#OldSarum

The other day Jo and I headed out on our bikes for some fresh air and exercise. We cycled from Alderbury - skirting Salisbury itself - to the ancient hill top settlement of Old Sarum. When Jo suggested the ride as a good one to do I readily agreed - not knowing much about Old Sarum - other than it was an "old" settlement and on a hill! It is only subsequently that I have done a bit of research.

Old Sarum certainly was a "good one to do"! It was a steady climb on our bikes - not especially hard to do - but what a spectacular view from the top. The views are 360 degrees panoramic - the county of Wiltshire and beyond spread out all around below. It is easy to understand why the site was so strategically significant and why its catalogued history is so fascinating.

The site is now managed by English Heritage and their public information boards provide information about the history of the site - making it not too hard to imagine what it might have been like in centuries past. There really was a massive sense of history there - despite the fact that only remnants of original buildings now exist.

I have downloaded an extract from Wiki :

Old Sarum is the site of the earliest settlement of Salisbury in England. Located on a hill about 2 miles (3 km) north of modern Salisbury, the settlement appears in some of the earliest records in the country. It is an English Heritage property and is open to the public.The great monoliths of Stonehenge and Avebury were erected nearby and indications of prehistoric settlement have been discovered from as early as 3000 BC. An Iron Age hill fort was erected around 400 BC, controlling the intersection of two native trade paths and the Hampshire Avon. The site continued to be occupied during the Roman period, when the paths became roads. The Saxons took the British fort in the 6th century and later used it as a stronghold against marauding Vikings. The Normans constructed a motte and bailey castle, a stone curtain wall, and a great cathedral. A royal palace was built within the castle for King Henry I and was subsequently used by Plantagenet monarchs. This heyday of the settlement lasted for around 300 years until disputes between the Wiltshire sheriff and the Salisbury bishop finally led to the removal of the church into the nearby plain. As New Salisbury grew up around the construction site for the new cathedral in the early 13th century, the buildings of Old Sarum were dismantled for stone and the old town dwindled. Its long-neglected castle was abandoned by Edward II in 1322 and sold by Henry VIII in 1514.

As is so often the case my visit to the Old Sarum site was of limited time - nominal - cursory. In some ways it would be wonderful to really put some time in - to focus on a place like this - as some people do of course. Time - time - too many choices - too many options - in todays modern world. ( I will do it when I am old - ha!) But every time you go somewhere like this you do get something out of it - apart from some wonderful air and scenery. I have spent some restful quiet time thinking about the construction of the massive moat and motte and bailey - how it was done - what an incredible physical effort it must have been. Obviously the Old Sarum site offered a wonderful hill top strategic site - but concentric moats and a motte and bailey were subsequently constructed. I now know the motte is a flat toped hill (mound) often constructed from the materials excavated from the digging of the moat. On top of the motte - sat a walled enclosure to protect the keep - and within the keep - the bailey - a fortified tower or castle.

So - maybe 4500 years of continuous habitation on this site - incredible when you think about it. We very obviously walked on the same turf that iron age people have walked on - that Romans and Saxons and Vikings and Normans have walked on. I wonder who were our forbears? Wow!