Guests are always amazed that we can define a year for the founding of Wiltshire’s city of Salisbury – 1220 – and that’s because that is the year in which the cathedral was founded. There was no city of Salisbury before the building of the cathedral – the city grew up surrounding and because of the cathedral.
And guests love the fact that walking the streets of Salisbury means walking the streets as laid out in the 13th Century – in a grid system, with streets running parallel to each other, north/ south and east/west, and which created chequer squares.
Each chequer – as each square is known – had its own name, called after an important building to be found inside the chequer – often a pub.
St Thomas’s, the parish church of Salisbury city centre, and which actually began life in 1219, so that the craftsmen building the cathedral would have somewhere to worship – is not in a chequer named after a pub, but Trinity Chequer.
Knowing we’re treading the streets laid out centuries earlier, really helps to put into context the medieval buildings we pass on walking tours, such as the wool merchants’ houses – John A’Port’s dating back to 1425 – and William Russel’s even older building, dating from 1306, and where we venture inside to see the wooden beams and posts and wattle and daub walls.
And walking into the Cross Keys passageway, with the jettying medieval buildings on either side, gives a real impression of how those medieval streets would once have looked.
Today’s Salisbury’s streets contain a mix of architecture, from the medieval timbered to the grand Georgian edifices, such as the elegant 1790s Guildhall in the Market Square.
But wherever we’re standing on a Salisbury city walk, we’re reminded of those chequer grid streets of the medieval ages, and the sense of history is always right there with us.
I’m doing an increasing number of Salisbury city tours – sometimes combined with a cathedral tour – sometimes with a visit to the nearby prehistoric UNESCO World Heritage Stonehenge site – and sometimes just a walking tour of the city itself.
If you’re interested in seeing Salisbury, and hearing about the history of the city, about the historic buildings, the stories of the famous people and events connected to the city as you walk the streets laid out back in medieval times, then do please get in touch.
Caroline Wigley 