After seeing this photo on the Internet, I immediately decided that I would try to find out what this place was and the remains of which castle (or not castle) were there. The terrain looks very impressive, and the imagination vividly draws what could have been here..
In fact, it turned out that this is only part of the big picture …
A practically non-preserved city in Wiltshire, Old Sarum has become one of the most famous completely deserted and abandoned cities in England. The location of Old Sarum in this particular place is actually not accidental. Its symbolism is that it is here that four roads converge, which were built by the ancient Romans. one of the roads lies on the mystical ley line that connects the famous Stonehenge and Clearbury. This line was opened by Sir Norman Lockyer.
Old Sarum is the former location of the village of Salisbury, England. Evidence of a human settlement dating back to 3000 BC has been found here. Old Sarum is mentioned in some of the earliest chronicles of the country. It is located on a hill about two miles north of present-day Salisbury.
Old Sarum was originally a hill fort, strategically located at the intersection of two trade routes and the Avon River, Hampshire. The fortress has the shape of a wide oval. Measuring 400 meters long and 365 meters wide, it is surrounded by a rampart and a moat with an entrance on the east side. Be that as it may, by the 19th century, the village was officially declared uninhabited, although it retained a formal representation in parliament, making it the most infamous of all abandoned towns that existed before the 1832 reform.
Today it belongs to the English National Heritage and is open to visitors. The attraction is located on Castle Road, two miles north of Salisbury, on the A345 motorway.
Promotional video:
Fragments of rough stone tools found during archaeological excavations suggest that people have inhabited the hilltop in Old Sarum since the Neolithic period (about 3000 BC). There is evidence that this area was inhabited by tribes of ancient hunters and, later, ancient farmers. The defensive fortress on the hill was built by the locals during the Iron Age (about 500 BC) by creating grandiose ramparts and ditches that surround the hill.
In the same area, you can find many other hill fortresses dating from the same period, such as Figsbury Ring to the east and Vespasian's Camp to the north. Archaeologist Sir R. S. Hoare described it as "a typical city of bygone times, with several mounds side by side, characterized by its proximity to two of England's largest stone circles, namely Stonehenge and Avebury."
The Romans who occupied Britain between AD 43 and 410 used the area as a military settlement, strategically located near the intersection of five important roads. The hill fort was marked on ancient Roman maps as Sorviodunum. It is believed that this name comes from the Celtic meaning 'fortress by a quiet river'.
The mysterious mound consists of a defensive wall and a twelve-meter rampart that rises at an angle of over 45 degrees. This place was conquered first by the Saxons, then by the Normans. William the Conqueror chose him, and apparently not by chance, to disband his troops here when he conquered the country four years after his invasion in 1066.
The castle with a large courtyard surrounded by trees was built around 1069, shortly after the Norman conquest, and the city was renamed. In the Book of the Last Judgment (the land register of England, produced by William the Conqueror), he is called Sarisburia, from this name Sarum and Salisbury are derived. In 1086, William the Conqueror summoned representatives of the clergy, the high nobility, as well as the sheriffs and knights of their dominions to Old Sarum to pay him taxes. Presumably, the aforementioned Doomsday Book pages were also written at this time. Two other national councils were held here, one by William Rufus in 1096, the other by Henry I in 1116.
The construction of the cathedral and the bishop's palace was carried out between 1075 and 1092, during the time of Bishop Osmund. Be that as it may, just five days after the cathedral's consecration, a hurricane destroyed the roof of the tower. And the final construction of the cathedral took place only under the third bishop of Old Sarum, Roger of Salisbury, chancellor of King Henry I. He also supervised the construction, in 1130-1139, of the stone royal castle on the hillside.
A representative of the time, Peter of Blois (1135-1203), described Old Sarum as “barren, arid and deserted, open to all winds; and the church, like a captive of the hill on which it was built, stands like a gate closed by God and leading to the blasphemous house of Baal."
By 1219, the limited space on the top of the hill became a cause for concern, especially since the cathedral and castle were located in close proximity, and their heads were in constant opposition. When the servants of the bishop of Por were driven out of the walls of the fortress by the servants of the king, Por officially asked for a new site for the cathedral.
The site for the construction of a new cathedral was consecrated in the same year, and in 1220 the bishop began construction on the banks of the Avon. A new settlement grew around this place, called New Sarum - now it is called Salisberie. In 1217 the inhabitants of Old Sarum dismantled their houses and built themselves new dwellings from these materials. So, one city became more and more large and popular, while the other quickly fell into decay.
Since the reign of Edward II (14th century), Old Sarum elected two members to the House of Commons, despite the fact that by the 17th century there were no residents left with voting rights. One of the members of the House of Commons in the 18th century was William Pitt Sr. In 1831, there were 11 voting residents, all of whom were landowners and did not live in the city. And this made Old Sarum the most famous of all abandoned towns. The reform of 1832 finally deprived Old Sarum of voting rights.
Now the mound is included in the historical heritage of England and is freely available to everyone.
In 2014, Scientists from the University of Southampton, without excavating, managed to draw up a detailed plan of the city of the 11th century. To do this, they used modern soil scanning technologies, which include magnetometry, measurement of the electrical resistance of the soil and the use of GPR.
Archaeological research on the territory of the city has been going on for a long time, but only now archaeologists have received a large-scale plan of the once existing buildings. They saw where the city fortifications were and where the city squares were, received a scheme for building residential quarters, learned the location of the pottery and blacksmith's forges in Old Sarum.