Since my last visit to England my sister Mary and her husband John have moved from the country into a smaller house in Salisbury. It’s hard to imagine a more perfect city for a retired couple. Their house is five minutes from the central market square, the railway station and the cathedral where Mary is a steward.

Our mum lived right in the Cathedral Close, in the ‘College of Matrons’, an endowed residence for the widows and daughters of clergy, for many years. So we siblings have come to know Salisbury well, but now that Mary and John live there it’s good to be able to spend more time enjoying the sculptures, the cathedral itself, the ancient buildings in the city and to take walks in the meadows nearby.

On my recent visit our two astonishing American nieces joined us for a day on a mad long weekend from Boston and Austin, along with their ten-year-old daughters. While two of them were able to join a tour of the cathedral, including a climb up the tower, the rest of us enjoyed touring the Chapter House where one of the Magna Carta documents is housed, seeing Harvest Festival decorations and just catching up.

We all lunched in the Cathedral cafe and then walked into the town where Mary led us to St Thomas church. The Lonely Planet describes it thus:

This stately church was built for cathedral workmen in 1219 and named after St Thomas Becket. Its most famous feature is the amazing doom painting above the chancel arch, painted in 1475, which depicts Christ on the Day of Judgement, sitting astride a rainbow flanked by visions of Heaven and Hell.

We then strolled in the meadows where the sheep are allowed to graze, as we wended our way back to J and M’s house for tea before the young folk took the train back to London. Luckily I did have a chance to see them again there before they and I headed back to North America.

SaveSave