Mompesson House

Mompesson House, ‘The House in The Close’, is a perfect example of Queen Anne architecture and was built for Charles Mompesson in 1701. It is noted for its elegant and spacious interior, especially the magnificent plasterwork and fine oak staircase.

See the important Turnbull collection of 18th century drinking glasses, fine period furniture and charming walled garden with its garden tearoom. Mompesson House featured as Mrs Jennings’ London home in the award-winning film ‘Sense and Sensibility’.

This season we also have a contemporary sculpture exhibition in the house and garden ‘Material Connections across the Ages’. It looks at connections between contemporary sculpture and historic objects. There are pieces made from glass, paper, stone, textile and wood, among others.

A glimpse of two of the artworks can be seen in the first two photographs.  The final photograph is an artwork by Jane Hall and is entitled ‘Lady of the Woods’.

Taste Sensation

Belly pork and black pudding accompanied by onion mash and red cabbage…

Delicious 😉

More about our visit to the ‘Haunch of Venison‘ can be found at the end of my ‘Salisbury Day Two‘ post.

The Poultry Cross

The Poultry Cross is a market cross in Salisbury, Wiltshire, UK, marking the site of former markets. Constructed in the 14th century and modified in the 18th century it stands at the junction of Silver Street and Minster Street.^[1] It has been designated by English Heritage as a Grade I listed building.^[2]

The Poultry Cross is the only one remaining of four market crosses that once existed in Salisbury. The others were the Cheese Cross in the present Cheesemarket area, Barnard’s Cross (livestock) at the junction of Barnard Street and Culver Street and another which designated a market for wool and yarn at the east end of the present Market Place near the War Memorial.^[1]

The presence of a market cross on the Poultry Cross site dates to 1307 and the name to about a century later. The present stone structure was built in the late 15th century. The original flying buttresses were removed in 1711, as can be seen in the painting of 1800 by JMW Turner;^[3] the present buttresses date from 1852-4,^[1] when the upper parts of the cross were rebuilt to the designs of the architect Owen Browne Carter.^[4]

Arundells

Within Salisbury Cathedral Close is Arundells the home of former Prime Minister Sir Edward Heath.  It looks like an interesting place but unfortunately we did not have enough time to visit.

Arundells, in Salisbury’s Cathedral Close, reflects Sir Edward’s time in public office and contains his collections of: paintings, (including Wyllie, Singer Sargent, Piper, Churchill, Sickert, Augustus and Gwen John, John Nash, Lowry and many more), sailing and musical memorabilia, Oriental and European ceramics, cartoons, bronzes, Chinese and Japanese artworks, photographs and much more, just as they were when he lived there, along with access to the beautiful two acre garden. We have also opened Sir Edward’s study for the first time to the public this year, in addition to a picture filled corridor, which is on the first floor.

Memorial Garden…

…The Rifles Berkshire and Wiltshire Museum.

Salisbury Cathedral – Cloisters

Salisbury Cathedral has the largest cloisters of any British Cathedral.

The cloisters were started as a purely decorative feature only five years after the cathedral building was completed, with shapes, patterns, and materials that copy those of the cathedral interior.

It was an ideal opportunity in the development of Early English Gothic architecture, and Salisbury Cathedral made full use of the new techniques of this emerging style. Pointed arches and lancet shapes are everywhere, from the prominent west windows to the painted arches of the east end. The narrow piers of the cathedral were made of cut stone rather than rubble-filled drums, as in earlier buildings, which changed the method of distributing the structure’s weight and allowed for more light in the interior. The piers are decorated with slender columns of dark gray Purbeck marble, which reappear in clusters and as stand-alone supports in the arches of the triforium, clerestory, and cloisters. The triforium and cloisters repeat the same patterns of plate tracery – basically stone cut-out shapes – of quatrefoils, cinquefoils, even hexafoils and octofoils. Proportions are uniform throughout.

Salisbury Cathedral – Two Altars

Altar of St Margaret of Scotland:

(c.1045-1093). Descendant of Alfred King of Wessex and ancestor of Queen Elizabeth II Canonised 1250.

Wife of King Malcolm III of Scotland. The 17th century frontal is thought to be Spanish but may be Italian, and shows scenes from the life of St. Teresa of Avila (1515-1582).

It is one of the treasures of the Cathedral.

This altar serves as a focus of prayer for the Mothers’ union of the Diocese.*

Altar of St Laurence:

Martyred 258, traditionally by roasting on a grid-iron.

The mensa (altar top) is one of the two oldest altar stones in the Cathedral.*

*Information taken from the sign boards situated in the Cathedral.

Salisbury Cathedral – The Bumping Stone

The Salisbury ‘choir boys’ traditionally undergo a quaint initiation ceremony.

Chorister initiation – “bumping”

now be said about the rather quaint initiation ceremony for newly made choristers after Evensong on the day that they receive their surplices.

The new chorister is seated on the stone shelf in the south choir aisle with the Bishop’s Chorister and the Vestry Monitor standing each side of him with their hands on his head. They proceed to, fairly gently, bump his head against the stone wall behind him seven times saying:

“We bump you a chorister of Salisbury Cathedral according to ancient custom”.

There is quite an indentation in the stone worn away over the ages!

Salisbury Cathedral lays claim to being the first English Cathedral to found a girls choir.

The year 1991 was a great one for the cathedral’s music when Richard Seal, organist of many years’ standing embarked upon a completely new venture, recruiting, founding and training a girl’s choir, 18 strong aged between eight and 11 years at the time of recruitment. It was the first English cathedral girls’ choir and has gone from strength to strength and when in the cathedral is completely independent of the boys’ choir.

On our visit to the Cathedral we were informed that the girls didn’t undergo the same initiation ceremony as the boys…  They merely got whacked on the head with a prayer book!

Salisbury Cathedral – The High Altar

The High Altar is the very heart of the Cathedral.  This is the table where Holy Communion is celebrated.  The embroidered frontal changes during the year to reflect the season in the church.

The window behind the High Altar is entitled Prisoners of Conscience and is situated in the Trinity Chapel. It was designed by the French artist Gabriel Loire and installed in 1980.

The centre lancet shows the Crucifixion with gold above signifying Truth, a triangle of light from Jesus’s head shines on the graves of prisoners. The ascending spiral expresses the theme of Resurrection.

On the left, at the foot of the cross, a sorrowing figure of the Mother of Jesus. Centre left lancet shows (in second panel down on left hand side) the head of Jesus from the the back as he stands before Pilate, (in the second panel down on the right hand side) Pilate in judgment and boy holding bowl for him to wash his hands disclaiming responsibility and (in the third panel down on the right hand side) a cock crows three times when St Peter denied Our Lord and the face of St Peter weeping in remorse.

The centre right lancet shows Jesus in a red robe with his head crowned with thorns, blood running down his forehead, being mocked by soldiers. The far left lancet shows the firm faces of convinced prisoners. Far right lancet shows the doubting faces, arrows of doubt, with anchor of  hope at the top left and the green star of vision at the top right.

Even close up I found the detail a little unclear.

The Apostles Speaking in Tongues Lit by Their Own Lamps

This artwork of terracotta figures by Nicholas Pope is currently situated in the Trinity Chapel at Salisbury Cathedral.

The Apostles Speaking in Tongues Lit by Their Own Lamps is a dramatic re-enactment of events narrated in the New Testament. On the Jewish feast of the Pentacost, the Holy Spirit was said to have come upon the Apostles in Jerusalem enabling them to speak in tongues to all those present. The Holy Spirit descends amidst a ‘rushing mighty wind’ and appears in the form of ‘cloven tongues of fire’. Nicholas Pope’s Apostles are likewise the bearers of fire. Made in brick clay of earth-colours, each figure supports a primitive oil-lamp backed by a halo of beaten metal. The lamps provide a pulsating glow which is reflected from the polished metal.

Just like individuals who make up the average Anglican community – the clergy, the parish council, the parishioners – the twelve apostles came from ordinary walks of life, from agriculture, teaching, the world of commerce. Like members of the congregation, some were good and trusting souls, others turned out to be less wholesome. Pope doesn’t take a neutral view of the twelve. His figures are breathtaking and imposing but at the same time they include aspects of the hideous and the comical. Each figure is identified by his attributes: Doubting Thomas sports trunk-like bloodsucking appendages; Mathew, a tax-collector, carries a heavy paunch while the two-faced Judas has fleshy protruding lips.*

Acts 2:1-6:

And when the day of Pentecost was fully come, they were all with one accord in one place. And suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting. And there appeared unto them cloven tongues like as of fire, and it sat upon each of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and began to speak with other languages, as the Spirit gave them utterance. And there were dwelling at Jerusalem Jews, devout men, out of every nation under heaven. Now when this was noised abroad, the multitude came together, and were confounded, because that every man heard them speak his own language.

*From a Salisbury Cathedral leaflet on the exhibition