Day 32: Warminster to Salisbury

October 8, 2022

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Today brought the easy and pleasant ride that we had been hoping for yesterday. The River Wylye basically runs all the way from Warminster to Salisbury. There is a big road running on the north side, vacuuming up all the drivers in a hurry, and then there is a quiet road on the south side (under various names) that allowed us to just pedal, on the south side. The south road went through a variety of towns, with inventive names like Hanging Langford , Steeple Langford, and Little Langford. At that point the road was called ... the Langford Road.

In the little towns we found two architectural traits that helped make them interesting, and perhaps unique. One was thatch, which appeared more often than we have been seeing of late. The thatch spawned a little debate among the Grampies - I denounced thatch roofs that have chicken wire over the top as "cheating", while Dodie thought it could be a good move to make them last longer.

You might be able to see that the first house below is using chicken wire.

The second trait, the more unique one, is a chequerboard design with the stone walls.

And then there were places like the one below, that seemed to throw in every sort of stone or brick they could find.

The stone and thatch villages exist within a fairly flat (but not totally flat) landscape, that is gentle but beautiful. It's not really different from what we have seen in past days, so the photos may seem like more of the same.

Livestock along the way also fascinated us. We stopped and watched for a long time, as a farmer herded sheep with a pickup truck. He didn't race around chasing them, but just drove slowly around the outside of the field. I thought he really ought to get a dog, but his technique worked. The sheep must have already known the routine, because they headed off dutifully into the next pasture. There were no rebels among them. I thought in this they acted like "sheep".

The livestock I really liked, at first, were a family of Papa, Mama, and Baby Herefords. They were standing as a unit as if for a family portrait, and I hopped off my bike to try it. Unfortunately Baby, who had been aligned with his parents, broke ranks as babies will.

As I was still standing by the fence, Papa came over, just to say "Hi", I presumed. He was really huge and heavy, but with a handsome curly head. I reached out to give him a pat, but he butted my hand off quite firmly. I then realized that he had come over not to say hi, but to clear me off from bugging his family. I also realized that the wire fence between me and this behemoth would mean nothing if that's what he decided. So - strategic retreat!

A final livestock related topic came up as we passed through Great Wishford, where there seemed to be a lot of interest in horse riding. As part of this, some sort of riding school was in operation, bordering the road, and riders were galloping around in circles, encouraged or instructed by a trainer. Dodie pointed out that the English are really into riding, and I routinely snapped the photo below to document the phenomenon.

With this, the trainer broke away and headed over to accost us. "You can't be taking photos, we have a policy against photos, these are children, you know" was his line. We actually just stood there and stared at him, agog. But I was thinking that I was on public property, his children were fully clothed, and who did he think he was - Prince Harry?

The lurid photo:

The first town of any size on the route was Wilton. Sadly, as we have seen in many towns, being there means seeing an increase in traffic, but totally without provision for either bikes or pedestrians to deal with it. Usually we see this in one or more roundabouts at the edge of town, totally without controls. So what you get is just a meat grinder, unless you are in a car. Often the traffic unwinds from the roundabout and flows unimpeded through the centre of town, maybe with just a few pedestrian crossings. Basically, that was Wilton.

Salisbury showed signs at first of being like Wilton, with too pesky traffic at its periphery. But Salisbury made up for it by having a heart of pure gold. This heart is comprised of a large mostly car free central area, with (on this this Saturday) bustling activity, many historic buildings, and the stupendous Salisbury Cathedral.

We wandered quickly into Butcher Row, Fish Street, and the central Market Place. There were a lot of people, and a rather festive air. In fact, quite a few people were dressed in Alice in Wonderland related costumes. They looked like this:

It was some sort of geolocating activity with an Alice theme. It certainly enlivened the town.

At Tourist Information in the marketplace we picked up a walking guide to town. This comprised drawings and descriptions of sixteen notable buildings about town, with a map showing their locations. We had already spotted quite a few of them, since they are both remarkable and mostly in the centre of town.

Here are some of the more impressive ones:

Church of St. Thomas of Canterbury. 15th century, but with bits from 1238, when it was built. There was a fun craft fair going on inside. More on this church later.

The Haunch of Venison Inn. Established 1320.

This is part of the menu - venison is still on there!

The Old George. This Inn was first mentioned in 1378, but the front is largely 15th century.

The entry for the Old George in the guidebook was like this. It has changed a bit since the drawing - there is now a Marks and Spencer in behind, where maybe the horses had been kept:

The High Street Gate. This was built in 1327 by Edward III to keep the citizens out of the Cathedral Close, which is just beyond it in the direction the camera is facing. It was a time of conflict between the clergy and the citizens.

Despite its inventory of historic buildings and lively pedestrian areas, the jewel of Salisbury is the Cathedral. The outside is richly covered in carved statues and decoration, reminiscent of the great cathedrals of Europe, such as the one at Koln.

Some detail of the figures on the Cathedral

You can look at architecture like this from all kinds of pleasing angles.

The Cathedral interior was closed when we were there, but there was much to see, in the Cloister and the Chapter House.

The Cloister is a large enclosure, with garden inside and the beautiful buildings to look at from there.

Cloisters always have beautiful corridors like this along their edges

Inside the cloister. As intended, a place of great calm.

A Chapter House is a part of a cathedral or monastery where meetings of the clergy are held. In the case of Salisbury, it is a separate building of great beauty, with a carved frieze all around the walls which are mostly comprised of stained glass. The octagonal building was constructed between 1250 and 1266. In its elegance, the Chapter House is a fitting home for the copy of the Magna Carta, which is a big claim to fame for the Cathedral.

Inside the Chapter House is a seemingly out of place (inelegant) little tent, that houses a copy of the Magna Carta, in relatively dim light.

Magna Carta established the right of trial by jury and ensured that no one, including the king, was above the law. It is actually a very clear and comprehensive document, that establishes an impressive list of citizen's rights. The actual script is impossible for us to make out, so finely is it written, and of course in Latin. But they had a blowup translation on the wall, and it was very impressive to read. By the way, we learned that King John may have had his seal affixed to it, but he did not read or write.

What the full original text looks like, in the copy that is held in Salisbury. There are nine other copies in existence.

A docent was in attendance at the tent, obviously to guard the treasure, but was also available to answer questions, or at least I assumed that. So with little advance knowledge and not even having seen either the translation on the wall or some of the summary points on nearby poster boards, I asked "If there would be an Executive Summary of this thing, what would be the first three bullet points?". As with other experts that we have encountered on this tour, this was enough to have this one give us a quite long and interesting analysis of the document, together with much colour commentary. I felt as if we were receiving a British public school type education in the subject, and this was almost the most interesting part of it. I was too shy to ask our teacher where he had learned all this or what his background was, but I feel like a university I would recognize would have been part of the answer.

I photographed a lot of the information panels that were arrayed in the room, but internet accounts of the Magna Carta would probably be better than a bunch of photos of questionable focus to understand this thing.

However, one bit was rather interesting. The Magna Carta is of course about citizens' freedom. A hot topic in this area has been the Lockdowns associated with Covid, which clearly, but necessarily, impinge on these freedoms. This was recognized in the Chapter House by a display dealing with Lockdown and the Magna Carta. It was an interesting joining of these very old and very new topics.

We walked back toward town, across the large lawns that surround the Cathedral. This Cathedral "Close" is quite unique among cathedrals. It is also surrounded by interesting and in some cases famous houses.

Houses around the Close can date to the 1700's

As we passed through the High Street Gate, we noticed this dog that was watching everyone pass with great interest. Many, like us, took his picture. He could be the most famous dog in Salisbury.

There are still a couple of fun or interesting things about Salisbury to mention. One is that St. Thomas church. In all the fuss about the Cathedral, it is a gem that could get overlooked. Today it was very festive, with the craft fair going on inside, and musicians playing. But it really is an attractive place anyway. It has a large frescoe called a "Doom Painting".

""The theme of a Doom Painting, often simply called a ‘Doom’, is the Last Judgement. This is the final judgement by God of all people, and depending on how they lived their lives they would either ascend to heaven or descend into hell.

Doom paintings were placed either at the rear of the church on the liturgical wall, or at the front of the church. At the front they were placed on the chancel arch so that the congregation could not avoid seeing and contemplating the imagery when looking forward during the service. If your mind wandered and your eyes strayed, the imagery above would have quickly brought you back to focus on the sermon being delivered. The painting was a striking visual warning of the fate that would befall you if you did not follow your religious instruction."

"The Doom Painting of St Thomas’s Church in Salisbury is the largest and best preserved in the UK. Painted around 1470, it was covered with lime whitewash during the Reformation and not seen again until 1819. Now following its most recent restoration in 2019 it is back to its vibrant, detailed glory and is essential viewing for anyone visiting Salisbury"

The craft fair, with the Doom painting in the background

The final thing for this buzz around Salisbury is in fact one of the first things we noticed when we came in. It is a fairly elegant structure sitting on a corner of Butcher Row, known as the Poultry Cross. It is likely the symbol of the town, other than the Cathedral. For example, here it is on the cover of our Salisbury Guide:

But here is what we found when we got to town.

Like with the death of Elizabeth, this is a case of us showing up at a moment in history. The Cross, which has stood here for almost 700 years was recently hit by a 20 year old driver as part of a police chase. The Cross was already in weakened condition, and it is said it will take over a year to repair it.

The driver was sentenced last week for for dangerous driving, failing to stop for police, driving while disqualified and without a licence, and criminal damage. He got 8 months. At least he hadn't hit anyone.

Today's ride: 40 km (25 miles)
Total: 1,230 km (764 miles)

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