Location: Salisbury, Wiltshire, SP1 2EF
Opening times: Monday to Saturday (summer) 9.30am – 5.00pm; Monday to Saturday (winter) 10.00am – 14.30pm; Sunday (all year) 12.30pm – 4.00pm.
Entry: Adults £12.00 (£10.00 in advance), young people aged 12 to 16 £7.50 (£6.50), children under 12 free.
Access: Parking onsite £10 fixed rate.
My southern jaunt was coming to an end but there was one site left on my ‘must do’ list, Salisbury Cathedral. I had visited it as a child in 1974 as part of a day trip during a family holiday in Bournemouth, possibly on the same day we visited the National Motor Museum, and I trace my interest in cathedrals and old churches to then. The trip from Beaulieu to Salisbury takes us through the New Forest, although why it is called this I don’t know as it is in fact very old, its first recorded appearance being in the Domesday Book in 1086. Even although it has been fifty years there is something oddly familiar about this landscape, something that marks the New Forest from Britain’s many other woodlands. I can’t quite put my finger on it, but it is more than just the famous ponies now out in force, utterly oblivious to the drizzle and the gathering twilight. I expected that familiarity to extend to Salisbury Cathedral, but this was not the case. I recognise its exterior, of course, but more from looking it up online prior to this trip than through memory of a previous one.
But what an exterior it is, elegant yet mighty. It has an unusually coherent ‘look’ because it was built in a relatively short period of time (1220 – 1258), an astonishing feat for a non-mechanised society. By comparison Ely Cathedral took nearly 300 years to complete (1083 – 1375), Bristol 400 years (1140 – 1539), and Westminster Abbey 500 (1245 – 1745). Even Liverpool Cathedral, built in the modern era using modern methods, took 74 years to complete (1904 – 1978). This is not to say there were not later additions to Salisbury. The chapter house was built between 1263 and 1284, and that impressive spire constructed by 1300, but these, spectacular though both are, are just frills; the cathedral was a complete, fully functioning place of worship without them.
Salisbury Cathedral’s visual impact is also aided by the fact it has the largest cathedral close in Britain, which means all the buildings once associated with but not part of the cathedral – diocesan offices, the bishop’s palace, clergy accommodation, and the like – are distant enough from the cathedral to allow it to be viewed from all sides without obstruction. This is in marked contrast to, for example, Canterbury Cathedral, which always looks a bit hemmed in.
Enough gabbing, because it’s 3.15pm by the time Annie and I arrive, and the cathedral closes at four. However, the lady behind the desk suggested we visit the chapter house first as that will close bang on four, whereas in the cathedral there is usually about half an hour’s grace beyond the official closing time. We take this advice and, sure ‘nuff, are rewarded with that extra 30 minutes.
A chapter house is simply a place where a group of people would meet to conduct business; in Salisbury Cathedral back in the day that means a bunch of priests gathering to discuss church affairs. Not terribly exciting, so why did the lady on the desk recommend going there at all? Perhaps because it looks like this:
It also has a nifty frieze circling the interior above where the clergy once sat that depicts scenes from the first two books of the Bible, Genesis and Exodus. Here are some examples:
Left: God creates the sun and the moon. Left: I can’t quite remember, but it is either God destroying the Tower of Babel, or destroying Sodom and Gomorrah.
Left. Noah’s Ark. At the top right Noah can be seen receiving the dove with the olive branch in its mouth, and indication that the flood waters were abating. Right: Moses receives the Ten Commandments from God.
The chapter house brings us back to King John (1166 – 1216), who we first met here. John is best known for two things, the Magna Carta and being a Disney villain. That second claim to fame has no relevance here, but a copy of the Magna Carta, or ‘Great Charter’, just happens to be on display in Salisbury Cathedral’s chapter house. Not just any copy either, but the best preserved of the four surviving 1215 copies (amended versions of the Magna Carta were reissued in 1216, 1217, and 1225, but the 1215 is the original).
The Magna Carta established both the rule of law and the idea that everyone, including king and parliament, was subject to it. It also limited the king’s power and authority, increased the importance of parliament, established the concept of taxation by consent, and the concept of trial by jury. It is often said to have inspired other important historical documents, such as the American Bill of Rights (1791) and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948). The literature and interpretation boards here in the chapter house call it “a Universal Symbol of Freedom, Justice, and Equality”. It sounds like a noble document worthy of the reverence it receives.
Such lofty principles, alas, meant nothing to its signatories. It was forced upon the king by rebel nobles fed up with John forever increasing taxes to fund his failed attempts to win back territory in France, and neither side honoured their commitments laid out in the charter. Absolutely no one that signed it gave a damn about the common man, to whom, as far as they were concerned, freedom, justice, and equality did not apply. Later monarchs such as Henry VIII and Charles I believed in divine right and batted the charter aside as irrelevant, whereas political groups down through the ages would cite Magna Carta, and the government alleged non-adherence to the charter, as a justification for their protests.
I would have liked to have read the exhibition information regarding Magna Carta and could easily have spent more time engrossed in the sculpted and stained-glass chapter house art, but the clock was ticking, and we still had a cathedral to explore.
Destination or Diversion?
I thoroughly enjoyed my visit to Salisbury cathedral but am acutely aware a mere 75 minutes didn’t do it justice. In zooming around the cathedral, I somehow managed to miss both the world’s oldest clock (looking at it on Wikipedia now it doesn’t look much like a clock; perhaps that’s why I missed it) and the memorial to former prime minister Edward Heath, whose ashes are buried here. A trip up the tower to see the views would have been nice, but it wasn’t open at this late hour, and, as previously stated, I could have spent more time immersing myself in the Magna Carta exhibition. Furthermore, I would have liked to have explored the building that now make up the cathedral close and popped into the one that houses the Sailsbury Museum. All of which is a very roundabout way of saying that Salisbury Cathedral is a destination.
