
83 
fragments of scriptural sculpture, one representing the good and 
evil spirits struggling for a soul, the other the scourging of our 
Lord. 
Stonehenge and Old Sarum. September 14, 1897,—Seventeen _ 
Members of the Field Club left the Great Western Station at 
10:18 am. for Salisbury, in order to revisit the gigantic 
earthworks of the ancient borough of Old Sarum, and that 
unsolvable enigma of antiquity on Salisbury plain with its sarsen 
trilithons, and menhirs of primitive rock, Stonehenge. 
Arriving in two hours at the fine city of Salisbury after a hasty 
visit to the Cathedral, whose spire at present stands upon a 
square mass of scaffolding, the necessary luncheon was found at 
the well-known White Hart Hotel. Full justice having been done 
to the meal the brakes were mounted at two p.m. for the foot of 
the hill, whereon the ramparts and fosses of Old Sarum stand. 
Two miles directly North of Salisbury the conical hill of Old 
Sarum cannot be passed without immediately attracting attention. 
It is supposed to be the site of a British fortified post, called Caer 
Sarflog (the city of the Service Tree), adopted and strengthened 
by the Romans, and named by them Sorbiodunum, and further 
defended by earthworks by the Saxons on the Romans’ departure 
and styled Scarobyrig. 
The Members of the Field Club soon mounted to the summit of 
this steep knoll over mighty ramparts and ditches which twice 
encircle the central citadel, now overgrown with briars and 
bushes. 
On the 27 acres enclosed within the outer rampart the ancient 
city stood with a Cathedral 270 feet long and 70 feet in width, 
_ with transept 150 feet long. How the population and garrison 
_ obtained drinking water on the arid chalk hill isa puzzle. Canute 
_ died at Sarum in 1036, here William I. took the oath of fealty in 
1086 of all the Barons of his new realm. In this quaint city the 
Conqueror’s nephew, the Sainted Bishop Osmond, built and 
finished the Cathedral in 1091, and left to posterity the renowned 
