THE CHURCH HOUSE.
From a Photograph by Witcomb and Son, Salisbury.[ToList]
The Guildhall, a very interesting building as engravings show, was demolished at the end of the eighteenth century. The Joiners Hall, the Tailors Hall, the Hall of John Halle, the Old George, are still standing, with some of their features modified but not sufficiently altered to deprive them of interest.
The Church of St. Thomas à Becket is a most picturesque structure, and, placed as it is in a square of old tiled houses, makes a delightful picture. It consists of a nave with two aisles, a chancel with aisles, and a vestry room. It was built in 1240 by Bishop Bingham. The embattlemented tower has in its south front two niches containing much mutilated figures of the Virgin and Child and St. Thomas à Becket. In the porch is a very curious panel with a biblical subject rudely carved by Humphrey Beckham, who died, aged eighty-eight, in 1671, and left this as his memorial. The most striking feature of the interior is the large painting above the chancel arch, representing the Day of Judgment, in the naïve manner of its time. A reproduction will be found in Hoare's "Modern Wiltshire" (vol. 6), and most works on ecclesiastical mural decoration mention it as one of the most important examples that have come down to us. Other paintings in the south aisle were brought to light by Mr. G.E. Street during the restoration in 1867. Without and within it is a building hardly less worth study than the cathedral itself.
THE POULTRY CROSS.
From a Photograph by Carl Norman and Co.[ToList]
St. Edmund, founded by Bishop de la Wyle in 1268 for a Provost and twelve secular canons, is at the north-east of the city. To the east of its churchyard is the college of St. Edmunds, on the site of the convent founded in 1268 by the same bishop. In the grounds of the college stands the old north transept porch of the cathedral, a picturesque ruin whose architecture at once disposes of the theory that it came from Old Sarum.
OLD PLAN OF SALISBURY.[ToList]