Salisbury Cathedral and Avebury Stone Circle

Sunday, June 23

 

We arrived in Salisbury at 11:30 and walked to the Cathedral [360°] that dominates the town.  This is my favorite cathedral in the South and its spire is the tallest in England at 400 feet.  Today I would see it like I'd never seen it before on the Tower Tour, but first we strolled through the cavernous interior, had lunch in the cafe and viewed one of the four surviving copies of the Magna Carta in the Chapter House.

Our guide on the Tower Tour was so well informed on the construction of Salisbury Cathedral that it made me wonder if he might have been a retired engineer.  After a few minutes on the floor of the nave our group of about twenty climbed a narrow circular staircase to the rafters above the left aisle.  We could see that much of the structural support for the cathedral relies on wood that is already a thousand years old and looks like can easily be good for another thousand.  Going through a passage put us on the rim of the nave and we had a spectacular view that must have been from at least 60 feet above the floor. 

From there we move to the interior of the nave roof and then to the interior of the central tower.  After climbing two wooden spiral staircases we reached the top of the tower where the spire began.  We had about ten minutes each on the outside of the tower on both the east and north sides to see the commanding views from about 200 feet up.  We had gone to the top of St. Paul's Cathedral in London but this tour was much more interesting because you really got into the "bones" of the building which were explained by someone really knowledgeable on the fascinating subject of medieval cathedral construction.

We drove by Stonehenge for a quick look from the car but quickly pressed on to Avebury Stone Circle which we had almost to ourselves when we arrived at 6:30.  Avebury is the largest stone circle and is from the same era as Stonehenge, but the boulders are spread out on a much larger area and are not fenced off from visitors.  The village of Avebury sits partly inside the henge which is the earthwork with banks and ditches nearly 1400 feet across where most of the stones are found.  In addition to the stone circle, Avebury has two "avenues" of stones that radiate out from the circle.

Also found within the circle are grazing sheep who usually run away but two approached us completely fearlessly and nibbled on Marnie's sleeve.

 

After an hour at Avebury we headed back to BoA but stopped briefly in Devizes where the Caen Hill Locks [360°] are located.  This is a series of 16 locks that allow narrow boats using the Kennet Avon Canal to climb a 200 foot hill.  It takes several hours to do that and each lock has a pool where boats park to wait their turn when there is traffic.  It would have been a much more interesting place except that no boats were passing through the locks at such a late hour.

 

We got dinner pulled together quickly at the cottage and watched the first half of the 1994 version of “Frankenstein” before going to bed.  There was still a little light outside and it was nearly ten.