Beruflich Dokumente
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Postcards
81
By tonymac04
The Cathedral
But the Cathedral has other claims
on one's regard – its position in
the architectural history of England
and its beauty.
The Cathedral also holds a special
place in ecclesiastical history
because of its links to “Old
Sarum” one of the oldest
settlements in all of England,
dating back some 5000 years.
During the Roman occupation of
Britain it was used by them as a
military station, called on their
maps Sorviodunum.
In 1086 all the notables of England
were summoned to Old Sarum to
pay homage to William the
Conqueror, and the town, by this
time quite large for its time, was King Henry II
listed in the famous Domesday
Book as “Sarisburia.”
Old Sarum was not always peaceful however, and Eleanor of Aquitaine was held prisoner there for 15 years by her
husband, King Henry II, the first Plantagenet monarch of England and great-grandson of the Conqueror. Unfortunately the
Magna carta had not yet been signed so poor Eleanore could not benefit from habeas corpus!
But more to the point of our story, conflict arose between the church authorities and the military at Old Sarum, leading the
Bishop, Richard Poore, to request permission to relocate the Cathedral to a new site on the banks of the Avon River,
inevitably called “New Sarum” at first, but later called Salisbury.
There is a legend that the good Bishop, in order to decide where to build his new seat, shot an arrow in the general direction
in which he wanted to move. This arrow apparently hit a deer which finally died and where it died the Bishop built his
Cathedral. No animals' rights movements in those days, apparently!
The Cathedral itself is unique among English Cathedrals because it took only about 38 years to complete, from 1220 to
1258, as against the more usual couple of hundred. As a result, the architectural style is more coherent than that of any of
the other Gothic Cathedrals in England.
The Postcards
What prompted my research into
all of these things was the
discovery among my late father's
things of a set of six photogravure
divided back postcards of the
Cathedral. Photogravure is an
intaglio printing process in which a
mechanised process of etching The Bishop's portrait painted by
The envelope Constable
plates for the printing is used.
The postcards are in almost mint
condition with no writing on them
and neither were they postally
used. They were printed and
published by Photo-Precision Ltd.,
of St Albans. They are still in their
original envelope with the price
marked in pencil: 1 shilling.
The backs of the cards have a
The divided back of the postcards
very pretty rose blossom and
leaves design at the top with the
words “English Series” incorporated into the design. The Salisbury Meadows
The Postcards