An inspiration in stone

Salisbury Cathedral

Salisbury Cathedral in England is breathtakingly beautiful.

I'm not alone in that view. Salisbury Cathedral -- whose full name is the Cathedral Church of the Blessed Virgin Mary -- has inspired visitors with its contrast of delicate beauty and magnificent medieval stonework for nearly 800 years.

Art and architectural historians call it one of the finest medieval cathedrals in Britain. At 404 feet, the cathedral spire is the tallest in the United Kingdom and is the tallest surviving pre-1400 spire in the world.

The church is also home to Europe's oldest working clock, which dates to 1386 and is said to have ticked more than 5 million times.

The Cathedral Church of the Blessed Virgin Mary replaced a Norman church constructed between 1075 and 1092 at what was then known as Old Sarum. In 1220, construction on a new cathedral began, and the church as it stands today was completed in 1258. Because it was begun and finished in merely 38 years, its architectural style is a consistent, unified whole, dramatically serving as an example of the Early English Gothic style.

Work on the cathedral started just 5 years after King John was forced to sign the Magna Carta at Runnymede. Today the church is home of the best preserved of the four original exemplars of that historic document, which mandated that the king explicitly accept that no freeman be punished except by law.

The English landscape painter John Constable was also inspired by Salisbury. In 1831 he exhibited "Salisbury Cathedral from the Meadows" at the Royal Academy. The painting is the culmination of his numerous treatments of Salisbury Cathedral.

I visited Salisbury 10 years ago, and the memory of its grandeur stays with me today. I've told friends that if there is a God, he lives at Salisbury.

Salisbury's magnificence also inspired Sergio Mimica-Gezzan, the director of "The Pillars of the Earth," an eight-part miniseries now in its first run on the Starz cable network. He visited Salisbury in 2008 and took detailed notes about the building, consulting with Salisbury's archaeologist. Special-effects artists who worked on the miniseries visited the next year, and elements of the real Salisbury Cathedral are shown standing in for the fictional Kingsbridge Cathedral that is the centerpiece of "Pillars."

Writer Ken Follett, who is the author of the 1989 book on which the miniseries is based, also spent time at Salisbury. You can see an interview with him in front of the cathedral by clicking here. (Follett was also cast in a bit part in the TV production, as an Anglo-French merchant.)

Salisbury Cathedral is among nearly two dozen English and European cathedrals and abbeys I have visited as a result of reading Follett's book 20 years ago. Each is unique in its splendor and majesty. (And, no, I won't be writing lengthy posts on each of them.)

Salisbury is one of the finest.