Qualla: Old Sarum Cathedral

Old Sarum Cathedral: Introduction

Wed, 20 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Melancholia i at English Wikipedia, Public domain. Stand on the windswept ramparts of Old Sarum and look down at the foundations laid into the grass. That cross-shaped outline is where a cathedral stood for 128 years. The Normans consecrated it on 5 April 1092 - and tradition holds that five days later a storm tore part of it apart. They rebuilt. They lived with the wind. In time, the bishops looked across the chalk hills toward a quieter site by the River Avon, decided enough was enough, and took their cathedral apart stone by stone to build the one we know today. Old Sarum Cathedral is the building that became Salisbury Cathedral. Its first home was up here, exposed and isolated, on a hill that had been a fortress for two millennia before the Normans arrived.

Read more: Old Sarum Cathedral on Qualla

Image: Melancholia i at English Wikipedia | Public domain

Old Sarum Cathedral: A New See, A New Hilltop

Wed, 20 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Chris Gunns, CC BY-SA 2.0. After his victory at Hastings in 1066, William the Conqueror used Old Sarum as a base of operations, walled by Norman fortifications built over the much older Iron Age hillfort. In 1075, the Council of London moved the bishop's seat here, naming Herman as the first bishop. The ne...

Read more: Old Sarum Cathedral on Qualla

Image: Chris Gunns | CC BY-SA 2.0

Old Sarum Cathedral: The Sarum Rite

Wed, 20 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit PvOberstein, CC0. Herman's successor was Osmund, count of Sees and Lord Chancellor of England - a cousin of the Conqueror and one of the better minds in the early Norman church. Under him, the cathedral developed the distinctive liturgical practice known as the Sarum Rite (or Sarum Use), which for...

Read more: Old Sarum Cathedral on Qualla

Image: PvOberstein | CC0

Old Sarum Cathedral: A Captive on the Hill

Wed, 20 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Derek Harper, CC BY-SA 2.0. The cathedral on the hill was never a comfortable place. Peter of Blois, writing in the twelfth century, described the church as 'a captive on the hill where it was built, like the Ark of God shut up in the profane house of Baal.' The hill was 'barren, dry, and solitary, exposed ...

Read more: Old Sarum Cathedral on Qualla

Image: Derek Harper | CC BY-SA 2.0

Old Sarum Cathedral: Stone by Stone, Downhill

Wed, 20 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Sebastian Ballard, CC BY-SA 2.0. In 1218 the bishop and chapter received papal authorisation. The new site, two miles south on the well-watered floor of the Avon valley, was consecrated in 1220. Over the next century the medieval cathedral we know now rose stone by stone - much of that stone literally carried do...

Read more: Old Sarum Cathedral on Qualla

Image: Sebastian Ballard | CC BY-SA 2.0