Experience the best of Salisbury

Salisbury Cathedral was built in the thirteenth century, largely in one style, and its spire, 123 metres high, is the tallest of any church in Britain. The Chapter House holds one of the four surviving original copies of Magna Carta, and the cathedral stands in the largest cathedral close in the country, a green of lawns and old houses beside the River Avon, painted by John Constable from the water meadows.

Beyond the Close the medieval grid of streets keeps timber-framed houses, an old market square and the Poultry Cross. Stonehenge is about eight miles to the north, and Old Sarum, an Iron Age hillfort that held the first cathedral and a Norman castle, lies just outside the city. Wilton House stands just to the west, and the chalk downs of Salisbury Plain and Cranborne Chase surround the city, with the New Forest beginning to the south-east.

Old inns with open fires serve Wiltshire ham, game and local ales, and the water meadows by the river are good for an evening walk. Long summer light falls on the spire, and the city is calm in winter.