Advertisement
Published: August 8th 2007
Salisbury: Water Meadows, Cathedral, Poultry Cross, but No Steak We arrive at Waterloo Station with 15 minutes to spare to grab some baguette sandwiches and withdraw yet more money from the ATM. Who can live in London? We’ve seen one show and are broke again, and even with a student concession, this London Walks trip is about to run us £42 apiece. Our guide Chris has no problems raising her voice, so I’m guaranteed not to miss anything today even though the group is 30 big. The train ride southwest to Salisbury is about 80 minutes long and the English countryside is serene and picturesque - just as it is in every movie you’ve seen set in rural England. I only looked for a few minutes at the green fields, the yellow canola plots, and the barns and livestock. Then, I took a good nap. There’s only so much pastoral scenery one can take in. In Salisbury, we cross the street from the station, turn a corner, and are met by water meadows and a brook with swans and ducks floating on the clear, shallow water. Nice. I could take more of this. This area has many rivers (including the Avon
River, or “river river”) and the ground does not have much soil. It becomes flint quite quickly from the top. Because of that, the cathedral with the tallest spire in the UK (404 feet - using English metrics now!) does not have much of a foundation. But it has managed to stay standing for hundreds of years, having been built from 1220-1258. Chris tells us many stories of Old Sarum, which I think means the wet place, but I really am not sure. (Per Wikipedia, the hill fort was marked on Roman roadmaps by the name of Sorviodunum, which is believed to be derived from the Celtic name for 'the fortress by a gentle river'). But this is where the old town used to be, 1.5 miles away. The old cathedral was there too, but because of rivalries between castle and cathedral dwellers, and something about the army, the bishop got permission from the Pope to move his cathedral to a new place. He chose the place by: 1) shooting an arrow out the old cathedral window and deciding to build where it landed—it landed in deer’s bum and the deer fell at the site of the new cathedral—2) using
Salisbury
Pretty white swans with mean attitudes.land he owned, or 3) we’ve both forgotten the third story. Sorry. In any case, Bishop Paul moved the cathedral and luckily built it on the only part of this area that could sustain a building of that weight. New Sarum eventually became called Salisbury, from “Sarum burg,” and I guess there were enough centuries for it to become a totally different sounding word.
The cathedral is grey and beautiful, with a spire that rises against the blue and cloudless sky. For some reason, we have had no grey or foggy days here in the UK. We brought the sun with us from Dubai. Stone was brought in from many places as this region has only flint and chalk. An architect a few hundred years ago was given permission to rearrange tombs and the cathedral grounds, and he somehow got away with moving the tombs to make the interior more organized and pretty, with no attempt to keep track of who was who. This gave Chris lots of material for stories to tell us, most of which I have forgotten, but I still treasure the experience. There is also the oldest working clock, which can only give you the
Salisbury
The London Walks tour group and Salisbury cathedral in the background. hour, but let’s not forget we’re talking the 1300s here. Even more impressive, there is one of four copies (or versions) of the Magna Carta housed in the cathedral’s charter house. Yes, the Magna Carta from 1215, remember your 5th grade history! It was pretty cool to see it, and some of its clauses are even funny to read now. Although only four clauses still remain a part of English law, let’s not forget that some of it also was the basis for the U.S. Constitution. And it was old looking!
We also marveled at how this structure built on watery ground is still standing and at the attempts over the centuries to keep the spire from falling in on itself. We did this from the inside while looking up at it. Obviously, they’re not that worried. Lunch was in the main market area of Salisbury, with cute street names harking back to its history (Fish Row) as the market town for the surrounding smaller towns. We stood under the Poultry Cross, a small gazebo-like stone structure with a cross on top where they used to sell poultry. Following our guide’s advice, we went to Reeve Bakery and ordered
Salisbury
You can't get fat in Salisbury -- no room on the sidewalk. a Wiltshire pasty (hot pastry with ground beef and other ingredients like onions inside) and lardy cake (dessert cake made with lard and raisins or something, but all I remember is the lard). After we had a couple of coronaries, we met back with the group to board a coach and off to Stonehenge we went.
Stonehenge: A prehistoric Google? No really, what is this thing? The ride to Stonehenge means passing by some more English countryside and villages, including one of Sting’s houses. We also pass Old Sarum, which has no cathedral left as the stone was taken to make a wall around the new cathedral. It is a hill fort that consists of a hill at this point, and up until the 1800s, two members of Parliament would be sent from this unpopulated hill. But they got rid of that corruption a long time ago. More canola, and even some llamas that are used to herd sheep.
Then, there it is. Staring at us against a blue and cloudless sky is Stonehenge. Blue and cloudless - not nearly as spooky or magnetic or magical as it should be, but a thing to marvel at nonetheless. The
Salisbury
The "close" near the cathedral. Grass and administrative offices, basically. closest we will come to the actual stones is 15 or so feet. They have an example of a blue stone and Sarsen stone near the entrance of the site, but I pay little attention to the archaeological lesson as I am too busy looking at Stonehenge itself. It is prehistoric. Pre-writing. There is a book for every explanation of what Stonehenge’s purpose is - a calendar, a cultural site, a gift from little green aliens, a religious site, a creation of Druids, or whatever. Maybe it’s the prehistoric Google, and they all used to go there for answers, who knows. Stonehenge is in the middle of nowhere, except for the big highway running right next to it. They may get rid of this piece of road in favor of underground transport, and I would welcome the sight of Stonehenge without a thoroughfare full of trucks and cars. Originally, it was just a bank and ditch at this site, then they brought blue stones in, and then the bigger Sarsen stones. The big stones are from Marlborough and thought to have been transported by river. All around, there are green fields with burial mounds - round hills which house a
Salisbury
Ooh. Yup, that's about 404 feet, I'd say. single body, a ceramic jar, and a bit of bronze. It is a protected site and there are many unexcavated burial mounds. These people were Bronze Age but apart from that history, I have little more to add. It’s amazing to see it, though our guide reminds us that at the time this was built (after 1950 B.C.), the Egyptians had already made pyramids and developed a system of writing. Way to keep it real, Chris. Still, it is a sight to behold. I can’t really believe I’m here, but what I really want is to touch the stones and feel the spookiness of it all. They say there are magnetic fields here (well, more than elsewhere, I suppose that’s what they meant). Once we walk around it once, we stop at the Hele stone, a big rock on which the sun shines when it is midsummer. Then we are off.
Meeting friends at White Hart for the UEFA Champions League We get back to London at 6:15pm and are off the regional train and running to the Tube. We have to make it back to our hotel to meet a friend of Leroy’s from his track and field
Salisbury
Flint, as in Flintstone days. Lindsay, or LJ, just arrived today and is coming to hang out with us for our last night in London. Of course, we head to the White Hart. It’s tradition by now, one established in 2007. Three days ago to be exact. LJ and Pete meet us in the hotel lobby and we walk all the way across the street, get some pints, and finagle a seat right before the Chelsea-Liverpool game. Chelsea is playing without three important players, including Michael Ballack who was injured in his last game. Leroy likes Chelsea, as does Pete. LJ decides to root for the blue team (that’s Chelsea, by the way). I don’t particularly like Liverpool because they knocked Barcelona out (remember Chile?), but I decide to root for them because: 1) Chelsea is down three good players, 2) I just saw a special on Steve Gerard the night before so he is human to me now, and 3) everyone else is favoring Chelsea. Little did I know the rest of the Britons in the pub were actually Liverpool fans (at least 70%, it seemed). Stella with some 7-up at the top (“Stella with a top”) is good stuff. I don’t like
beer, but I like this. And to make a long story short, Liverpool won in penalties, 4-1. This is after they played 30 minutes of overtime. It’s crazy. I jump up and down, and I don’t even like Liverpool so much, I just like Stella with a top.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.085s; Tpl: 0.014s; cc: 16; qc: 25; dbt: 0.0193s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
Alea
non-member comment
Stella with a top... I'm going to have to try that! I can't wait till y'all get to Egypt. Will you get to tour the pyramids and temples?