So, before we move onto Stonehenge one more interesting story about Salisbury Cathedral. It moved.
The castle, and adjacent cathedral, were originally built on top of a high hill that was easily defended. Unfortunately, it had a poor source of water and ultimately had to be moved.
The story goes that the king had the strongest archer in the land fire an arrow into the air and where it would land would be the location of the Cathedral and Castle. Here’s the view from Old Sarum to the current Cathedral.
Now, unless the archer had a howitzer for an arm, even the people of the day didn’t swallow that story. So, the amended story went that the arrow struck a deer and the wounded deer ran and where it died the arrow fell out, thus the location for the new Cathedral was established. Just a fun story.
Stonehenge is theorized to possibly have been many things, but no one really knows for sure or how it was built.
Stonehenge was built it is thought in phases from 3000BC to 2000BC. To get into the weeds on this is beyond the scope of this blog. Google it if you would like to know more as I intend to just barely skim the surface.
Used as a burial site as well as a ceremonial site to celebrate the midsummer solstice, the area is thought to have been occupied by several societies over time.
No one truly knows how it was constructed as the Sarasin stones are estimated to weight 25 tons each with the lintel stones weighing about half that.
The place is in the middle of nowhere and is a five minute bus ride from the visitors center or a 30 minute walk! Since we were going to be doing plenty of walking the next three days, we took the bus 😊.
The exhibition center is nice but the site has become a little too touristy for my taste. Maybe that’s just an old guy’s musings but just a bit too much frolic for my tastes though it was a beautiful day so I do understand why folks were in a good mood.
So, that’s all on Stonehenge. The hike starts tomorrow. Till then be well.
Lou Hikes? 