SARUN, WESSEX CAPITAL

Evening Star, Issue 19327, 13 August 1926, Page 8

SARUN, WESSEX CAPITAL

WELCHESTER OF I TESB' AND ‘JUDE’ “ Melchestcr ” is the name invented by Thomas Hardy for Salisbury, the county town of Wiltshire and the capital ot Wessex (states John o London’s Weekly’). It has also been nailed the English A enicc, for it stand* at the confluence of four streams, which, with their beautiful old bridges, add a distinctive charrn to the old town. Salisbury is a curiously attractive mingling of things ancient and modern. There is the great cathedral and the dreamy old Close, where Sue Bridehead studied in the Training College while Jude the Obscure worked as a .stonemason on the restoration of the cathedral. There are broad, regular streets—modern shops and hotels side by side with medireval gabled houses and venerable inns.

THE TALLEST SPIRE IN ENGLAND The Dorsetshire pilgrim is sure to lie a lover of the past, and the first sight which ■ greets him as ho approaches Salisbury—long before the city _is visible—is tbe soaring cathedral spire which rises between the slopes_ of the Downs. Slender and graceful, it is the tallest in England. Then, across flowery meadows, threaded by gleaming rivers, the whole grand pile of the cathedral comes into view. _ Beyond rises the green eminence which is all that remains of Old Sarum, once _ a busy Norman city in the shadow of its great castle and cathedral. Some miles behind lies Stonehenge, haunt of ancient mysteries. Here Tess of the D'Urbervilles slept on her last night of freedom, after her flight with Angel Clare through the deserted streets of “ Melchcster.” Salisbury Plain, venerable with British and Roman camps, still witnesses the march of soldiers, and a copse on the heights above the Avon marks that hollow near the Devizes road which was once a great tourna-ment-field. A BISHOP TOWN-PLANNER. And down in the valley, Salisbury dreams in the sunshine. Richard Poore, Bishop of Sarum, removed his see here in 1220, and laid the foundation stone of the cathedral. Ho also planned the town in regular squares crossed by main streets running cast and west, the lesser thoroughfares going north and south. _ The modern pilgrim arriving by train enters the city by the suburb of Fisberton, across a bridge which gives an exquisite glimpse of the river with its old town mill. But tbe cathedral is the _ goal of every Wessex pilgrim. This great “ prayer in stone,” said to he the most perfect of English _ cathedrals, owes much of its harmonious beauty to the fact that it was designed, from foundation stone to roof, in one style of architecture—Early English. The result is a stern loveliness, which, though it may chill some observers, is unrivalled in England. In this vast, double-cruciform church the liturgical rite known as tho “ Sarum Use ” grow to perfection. CALENDAR ARCHITECTURE. From the west door there is a grand view of the interior, the severe beauty of which was once enriched with glowing stained-glass windows. But during Wyatt’s devastating “ restoration ” most of this was removed to tho town ditch! And, as the old rhyme relates, the cathedral has as many windows as there are days in the year, as many pillars as hours, and as many gates as moons. The guide books tell the tale of the cathedral’s other treasures, hut let all lovers of the past wander among the old tombs and glean from them a harvest of old Wessex lore. The celebrated “ Boy Bishop,” represented on a lifctlo slab covered with an _ iron grating, • is probably but a miniature effigy of a prelate whoso heart may rest here. But the fine monuments to the Longespees, first and second Earls of Salisbury, recall the romantic story of Henry 11. and Fair Rosamond (mother of the first Earl of Salisbury), whose existence the beautiful _ Queen Eleanor discovered by unwinding the ball of floss silk caught in her husband’s spur, as ho crossed the royal park of Woodstock. How it led to a secret door and through an under-

ground passage to Rosamond's bower is a matter of history, fairyliko though tlio story bo. Other illustrious names enshrined on tho walsl include those of Richard Jefferies, the naturalist author, and Professor Fawcett, tho blind statesman, both Wiltshire men. Lady Jane Grey’s sister is represented on a fine tomb, beside her husband, Edward, Earl of Hertford, and other monuments recall stirring chapters in the history of the earldom of Salisbury. ECCLESIASTICAL RICHES. Rut wo must not linger, for_ there is much else to sec, old oak in the choir, curious inverted arches above the gates, and fragments of tho ancient glass, hinting at lost glories. One of the most charming features of the cathedral is the Muniment Room, off the south-east transept. An old antiquary describes it as “ one of the most curious apartments in England.” Massive strength and simplicity are its chief distinctions. It is guarded by a door within a door, the windows are small and strongly barricaded, and the oak rafters look as fresh as when they were first wedged together. The furniture is as strange as the room itself; chests and cupboards full of ancient documents —riches clearer than gold to the studious—and one great oblong box secured by seven locks, tho lid only to bo raised by a pulley and wheel fastened to the central column. A table holds implements for affixing the official seal, and there is a hearth for a charcoal fire.

Nothing now disturbs the peace of tbs old city, which Jude tbe Obscure described as “ a quiet, soothing place, almost entirely ecclesiastical in its tone.” Tho atmosphere is enhanced by tho number of mediaeval hospitals and old almshouses, such as the College of Matrons, in the Close, and the fourteenth-century Choristers’ School. On the south of the cathedral precincts stands the house, once tho homo _of tho Vicars’ Choral, where Fielding wrote Tom Jones.’