I70 THE EXETER ROAD 



to Bishop Poore in a vision, and told liim to build the 

 church on a spot called Merryfield ; and has it that 

 the site was chosen by the fall of an arrow shot from 

 the ramparts of Old Sarum. If that was the case, 

 there must have been somethinQ: miraculous in that 

 shot, for the place where Salisbury Cathedral is built 

 is a mile and a half away from those ramparts. But 

 l)erhaps the bishop or the legends used the long bow 

 in a very special sense. 



The cathedral was completed in sixty years, 

 receiving its final consecration in 1260 ; but the 

 great spire was not finished until a hundred years 

 later. The city was an affair of rapid growth, 

 receiving a charter of incorporation seven years after 

 being founded. Seventeen years later. Bishop Bing- 

 ham dealt a final blow at the now utterly ruined city 

 of Old Sarum by diverting the old Eoman road to 

 the West from its course through Old Sarum, Bemer- 

 ton, and Wilton, and making a highway running 

 directly to New Sarum, and crossing the Avon by 

 the new bridge which he had built at Harnham. Old 

 Sarum could by this time make little or no resistance, 

 for it was deserted, save for a few who could not 

 bring themselves to leave the home of their fore- 

 fathers. Wilton, however, which was a thriving 

 town, bitterly resented this diversion of the roads, 

 and petitioned against it, but without avail. From 

 that date Wilton's decline set in, and the rise of New 

 Sarum progressed at an even greater speed. A 

 clothing trade sprang up and prospered, and many 

 Royal visits gave the citizens an air of importance. 

 They waxed rich and arrogant, and were eternally 



