Salisbury Cathedral
The Cathedral Church of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Salisbury boasts a plethora of distinctions, including the tallest spire in Britain (404 feet), the oldest working clock in Europe (1386), the largest cathedral cloisters and cathedral close in Britain, the largest and earliest complete set of choir stalls in Britain, the highest vault in the country, and the best-preserved of the four remaining original copies of the Magna Carta (1215). Bigger, better, best—and constructed in just 38 years, roughly from 1220 to 1258, which is a surprisingly quick timeline for a substantial stone structure made without the use of motorized machinery.
Salisbury Cathedral was the first significant cathedral to be built on an unobstructed site, which contributed to its extraordinary status. The clerics and architects were able to create a plan and set it up exactly how they desired. The complex has a consistent theme and a single identity because construction was completed in a single campaign. Only five years after the cathedral structure was finished, work on the cloisters, which mimic the interior of the cathedral in terms of materials, shapes, and patterns, began as a purely ornamental feature.
It was an ideal opportunity for the development of Early English Gothic architecture, and Salisbury Cathedral made full use of the emerging style's new techniques. From the prominent west windows to the painted arches of the east end, pointed arches and lancet shapes can be found everywhere. The cathedral's narrow piers were made of cut stone rather than rubble-filled drums, which changed the method of distributing the structure's weight and allowed for more light in the interior. Slender columns of dark gray Purbeck marble adorn the piers and reappear in clusters and as stand-alone supports in the triforium, clerestory, and cloister arches. The plate tracery patterns found in the triforium and cloisters, which are essentially stone cut-out shapes in the shapes of quatrefoils, cinquefoils, even hexafoils and octofoils, are repeated. There is consistency in the proportions.
Location: Salisbury, Wiltshire
