Neolithic Marathon, Old Sarum, Salisbury
Naath ran a marathon!
Specifically, the Neolithic Marathon, a course starting at Avebury and finishign near(ish) Stonehenge.
Before the run:
Sally starting:
Pete around the ten mile mark. We spotted Patrick at the same place (or rather, he spotted us); we completely missed Naath and Sally.
Patrick approaching the finish:
Sally approaching the finish:
...and Naath approaching the finish. 5:16:03 according to chiptiming, though the board said 5:14:45 as she crossed the line.
...looking a bit happier later, though she’s still complaining that her legs hurt even as I write this.
What else? Well, we stopped for lunch on the way there at Runnymede. It’s, well, a field.
We visited Old Sarum. This place was inhabited for millennia and was fortified from the Iron Age until Norman times. Following conflict between the Bishop’s and King’s men the cathedral was abandoned in favour of the modern location of Salisbury, which become the largest new settlement in England of the C13th.
Despite its abandonment Old Sarum retained representation in Parliament, Pitt the Elder benefiting from its status as a rotten borough. Pitt the Younger instead used the Cambridge University constituency, which I think had a larger electorate but otherwise seems similarly dubious in democratic terms.
Most of the stone was carried off for other building projects.
There are good views of Salisbury (i.e. New Sarum).
We visited Salisbury Cathedral.
We guessed that the statue in the middle was of a Saxon King. Wikipedia identifies him as Edmund the Martyr, a king of the East Angles who was killed by the Vikings.
Apparently the oldest still-working clock (dating from the C14th):
The font produces excellent reflections (and a near-permanent infestation of photographers):
The architecture is visibly distorted by the weight above it of the tallest church spire in the UK. It seems to have survived the centuries nevertheless.
You can find Jesus in here if you look carefully. Start with the hands; clicking through to a higher-resolution version may make it easier. The rest of the Prisoners Of Conscience window was hard to interpret despite the presence of a cheat-sheet.
Apparently new choirboys get their heads bumped here (for girls they use a book).
Final resting place of Edward Heath.
Tomb of William Longespée. An illegitimate son of Henry II, famous for an early demonstration of the principle that Brittania Rules The Waves by crushing the French at sea, and when the Barons’ revolt came, supporting his half-brother King John. He was also sheriff of Cambridge and Huntingdoneshire.
John, Lord Cheney, described by the adjacent plaque as Chief Henchman to the Yorkist kings and to Henry VII, who presumably knew a good henchman when he saw one.
Salisbury Cathedral’s chapter house contains a C13th copy of the Magna Carta, which nicely complemented the earlier visit to Runnymede. (No photos allowed in that bit though.)
”What are you looking at, buster?”
Salisbury politics.
