Historic Places in Wiltshire

Salisbury Cathedral is the finest example of Early English Gothic architecture in Britain and one of the most beautiful medieval buildings in the world, a cathedral built almost entirely in a single phase between 1220 and 1320 that gives it an architectural coherence and purity of style unmatched by any other English cathedral. The spire, at 123 metres the tallest in Britain, was added in the mid-fourteenth century to create the most recognisable and most celebrated cathedral silhouette in England, the image that Constable painted repeatedly and that has defined the identity of Salisbury and its surrounding water meadows ever since. The building was constructed with remarkable speed for a medieval cathedral, most of the structure completed within less than forty years, and the consistency of the Early English Gothic style throughout the nave, choir, transepts and lady chapel reflects the continuity of vision achieved by building so quickly. The white Chilmark limestone of the exterior and the grey Purbeck marble of the interior columns create a colour scheme of cool elegance entirely appropriate to the Early English aesthetic of sharp mouldings, lancet windows and restrained ornament. The cathedral's Chapter House contains one of only four surviving original copies of Magna Carta, the 1215 document limiting the power of the monarchy and establishing the principle of the rule of law that was one of the foundations of English constitutional development. The copy at Salisbury is in excellent condition and its display in the cathedral provides one of the most direct connections available in Britain between an accessible historic building and a document of world-historical significance. The Cathedral Close, the largest in England, contains a collection of historic buildings including the Mompesson House, managed by the National Trust, and provides one of the finest examples of a complete medieval cathedral precinct surviving in England.

Situated 15 miles from the city of Salisbury, Old Wardour Castle is set in a countryside location beside a lake. The ruins of the virtually destroyed castle are now integrated into the surrounding parkland of the 'New Wardour House' but consist solely of part of the main building with its beautiful arched windows. The new castle was built as a Neoclassical house rather than a castle, with a symmetrical main block, central staircase hall and two wings. Facilities The castle and shop are open daily from 10am from April until October and at weekends between November and March. Included in the price of the entrance ticket is an audio tour telling of the castles eventful past, visitors will also be able to climb to the top of the turrets and re-enact scenes from one of the recent films that have been made there. The New Wardour House is not open to the public. The castle was built by the St Martin family in 1392 using local Tisbury greensand; a green sandstone rock. It was built by master mason William Wynford in an unusual design with six sides, similar to those in continental Europe. In 1461 the castle was confiscated and after passing through many hands was bought by the Arundell's, an ancient Cornish family. The castle was once again confiscated when Sir Thomas Arundell was executed in 1552 for treason, but his son Matthew was able to buy back the castle some time later. During the Civil War the lady of the house, Lady Blanche aged 61, was alone with her husband was away on the King's business, when the parliamentarians came looking for Royalists. The castle was subjected to a five day siege after which she was forced to surrender before the castle was totally destroyed. In 1644 Henry, 3rd Lord Arundell retaliated by blowing up what remained of the castle and causing the parliamentarian garrison to surrender. Henry then went about borrowing money to have the castle rebuilt, but instead employed James Paine to build 'New Wardour Castle' in a Palladian style, leaving the old castle as a feature within the grounds. The Arts Both Old Wardour and the New Wardour House have been used as film sets, Old Wardour in 'Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves', staring Kevin Costner in 1991, and New Wardour as the Community Hall in the film Billy Elliot with Julie Walters in 2000.

Old Sarum is a dramatic hilltop site near Salisbury in Wiltshire combining an Iron Age hillfort, a Norman castle, a Norman cathedral and the ghost of a medieval city within a single extraordinary monument. The site was occupied continuously from the Iron Age through the Norman period and into the medieval town that eventually decamped to New Sarum, the present city of Salisbury, leaving Old Sarum as a deserted hilltop of extraordinary archaeological and historical interest. The Norman castle on the central motte and the foundations of the first Salisbury Cathedral, replaced by the present cathedral in the valley below, can be explored within the large earthwork enclosure. Old Sarum was also the most notorious of England's rotten boroughs, returning two MPs to Parliament despite having virtually no inhabitants, until the Reform Act of 1832. Managed by English Heritage, the site provides exceptional views over the Wiltshire downs.

Stourhead in Wiltshire is one of the most complete and perfectly preserved examples of the English landscape garden tradition, a composition of water, trees, classical temples and carefully engineered viewpoints created in the 1740s by the banker Henry Hoare II that has been widely regarded as a masterpiece of the Georgian pleasure ground since its creation. The garden surrounds a central lake formed by damming the River Stour, and the walk around the lake passes through a sequence of scenes composed to suggest an idealised version of the classical landscapes painted by Claude Lorrain and Nicolas Poussin that Hoare had studied during his Grand Tour of Italy. The design principle is one of deliberate visual narrative. As you walk the lakeside circuit, each turn reveals a new composition: the Pantheon reflected in the lake, the Temple of Apollo on the ridge above, the Palladian Bridge crossing an inlet, the grotto and its reclining river god beneath the cliff. Each view was calculated to suggest a particular mood or literary reference, and the sequence of spaces creates an experience more like moving through a painted landscape than walking in a garden in any conventional sense. The classical buildings are an essential element of the composition. The Pantheon, modelled on the Roman original, serves as a focal point for views from multiple points around the lake. The Temple of Flora, the Temple of Apollo, the Bristol Cross brought from the city and re-erected as a garden feature, and the Gothic Cottage all contribute to a landscape that seamlessly combines different architectural traditions in service of an overall aesthetic rather than historical coherence. Autumn is the most celebrated season at Stourhead, when the collection of North American trees planted by later generations of the Hoare family colours the landscape with the full range of maple and liquidambar reds and golds reflected in the lake. Spring is equally spectacular when the azaleas and rhododendrons flower in sheets of colour among the mature trees. Stourhead House itself, a Palladian villa built in the 1720s, contains fine collections of furniture and art and is included in the National Trust admission. The village of Stourton adjacent to the estate provides a pub and a picturesque church that adds English vernacular character to the classical and Romantic landscape of the garden.