By N. Story Masieli/ne, Esq., M.P. 



185 



Old Sarum stands. Perhaps the Gaul would have had a hand, ,f not 

 L originally cawing out its deep trenches, at least in deepening and 

 strengthen^ them. It is, however, impossible to say wha amount of 

 this defensive work came from the hauds of Gael or Gaul or Saxon. 

 ^ Romans next held Old Sarum, and when in 534 Cynnc, the 

 s „u of Cerdic, became leader of the West Saxons, the Sorbmdunum 

 of the Romans was in the resolute hands of the more or less 

 Romanised Britons of Belgic race. 



After the battle of Charford (Cerdices ford) m 519 the Saxon 

 advance had been held in check in no small degree by the formidable 

 M the Britons showed them in the fortresses they held on he 

 chalk country, of which Old Sarum was the centre and key Bu y 

 Hill and Quarley guarded the upper waters o the Teste. Old 

 Sarum (Sorbio-dunum) barred the way up the Avon. A group o 

 Long hill-forts round Warminster and others between A and that 

 fortress were centres of a population ready to Join a muster anywhere 

 ou Salisbury Plain; and behind Old Sarum agam to the north were 

 S dbnry, Ambresbury, Chisbury, and, beyond the Yale of Pewsey, 

 1 ol/ British entrenchment at Martinzell, w,th further north 

 Cunetio (near Marlborough) and Barbury, and Oldbury-all so 

 situated as to be able to signal each to the next, and so to pass on 

 the summons for a muster against the common enemy. In 552 

 Cyuric burst through the barrier; he fought a battle near the fmt 

 of Searo Byrig, and in the terse language of the old chronicle, the 

 Bryts he put to flight." With the intermissions due to two great 

 waves of Danish conquest, Searo-burh thenceforward contrnned a 

 Saxon fortress through the remainder of early English history, Alfred 

 himself having, according to tradition, occupied and strengthened its 

 defences. And next, when the Normans ru!ed the land a Norman 

 castle rose within its ramparts, and the lofty mound or lurk rarsed 

 by the Saxon was crowned with a Norman keep. But keep and 

 castle, like the cathedral and the town that once were cooped withm 

 the mounds of Sarum, are gone ; the very stones of whatever existed 

 there as masonry have been removed, and Old Sarum has remained 

 a turfy solitude for nearly seven centur.es. But it sent two members 

 to Parliament till 1832. Such is the history of Old Sarum. 



