Salisbury - Summer 2001

Tuesday I took my one and only guided tour, which covered all of the above. It left from Bath at 10 a.m. and returned at 6:30 p.m., which made for a long day for me since I left the house at 7:30 a.m. to catch a bus to the train station. The tour was in a minibus, which held twelve passengers, but there were only ten of us. Amazingly one of the couples was from Little Rock. A small world, huh I am seriously considering affecting an English accent for the word Bath. I just love the way they say it here. All drawled out..Baaaaaaaaaath. So elegant.

The first stop was a small village in the Cotswolds called Castle Combe. The population was something like 250 people and most of the houses had been built in the 15th and 16th centuries. I felt like I was on a movie set for Mrs. Miniver. I bought two postcards as back up if my pictures didn't turn out but this time my pictures are just fine so I am not bothering to scan them.

The next stop was Avebury, the largest and I think the oldest stone circle in Britain. It predates Stonehenge. We walked all around it and while I certainly enjoyed it, didn't get the same kind of feeling I got from Stonehenge. I think it was because it was so spread out and also it was freezing cold, damp and windy.

On the way to Stonehenge we passed several of those chalk horses carved out of the hillsides. But according to the guide they were done in the late 1800's. At first I thought that he meant 1800 AD, but on thinking about it I'm not entirely sure. He was throwing around dates both AD and BC. I will have to do a search on them on the Internet and see when they were done. I know for sure that there is one that is prehistoric but I don't think that one was in the same area as these are. While these were very interesting, it's the pr-historic one I particularly want to see.

The weather only got worse when we got to Stonehenge but I just couldn't see myself being at such a marvelous place and cowering in the bus. Only one person on the tour whimped out while the rest of us piled out into the wind and rain, paid our 3 pound fifty, grabbed up one of those hand held recorded guides and trudged through the tunnel under the road and took the walk around the stones. Very impressive in any kind of weather. It's a magical place but the magic is hard to describe. It's just there. So wet, hungry, shivering and happy I bought a ham sandwich and a cup of luke warm tea from the canteen (this was the lunch stop!) and crawled back in the mini van a satisfied person.

But the highlight of the tour, at least for me was yet to come. Salisbury Cathedral. The tour guide wasn't all that enthusiastic about this Cathedral. He told us that while the exterior was, in his opinion the finest in England, he felt that the interior didn't hold a candle to the cathedral in Wells. I personally thought he was wrong.

It was certainly different from the Wells Cathedral, but just as good in it's own way. I am really impressed by these massive, ornate 12th century cathedrals. I feel such a sense of history when I stand inside them. I think of all the masses of people who have worshiped in them and then when I walk around and read all the inscriptions on the tombs it really gives me a sense of the past. All those folks who have walked on these same stones before me.

Outside Salisbury Cathedral in the Cathedral Close I tried to imagine all the wonderful characters from Susan Howatch's Starbridge Series bustling around going about their fictional lives. I looked up at the roof and tried to picture Nick, Christian, Venetia and the rest dancing naked on the roof and couldn't quite bring it up. Maybe I was looking from the wrong angle. And inside I tried to picture Neville, Charles and Lewis. It was wonderful to see the place that the novels were based on.

The tour guide on the Salisbury tour also said that in his opinion Britain's Cathedrals were the finest things they owned. I will have to say that after thinking about it, I tend to agree with him. I love the Castles, and Hadrian's Wall is right up in the running, but the Cathedrals are truly something to behold. The first one that I ever saw was York Minster back in 1979 before the fire and then again in 1995 after most of it had been restored and I thought both times that it was probably the most beautiful Cathedral in the world. I have since changed my mind. It's now a toss up between Wells and Exeter.

But one thing really has disturbed me, and it's the way some of them have in my opinion, ceased to be places of worship and have become businesses. I realize that the cost of maintaining them must be mind-boggling and I fully understand and support putting up a donation box asking visitors to help toward maintaining them. They are truly a national treasure. What does bother me is that several of them have gone to what I consider way too far. Salisbury Cathedral is the worst I have seen for trying to cash in on fund raising.

On entering the Cathedral the first thing you see is a turnstile with a person selling tickets thinly disguised as "donations.” Off to the right is a large gift shop, selling all sorts of what Jenny calls tat. Not just postcards and books on the history of the cathedral but tatty stuff, key chains, refrigerator magnets, tee shirts, carrier bags, etc. Through a door in the back is a full service restaurant! I am not a strongly religious person, but in my own way I am religious and I found all that commerce offensive. As I stood there in the middle of the entryway, looking at the turnstile I had a sudden visual of the scene from Jesus Christ Superstar where Jesus throws all the moneychangers out of the temple.

OK, that's my rant. I just needed to vent. I exempt Exeter and Wells Cathedrals from that rant. While both of them had small shops where you could buy postcards and books telling the history of the church, they didn't sell tat, burgers and chips or have turnstiles.