NEW S ARUM 167 



been ; and it is true that by ' Melchester ' this fair 

 city of Salisbury is meant ; but you can conjure up 

 no very accurate picture of this ancient place from 

 those pages. The real Salisbury is extremely urbane 

 and polished, decorous and well - ordered. It is 

 graceful and sunny, and has, in fact, all the sweetness 

 of mediaevalism without its sternness, and affords a 

 thorous^h contrast w^ith Winchester, wdiich frowns 

 upon you where Salisbury smiles. One need not 

 waver from one's allegiance to Winchester to admit so 

 much. 



Salisbury is still known in official documents as 

 ' New Sarum.' It is, nevertheless, of a C[uite respect- 

 able antiquity, its newness dating from that day, 

 28th April 1220, when Bishop Poore laid the 

 foundation-stone of the still existing cathedral. 

 There are romantic incidents in the exodus from Old 

 Sarum on its windy height upon the downs, a mile 

 and a half away, to these ' rich champaign fields and 

 fertile valleys, abounding with the fruits of the earth, 

 and watered by living streams,' in this ' sink of 

 Salisbury Plain,' where the Bourne, the Wylye, the 

 Avon, and the Nadcler flow in innumerable runlets 

 through the meads. 



Old Sarum was old indeed. Its history strikes 

 rootlets deep down into the Unknown. A natural 

 hillock upon the wild downs, its defensible position 

 rendered it a camp for the earliest aboriginal tribes, 

 who, always at w^ar with one another, lived for 

 safety's sake in such bleak and inhospitable places 

 when they would much rather be hunting and 

 enjoying life generally in the sheltered wooded vales 



