A quiet and quaint smaller city, Salisbury is located in the heart of the old English Kingdom of Wessex. Although it was never the capital of the medieval kingdom, it was always an important center. The area’s history dates back over 4,000 years to the earliest “henge” in the complex now known as Stonehenge. It is only 10 miles distant and is the major tourist attraction in this part of England. Salisbury has a lot of the benefits of a larger city – places to stay and eat – but has a look and feel of a much smaller city than its population of about 40,000 would indicate.
However, to me, what makes Salisbury so interesting is the whole city is very old and is the home of Our Lady of St Mary, also know as Salisbury Cathedral. In 2001, we visited Salisbury, the Cathedral and took a bus tour to Stonehenge. In 2003, we spent four nights in Salisbury at the flat of a friend and I got a chance to really study the cathedral and take some photos with high quality slide film and very good lighting. This is the closest I ever came to taking truly professional photos, as I had two days to study the lighting and luckily, got a perfect lighting shot late on the second day.
Salisbury Cathedral Spire – – Oct 2003 (C) Bill Floyd
This 404 foot tall spire can be seen for miles and must have really startled visitors to Salisbury, arriving on horseback as early as its completion in 1320. The Cathedral itself was begun in 1220 and completed in 1258. It is the only surviving medieval cathedral built from one set of plans and in such a short time span. Thus, its architecture is much more consistent than any other cathedral I have visited. These include Notre Dame Paris, Notre Dame Strasbourg, Winchester Cathedral, Westminster Abbey, Cologne Cathedral, St Stevens Vienna, the Sagrada Familia Barcelona and many others. As for sheer beauty, they all pale in comparison.
At night, the cathedral looks surreal. Special exterior lighting is used to highlight it and even the shot below cannot duplicate the image.
Salisbury Cathedral at Night (C) 2003 Bill Floyd
Another shot of the spire, taken from inside the modern gift shop.
Salisbury is just four miles from Wilton House, a “Downton Abbey” style old English manor house. In fact, if they moved the exterior shots of the show to Wilton House, most of the audience would not even notice. That said, if you are in the area, it is still well worth the visit as it is so close to Salisbury. The grounds are fabulous and I have seen nothing on the TV series featuring Highclere Castle as Downton Abbey that would even begin to compare to the grounds of Wilton House.
Of course, the tourist attraction in the area is Stonehenge. In 2016, we visited just a couple of days before the Spring equinox and the area was flooded with Druid “worshippers”. There must have been over 300 campers along the edges of fields near the henge.
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