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Wiltshire
Wiltshire is rich in the reminders of ritual and packed with not-to-be-missed sights. Its verdant landscape is littered with more mysterious stone circles, processional avenues and ancient barrows than anywhere else in Britain. It's a place that teases and tantalises the imagination – here you'll experience the prehistoric majesty of Stonehenge and the atmospheric stone ring at Avebury. Add the serene 800-year-old cathedral at Salisbury, the supremely stately homes at Stourhead and Longleat and the impossibly pretty village of Lacock, and you have a county crammed full of English charm waiting to be explored.
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Top attractions
These are our favorite local haunts, touristy spots, and hidden gems throughout Wiltshire.
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Salisbury Cathedral
England is endowed with countless stunning churches, but few can hold a candle to the grandeur and sheer spectacle of 13th-century Salisbury Cathedral. This early English Gothic–style structure, built between 1220 and 1258, has an elaborate exterior decorated with pointed arches and flying buttresses, and a sombre, austere interior designed to keep its congregation suitably pious. Its statuary and tombs are outstanding. Highlights of a visit here are the cathedral’s original 13th-century copy of Magna Carta, and taking a tour of the tower. Inside the cathedral Beyond its highly decorative West Front, a small passageway leads into the 70m-long nave, lined with handsome pillars of Purbeck stone. In the north aisle look out for a fascinating medieval clock dating from 1386, probably the oldest working timepiece in the world. At the eastern end of the ambulatory the glorious Prisoners of Conscience stained-glass window (1980) hovers above the ornate tomb of Edward Seymour (1539–1621) and Lady Catherine Grey. Other monuments and tombs line the sides of the nave, including that of William Longespée, son of Henry II and half-brother of King John. When the tomb was excavated a well-preserved rat was found inside Longespée's skull. Salisbury Cathedral's spire is the tallest in Britain © Ron Ellis / Shutterstock The spire Salisbury's 123m crowning glory, its spire, was added in the mid-14th century, and is the tallest in Britain. It represented an enormous technical challenge for its medieval builders; it weighs around 6500 tonnes and required an elaborate system of cross-bracing, scissor arches and supporting buttresses to keep it upright. Look closely and you'll see the additional weight has buckled the four central piers of the nave. Sir Christopher Wren surveyed the cathedral in 1668 and calculated that the spire was leaning by 75cm. A brass plate in the floor of the nave is used to measure any shift, but no further lean was recorded in 1951 or 1970. Despite this, reinforcement of the notoriously "wonky spire" continues to this day. Tickets and other information Timed tickets must be booked in advance via the website. These are valid for repeat visits for 12 months after purchase. Tickets include access to the Chapter House where you can view Magna Carta. Check the website for the availability of tours, including the very popular tower tours. The cathedral really comes into its own during evensong. Again, you will need to book your visit in advance.
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Magna Carta
Magna Carta on display in Salisbury Cathedral's Chapter House is one of only four surviving original copies. A historic agreement made in 1215 between King John and his barons, it acknowledged the fundamental principle that the monarch was not above the law. It's a still-powerful document, beautifully written in Latin and remarkably well preserved. It's displayed in an interactive exhibit in the 13th century Chapter House. There's also a high-resolution facsimile in the North Transept.
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Stonehenge
An ultramodern makeover at ancient Stonehenge has brought an impressive visitor centre and the closure of an intrusive road (now restored to grassland). The result is a strong sense of historical context, with dignity and mystery returned to an archaeological gem. A pathway frames the ring of massive stones. Although you can't walk in the circle, unless on a recommended Stone Circle Experience tour, you can get fairly close. Admission is through timed tickets – secure a place well in advance. Stonehenge is one of Britain's great archaeological mysteries: despite countless theories about the site's purpose, from a sacrificial centre to a celestial timepiece, no one knows for sure what drove prehistoric Britons to expend so much time and effort on its construction, although recent archaeological findings show the surrounding area was sacred for hundreds of years before work began. The first phase of building started around 3000 BC, when the outer circular bank and ditch were erected. A thousand years later, an inner circle of granite stones, known as bluestones, was added. It's thought that these mammoth 4-tonne blocks were hauled from the Preseli Mountains in South Wales, some 250 miles away – an extraordinary feat for Stone Age people equipped with only the simplest of tools. Although no one is entirely sure how the builders transported the stones so far, it's thought they probably used a system of ropes, sledges and rollers fashioned from tree trunks – Salisbury Plain was still covered by forest during Stonehenge's construction. Around 1500 BC, Stonehenge's main stones were dragged to the site, erected in a circle and crowned by massive lintels to make the trilithons (two vertical stones topped by a horizontal one). The sarsen (sandstone) stones were cut from an extremely hard rock found on the Marlborough Downs, 20 miles from the site. It's estimated that dragging one of these 50-tonne stones across the countryside would require about 600 people. Also around this time, the bluestones from 500 years earlier were rearranged as an inner bluestone horseshoe with an altar stone at the centre. Outside this the trilithon horseshoe of five massive sets of stones was erected. Three of these are intact; the other two have just a single upright. Then came the major sarsen circle of 30 massive vertical stones, of which 17 uprights and six lintels remain. Much further out, another circle was delineated by the 58 Aubrey Holes, named after John Aubrey, who discovered them in the 1600s. Just inside this circle are the South and North Barrows, each originally topped by a stone. Like many stone circles in Britain (including Avebury, 22 miles away), the inner horseshoes are aligned to coincide with sunrise at the midsummer solstice, which some claim supports the theory that the site was some kind of astronomical calendar. Prehistoric pilgrims would have entered the site via the Avenue, whose entrance to the circle is marked by the Slaughter Stone and the Heel Stone, located slightly further out on one side. Long-term plans to move the main A303 road, which runs close to the site, into a tunnel are still being debated. The proposed tunnel aims to reduce traffic around Stonehenge, although some commentators fear it could damage other, as yet undiscovered, monuments in the area. The last admission to Stonehenge is two hours before closure. Visiting the site is free for English Heritage and National Trust members, but they still have to secure a timed ticket. Trains run from London Waterloo to Salisbury station (£25, 1.5 hours, every half hour), nine miles from Stonehenge. Stonehenge Tour buses (£16) depart from Salisbury station half-hourly from June to August, and hourly between September and May.
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Wilton House
Stately Wilton House provides an insight into the rarefied world of the British aristocracy. One of England's finest stately homes, it's been the house of the earls of Pembroke since 1542, and has been expanded, improved and embellished by successive generations. Highlights are the Single and Double Cube Rooms, designed by the pioneering 17th-century architect Inigo Jones. Wilton House is 2.5 miles west of Salisbury; bus R3 runs from Salisbury (£2.70, 10 minutes, one to three hourly Monday to Saturday). The result of centuries of embellishments at Wilton is quite staggering: magnificent period furniture, fresco ceilings and elaborate plasterwork frame paintings by Van Dyck, Rembrandt and Joshua Reynolds. All the architectural eye candy makes the house a favoured film location: The Madness of King George, Sense and Sensibility and Pride and Prejudice were all shot here. But Wilton was serving as an artistic haven long before the movies – famous guests include Ben Jonson, Edmund Spenser, Christopher Marlowe and John Donne. Shakespeare's As You Like It was performed here in 1603, shortly after the bard had written it. The fine landscaped grounds were largely laid out by Capability Brown.
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Visitor Centre
The highlight here is a 360-degree projection of Stonehenge through the ages and seasons – complete with midsummer sunrise and swirling star-scape. Engaging audiovisual displays detail the transportation of the stones and the building stages, while 300 finds include flint chippings, bone pins and arrowheads. There's also a strikingly lifelike model of the face of a Neolithic man whose body was found nearby. Outside you can step into recreations of Stone Age houses and watch rope-making and flint-knapping demonstrations. The visitor centre is 1.5 miles from the stones. A fleet of trolley buses makes the 10-minute trip – you can also walk.
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Salisbury Museum
The hugely important archaeological finds here include the Stonehenge Archer, the bones of a man found in the ditch near the stone circle – one of the arrows found alongside probably killed him. With gold coins dating from 100 BC and a Bronze Age gold necklace, it's a powerful introduction to Wiltshire's prehistory.
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Old Sarum
The huge ramparts of Old Sarum sit on a grass-covered hill 2 miles north of Salisbury. You can wander the grassy ramparts, see the original cathedral's stone foundations, and look across the Wiltshire countryside to the spire of the present Salisbury Cathedral. Medieval tournaments, jousts, open-air plays and mock battles are held on selected days. Bus X5 runs hourly from Salisbury to Old Sarum (£2.30), Monday to Saturday. It's also a stop on the Stonehenge Tour bus. The site began life as a hill fort during the Iron Age, and was later occupied by both the Romans and the Saxons. By the mid-11th century it was a town – one of the most important in the west of England. William the Conqueror convened one of his earliest councils here and the first cathedral was built in 1092, snatching the bishopric from nearby Sherborne Abbey. But Old Sarum had problems: it was short on water and exposed to the elements, and in 1219 the bishop was given permission to move the cathedral, so founding the modern-day city of Salisbury. By 1331 Old Sarum's cathedral had been demolished for building materials and the settlement was practically abandoned.
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Cathedral Close
Salisbury's medieval cathedral close, a hushed enclave surrounded by beautiful houses, has an other-worldly feel. Many of the buildings date from the 13th century, although the area was heavily restored during an 18th-century clean-up by James Wyatt. The close is encircled by a sturdy outer wall, constructed in 1333; the stout gates leading into the complex are still locked every night. Just inside the narrow High St Gate is the College of Matrons, founded in 1682 for the widows and unmarried daughters of clergymen. South of the cathedral is the Bishop's Palace, now the private Cathedral School, parts of which date from 1220.
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St Thomas's Church
This stately church was built for cathedral workmen in 1219 and named after 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. On the Hell side, look out for two naked kings, a nude bishop, a miser with his moneybags, and a female alehouse owner – the only person allowed to hang on to her clothes.