April 28: Salisbury Cathedral

On this date in 1220, construction of Salisbury Cathedral began. Here are ten facts about Salisbury Cathedral.

1. The official name of Salisbury Cathedral is the Cathedral Church of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
2. Before this cathedral was built, the Bishop's seat was at Old Sarum, but due to tensions between the clergy and the military there, it was decided to move the cathedral. According to legend, the Bishop shot an arrow, and said the new cathedral would be built where the arrow fell. The arrow hit a deer, so the new cathedral was built on the spot where the deer died.
3. It took 38 years to build. Which seems like a lot, but for the time, without modern equipment, that actually wasn't bad going. Some cathedrals have a range of different styles of architecture because they took so long to build, but Salisbury Cathedral has just one: Early English Gothic.
4. 70,000 tons of stone, 3,000 tons of timber and 450 tons of lead were used to build the cathedral. Because it is built on a high water table, the foundations are only four feet deep.
5. Although it was built in the 13th century, Salisbury Cathedral has only had the tallest church spire in the UK since 1549. Until then, there was a taller one in Lincoln - but it fell down. The spire is 404 feet (123m) tall and weighs 6,397 tons (6,500 tonnes). It, too, was in danger of falling down, but Sir Christopher Wren was called on to survey the spire in 1668. He had braces put in to support it, which lasted 200 years, and no further movement took place in that time.
6. It's said the cathedral has as many pillars as there are hours in the year, and as many windows as there are days.
7. The first person to be buried in the building was William Longespée, half brother of King John and the illegitimate son of Henry II. Sir Edward Heath, Prime Minister of the UK from 1970 to 1974 lived close to the cathedral in the last years of his life, and is also buried there.
8. Salisbury Cathedral has the oldest working clock in the world. It's so old it doesn't even have a face, because back when it was built in 1386 clocks only rang out the hours on a bell. It was used until 1884, when it was placed in storage and forgotten about, but it was re-discovered in 1929, and restored to working order in 1956.
9. It also has the best-preserved original copy of the Magna Carta. The man given the job of distributing the original copies was Elias of Dereham, who later became a canon of Salisbury.
10. Artist John Constable painted pictures of the cathedral. One of his paintings was commissioned by John Fisher, then Bishop of Salisbury. Constable painted the bishop and his wife into the scene.

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