, displaying the site of the abandoned hillfort
Prehistory There is evidence that early hunters and, later, farming communities occupied the site. A protective
hill fort, named
Sorviodunum, was constructed by the local inhabitants around 400 BC a
British tribe apparently ruled by
Gaulish exiles. Although the dynasty's founder
Commius had become a foe of
Caesar's, his sons submitted to
Augustus as
client kings. Their realm became known as the
Regni and the overthrow of one of them,
Verica, was the
casus belli used to justify the
Emperor Claudius's invasion. The settlement appeared in the
Welsh Chronicle of the Britons as ) and as Caer-Wallawg.
Bishop Ussher argued for its identification with the listed among the
28 cities of Britain by the
History of the Britons traditionally ascribed to
Nennius.
Saxon period Cynric,
king of
Wessex, captured the hill in 552. It remained part of Wessex thereafter It subsequently became the site of Wilton's
mint. uniting his former sees of
Sherborne and
Ramsbury into a
single diocese which covered the
counties of
Dorset,
Wiltshire, and
Berkshire. He and
Saint Osmund began the construction of the
first Salisbury cathedral but neither lived to see its completion in 1092. and
Lord Chancellor of
England; he was responsible for the codification of the
Sarum Rite, the compilation of the
Domesday Book, and—after centuries of advocacy from Salisbury's bishops—was finally canonized by
Pope in 1457. The Domesday Book was probably presented to William the Conqueror at Old Sarum in 1086, by the
Oath of Salisbury. Two other national councils were held there: one by
William Rufus in 1096
Bishop Roger was a close ally of who served as his viceroy during the king's absence to
Normandy and directed the
royal administration and
exchequer along with his extended family. He refurbished and expanded Old Sarum's cathedral in the 1110s.
Angevin period Medieval Sarum also seems to have had industrial facilities such as kilns and furnaces. An early 12th-century observer,
William of Malmesbury, called Sarum a town "more like a castle than city, being environed with a high wall", and noted that "notwithstanding that it was very well accommodated with all other conveniences, yet such was the want for water that it sold at a great rate".
Holinshed denied this and noted that the hill was "very plentifully served with springs and wells of very sweet water"; described his prebendary as "barren, dry, and solitary, exposed to the rage of the wind" and the cathedral "as a captive on the hill where it was built, like the
ark of God shut up in the profane house of
Baal." Holinshed records that the clerics brawled openly with the garrison troops.
Modern period The castle grounds were sold by in 1514. was an
extra-parochial area and became a
civil parish in 1858, but the civil parish was abolished in 1894 and merged with
Stratford sub Castle. In 1891 the parish had a population of 13. The site and surrounding area is now the northernmost part of Salisbury civil parish. The site of the castle and cathedral is considered a highly important British monument: it was among the 26 English locations
scheduled by the 1882
Ancient Monuments Protection Act, the first such British legislation. That protection has subsequently continued, expanding to include some suburban areas west and south-east of the outer bailey. It was also
listed as a
Grade I site in 1972. Between 1909 and 1915,
W.H. St J. Hope,
W. Hawley, and
D.H. Montgomerie excavated the site for the
Society of Antiquaries of London. as well as the street plan of the medieval city. The survey made use of
soil resistivity to
electric current,
electrical resistivity tomography,
magnetometry, and
ground-penetrating radar. The team planned to return in 2015 to complete a similar survey of the
Romano-British site to the south of the hillfort. == 20th and 21st centuries ==