TAKE YOUR CLASS ON A TOUR OF THE SALISBURY PROJECT

You will need:

1. a digital projector with 800 x 600 resolution
2. a PC
3. a direct internet connection
   

OPENING PAGE

Topographical map of the town of Salisbury, drawn by John Speed, published in the early 17th century. This vignette of the town is a detail on a larger map of the county of Wiltshire. Additional information on this map is provided by a link on the next page.

The map shows the cathedral at the bottom right with the houses of the clergy in the Close around it. The wa laid out on a grid of streets. Water diverted from the River Avon that flowed down the center of many of the streets. This feature led to Salisbury's reputation in the 18th century as England's Venice. The water system was eventually replaced by drains under ground.

SALISBURY PROJECT PAGE

1. Paragraph explaining the project: a photographic archive intended as a teaching and research tool.
2. Main links to the rest of the site.
3. At the top of the page, below the title, are links to pages dedicated to the aspects of the Salibsury Project .

CATHEDRAL PAGE

1. Brief paragraph
2. Links: Most of our attention has been focused here.
   • Two tours, outside and inside the building
   • Texts and essays on various aspects of the building
   • The archive containing hundreds of images

THE CLOSE

1. Brief paragraph and one picture
2. Link to the archive of images of the Close
3. Link to a bibliography on the subject of the Close
4. To return to the Salisbury Project Page from any page, click on the icon in the upper left hand corner

The Close is the area around the cathedral building devoted to housing the bishop and the dean and canons who form the cathedral administration. The medieval buildings have been replaced by later ones although a few of the present buildings incorporate remains of the old houses.

The houses of the Close were surveyed by the Royal Commission on the Historical Buildings of England and the inventory was published.

THE TOWN

1. Brief paragraph and one picture.
2. Links to an archive of images of the Town and to a brief relevant bibliography.

The town was planned on a grid of streets with water diverted from the Avon flowing down a channel in the center of most of the streets. A spacious market square was provided and is still the center of town today. The buildings of the town have also been inventoried by the Royal Commision on Historical Monuments who published their findings some years ago.

PARISH CHURCHES

1. Brief paragraph and one picture.
2. Links to the parish church image archive and to a related bibliography.

Medieval parish churches built subsequnt to the laying out of the town consisted of one near the market place dedicated to St. Thomas Becket, and another in the north east part of town dedicated to St. Edmund of Abingdon. A church dedicated to St. Martin up on a hill to the east of the cathedral predates the cathedral building.

OLD SARUM

1. Brief paragraph and one picture.
2. Links to the Old Sarum image archive and to a related bibliography

Old Sarum was an Iron Age hill fort that became a castle after the Conquest of England, and was the site of the previous cathedral of Salisbury. The foundations of this building are still visible.

CATHEDRAL PAGE LINKS

Exterior Tour

Aerial view and plan
Place cursor on any one of the parts of the building listed in red below the aerial view and the location number will highlight in a beige circle on both the aerial view and the ground plan. (highlighting takes a little time to work)

Begin the tour
This tour can be seen on two levels, small views with text or large single views. The viewer can navigate from one to the other as desired.

Interior Tour

Opening page: view down the nave to the east and plan
Viewer may follow the tour which begins at the west and proceeds to the east end of the bulding, or select any part of the building indicated on the ground plan or in the menu across the bottom of the page.

West end of the nave looking east and ground plan
The ground plan has triangular wedges which indicate the point of view. The picture on view is indicated by a wedge larger than the rest.

Click on any of the smaller wedges to bring up a 'pop-up' view. Get rid of the pop-up by clicking on the "x" at the top right corner of the pop-up box. The box itself may be moved around the screen by placing the cursor arrow in the border at the top of the box, holding down the mouse button, and dragging the box to the desired location. This feature permits simple comparisons.

Just above the picture of the nave are three links to views down the side aisles of the nave. Click on "south aisle". The picture changes and so does the plan - a red wedge shows where the view is aimed. Click on "north aisle" and the picture and plan change. Once these three pictures have been loaded, the viewer can switch quickly from "nave" to "south aisle" to "nave" to "north aisle" in order to obtain a sense of the lateral space of the building.

(Continue with rest of tour if desired.)

Texts and Essays

1. Book (in .pdf format, to be downloaded) by Pamela Z. Blum on the Salisbury chapter house

2.Trinity Chapel essay

Text and pictures. Pictures can be enlarged in pop-up views by clicking on them.

3. Essay by a former graduate student on education at Salisbury in the Middle Ages

Text and pictures.

4. An essay on the chapter house (a shorter version of the book-length study above, with colour pictures).

5. Contemporary account of the building of the cathedral, text only.

6. Research and work on the fabric in progress at the cathedral, text only

Image Archive

This is the heart of the site.

NOTE: The archive, with its many categories and thousands of images, takes time to explore.

Plan: upper left.

This plan can be used to help explain which part of the building is in view in the photographs. See below under Thumbnails for instructions.

List of Contents: lower left.

Contains a hierarchical list of all the images in the archive. The principle of organization is from general to specific. This is your access point to the images. Click on the section you wish to see, and a further set of menus will open up with smaller categories. Click on the desired category, and the thumbnail images for that section will show up on the right side of the screen.

The Thumbnails: right side of screen

Once you have chosen which images you want to see from the list of contents, thumbnails will open up, with brief headings to describe what you are seeing. Many of these thumbnails will also have a red link saying "View Plan". When you click on this link, the plan at the upper left changes to show the viewer what part of the building is visible in the photograph.

Larger images: bottom of screen

If you wish to see larger versions of the thumbnails, clicking on the thumbnail will open up a higher resolution image at the bottom of the screen. It is possible to open several large images at once in this area.

NOTE TO TEACHERS

Text on this site has been kept at a minimum, with the exception of the "Texts and Essays" feature. Teachers and students are encouraged to read the current publications on Salisbury and to discuss the issues that they raise. (See the "Core" bibliography in the Teacher's Guide and the Bibliography page on the website.) Research on the cathedral, the Close, the town, etc. continues and new publications will provide new insights.

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