Old Sarum Castle

En un regard

Le château en bref

On a chalk knoll north of Salisbury, Old Sarum concentrates more than two thousand years of history: an Iron Age enclosure of some twelve hectares, reoccupied by the Romans and then the Saxons, at the heart of which the Normans raised a castle on an imposing circular motte. In the Middle Ages the whole formed a genuine fortified town, shared between royal power and the Church, since a cathedral was founded there after the see was transferred from Sherborne in 1075. The royal castle, surrounded by a deep ditch, housed a stone keep built around 1100, a courtyard palace built by Bishop Roger, regent for Henry I, then a curtain wall, a gatehouse and buildings added under Henry II. Eleanor of Aquitaine was held there under house arrest. With royal consent obtained in 1194, the clergy eventually refounded the cathedral in the valley: New Sarum, today's Salisbury, was born in the 1220s. Deprived of its cathedral, the site declined; its stones were reused and it was deserted by the 16th century, while still electing members of Parliament until 1832, a famous example of a “rotten borough”. Managed by English Heritage, it now offers legible foundations and ruins and a vast panorama over Salisbury Plain.