Salisbury Cathedral and the Magna Carta

I drove down to Salisbury Cathedral this morning. It was a beautiful, hour-long drive through winding farm roads. One of the four original Magna Cartas is kept there, so I was excited to see that too.

Before going, I paid online for a "bell tower tour". I wasn't sure exactly what it would include, but there were a lot of warnings about steep stairs without railings, so I was excited :)

The tour was amazing! The tour guide had worked there for 30 years, he seemed to know every inch of the place and its history. It is common for a tour to walk right alongside public crowds, but not this tour. We went through a secret back door, locked it behind us, and went past signs that said no public access! 

We basically climbed through the rafters like a carpenter or roofer. We climbed hundreds of stairs almost to the very very top of the spire. At the highest point there was a framed certificate from the Guiness book of world records- for one of the tallest spires. 

One story he told us was about how the wood was sawed. Two carpenters would put a log across a pit. The two-person saw had one person on top of the pit and one below, in the pit. Each person was known as a dog. The one on top was called the over dog, and the one underneath, getting covered in sawdust, usually an apprentice, was called the underdog. 

I'm learning more and more about architectural styles. I think I can point out Tudor, Georgian and Medieval. From the top of the spire, the view was fantastic and the guide pointed out all the styles we could see.

After the tour, I walked next door to the Magna Carta. Again, I wasn't sure exactly what to expect. It's in a relatively small octagonal room with a beautiful high ceiling. Inside the room, there's a small tent-like structure that allows a few people at a time to walk in and look at it.

Admittedly, I can only remember the bare fundamentals of the Magna Carta. I know it's the most formal predecessor to the U.S. constitution.  But actually....wow, there's a lot more detail behind it.

The paper document we call the Magna Carta isn't actually the Magna Carta at all?! A document two iterations later was called the Magna Carta, but even that document was called that until later. The document we know as the Magna Carta is actually a very different charter. Something about a king and his barons making a deal, it doesn't talk about "the people" at all. I think it's actually called Articles of Barons. Even more, the document we know, only lasted a few weeks, so it really wasn't very successful at all. 

All that said, I suppose you have to give credit somewhere along the line, so this document may be as close as we can get. And it's 800 years old this year, so that's fantastic.

I stopped by Durdle Door after Salisbury, but more on that in a separate post.

On the drive home I was starving, so I stopped at the most crowded pub I could find. The food was excellent and the family next to me had a young daughter. When they stood up to leave, she started talking and she sounded exactly like Peppa Pig. I quickly googled the voice of Peppa, saw some photos, and it's very possible it was her. Probably not, but still fun to think :)