meades (born 1947 in Salisbury)[87] writer, food journalist, essayist and film-maker
• Prof. Martyn Thomas (born 1948 in Salisbury)[88] software engineer, entrepreneur and academic
• Richard Digance (born 1949), comedian and folk singer, lives in Salisbury[89]
• Kenneth Macdonald, Baron Macdonald of River Glaven (born 1953)[90] Director of Public Prosecutions of England and Wales 2003–2008 and head of the Crown Prosecution Service; attended Bishop Wordsworth's School in Salisbury
• Carolyn Browne (born 1958)[91] diplomat, Ambassador to Kazakhstan; attended South Wilts Grammar School for Girls
• Teresa Dent (born 1959)[92] CEO of Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust, lives in Salisbury
• Martin Foyle (born 1963 in Salisbury)[93] footballer and manager, played 533 League games, scoring 155 goals
• Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Tich (formed 1964)[94] 1960s pop/rock group, most of whom came from Salisbury or Wiltshire
• Clare Moody (born 1965), Labour Member of the European Parliament for South West England 2014–2019, lives in Salisbury
• Joseph Fiennes (born 1970 in Salisbury)[95] film and stage actor, educated in the town
• David Mitchell (born 1974 in Salisbury), comedian, actor, writer and television presenter
• Max Waller (born 1988 in Salisbury), cricketer who plays for Somerset County Cricket Club
• Henni Zuël (born 1990 in Salisbury)[96] professional golfer, youngest player to join the Ladies European Tour as an amateur