It is the 31 January 2010 and this is our 184th blog. Since we signed onto cluster map on 25 August last year there have been 699 hits - though I am pretty sure many of those would not have stayed very long. In someways I am surprised that we have continued this rather long diary of our adventures in England and the continent - probably because it does help us oldies to remember all those little things that happen that otherwise would have been forgotten. Now winter is two thirds over, we hope, and the days are getting a tad longer but there doesn't seem to be a hope for it getting much warmer. On Wednesday night we sat in a movie theatre (having decided to go and see the new George Clooney movie 'Up in the Air' - wouldn't really recommend it) and the air conditioning/heating wasn't working so we were a bit cold even in all our winter woollies. Friday night as I was cycling home it began to hail - well the stones were softish and very white - so I couldn't decide if it was hail or snow - but it turned out to be snow. Chris, Ben and Dan braved the weather and came out to eat our macaroni cheese and play charades so we had a good start to the weekend. On Saturday we headed for Salisbury. We have been through Salisbury a lot lately and stopped there once to have a look at the cathedral on our bus trip when we came over to London a few years ago. I can remember being so disappointed in the cathedral - there is no denying it is a great architectural accomplishment, but it was so dark inside it felt dreary and without the hope that I think a church should offer. Anyway, this weekend we hadn't come to see the cathedral - we'd come to see the site where the first cathedral and castle were built high on the hill above Salisbury. Old Sarum is not far from Stonehenge and it was first a neolithic settlement and then an iron age fort before becoming a cathedral and castle/royal palace. It is a bit of an unlikely place to build a castle as the 13th-century poet Henry d'Avranches describes it as "a windy, rainswept place without flowers or birds... the bare chalk dazzled the eyes... There was a shortage of water, and a tiring climb to the top of the hill." But on a day like Saturday you could walk around and see the advantages that might have first been in the minds of the builders and designers. It had a great 360 degree view and now days you can look over Salisbury and the cathedral, the Old Sarum airfield (Harry's eyes were constantly raised to the sky looking at the small planes and parachutists), a free range pig farm which gave the pigs plenty of space to root around in the mud and the countryside dusted with snow. However there were a number of things against the castle and cathedral on the hill. Back in the 1100's the lack of a natural water supply would have been a never ending problem and the animosity between the monastery clerics and the soldiers just didn't help. According to a reliable source the monks didn't like the soldiers being their landlords and the soldiers didn't like the monks and locals worshipping. So, sometimes they wouldn't let the locals in and one time they locked the monks out. If their intention was to banish the monks to somewhere else it worked, but the demise of the castle was an unplanned outcome. The bishop, Herbert Poore got permission fromt he Pope and King Richard I to build a new cathedral. I would have thought that the locality of the new cathedral would have taken quite a lot of prayer and environmental analysis. But no! According to legend the bishop decreed that an arrow would be fired from the walls of the keep and the new cathedral would be built wherever it fell. At the appointed time the arrow was fired but a deer got in the way and the deer fled a couple of miles before lying down beside the banks of the Avon - the perfect location for a new cathedral. The new building was built in 1220 using the stones from the old cathedral - impressed that recycling was around even in those days - but now not surprised that we could only walk around the foundations. The old Sarum (or Salisbury) did continue to have influence way after the cathedral and castle inhabitants left for the more settled climate and easier life style of the avon-side estate. Old Sarum was a "rotten borough." This was a name given to Parliamentary constituencies that were controlled by a single person. Since the reign of Edward II, Old Sarum had the right to send two members to the House of Commons - this right was maintained by the landowners even though by the 17th century no one lived there. So, the landlords remained powerful as they had a means of voting their representatives into the House of Commons. In 1832 the Reform Act was past which stopped boroughs from being rotten, or I should say stopped rotten boroughs. We enjoyed our walk around the old ruins and along the top of the hill. At one point I saw our shadows walking along a ridge below us. Harry did some star jumps and I snapped a few shots. The man on the other side looked as though he wondered if we should have been allowed out - we weren't worried - we are used to seeing that expression. Harry kept on jumping way after I had finished taking photos.
http://www.english-heritage.org.uk/server.php?show=nav.16426
When we had decided to go and visit Old Sarum I had a look to see what else there was along the way. No point in going for a day out to run out of things to do is there? I found on the web that not far away there is a farm that protects and breeds rare farm animals. So, I looked forward to this - looking into paddocks reading the information that told us what these rare animals were, where they were from and how rare they were etc etc. We haven't been disappointed in many things we've visited over here - in fact we can't remember the last time we were disappointed - but this is one of those occasions. I know it is winter and there is a bit of maintenance going on but the rabbit garage was closed, pens that were meant to house horses housed pigs or nothing at all. There was one saving grace...down the end of one long path and happily standing in the mud eating his dinner was a Kune kune pig (very fat and round indigenous kiwi pig) called Hamlet. We talked to him for quite while - he appeared to enjoy listening to our kiwi accents as he grunted in all the right places. Anyway, the background information on Hamlet was pasted to the fence and it said that the Kune kune 'originated from the Maori people in New Zealand'. Whoever wrote that needs a little bit of a lesson in English writing!! The theory is that they may have originally come from Asia and been brought by whalers and traders to New Zealand - another theory is that they swam all the way over - without lessons and training that would have been a mammoth effort. By the 1980s only 50 purebred Kunekune pigs were alive but with the help of a breeding recovery program they no longer face extinction. So, here is Hamlet...
So after that disappointment we had a cup of tea and a piece of apple strudel and then went off to find Woodhenge. It is a Neolithic timber circle monument not far from Stonehenge. In fact they think the Wood and Stone henges were built for religious and rituals probably around death - but Stonehenge survived because it was made of stone. The wood at Woodhenge had been excavated back in the 1920's and now concrete posts mark the five different circles with the burial site in the centre. Modern day archaelogists still marvel how the men (and women?) of those times managed to lug the stones and wood around - even a wood pole would have weighed around 5 tonnes they think.
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