Bishop Osmund finished his new cathedral in 1092, “and established the new ritual ‘ad usum Sarum.’” The foundations of the cathedral were visible in the very dry summer of 1834. It was in the form of a cross 270 feet long by 70 feet wide, the transept of the same width and 150 feet long. Its plan is remarkable for having a square instead of an apsidal East end, and a Galilee or Atrium at the West end. Within a few days of its consecration a thunderstorm seriously injured the roofs and walls. Robert of Gloucester, alluding to the fifth year of the reign of William II., sings:—
“So gret lytnynge was the vyfte yer so that al to noghte The rof of the Chyrch of Salesbury it bronte Rygh even the vyfte day that he y hawled was.”
Henry the First’s celebrated chancellor, Bishop Roger, improved both the church and its fortifications. In the reign of Stephen the place began to decline. The soldiers and priests, cooped up into so small a space, could not agree. The situation was cold and windy, and water was scarce. Bishop Richard Poore is said to have been directed in a vision to build upon the maer (or boundary) field, called in some accounts Miry-Field or the Merrifield, where a new church (the present cathedral) was begun. The citizens migrated, the great travelling road was diverted to the new site, and the days of Old Sarum were numbered. A charter granted to the new town sealed its fate. Very little, however, is known about the real history of the transference of the people from one place to the other. There are some reasons for believing that a new town had been growing up by degrees long before the cathedral was built at New Sarum. Being only 1600 feet in diameter, Old Sarum must have afforded small space for a cathedral, bishop’s palace, a garrison, streets and houses. The cathedral was taken down in 1331 (Edward III.), and its materials used in building the new spire, Close Walls, &c. Leland (temp. Henry VIII.) reports some portions of the building as visible in his time, but says: “There is not one house neither within or without Old Saresbyri inhabited. Much notable ruinus building of the castell yet ther remaynith. The ditch that envirined the old town was a very deepe and strong thynge.” The walls remained till 1608, and served as a quarry. Fisherton old county jail (inter alia) was built out of them. The great hollow enclosure of Old Sarum, girt by its frowning earthwork (not unlike the crater of a volcano), is certainly a solemn and desolate place. Pepys, passing by, and not knowing what it was, desired to examine it. “I saw a great fortification,” he says, “and there light and to it and in it, and find it so prodigious so as to frighten one to be in it all alone at that time of night.” A subterranean passage was discovered in 1795. The foundations of towers may be traced, and many Roman coins have been met with. Old Salisbury has given a title to the families of d’Eureux or Devereux, Longespee, Montacute, Nevill Plantagenet, and the Cecil family, who still enjoy it. The ground ceased to be Crown property in 1447, when it was granted by James I. to the Lords Stourton; on forfeiture by them, it was granted by James I. to the Cecils. They sold it to Governor Pitt, and the Earl of Chatham sold it to the Earl of Caledon. It was subsequently purchased by the Ecclesiastical Commission. Its dignity as the resort of kings and seat of councils ceased with the growth of the younger city; but it long retained one relic of its former greatness, the right of returning two members to Parliament, which was duly exercised until the passing of the Reform Bill, although for many a year only two or three cottages had existed. The elections were held at the foot of the hill on Election Acre, where a tent was pitched beneath the branches of an elm-tree, which is still pointed out as occupying the site of the last remaining house.