We have officially landed! Our Memorial Day weekend adventure got off to a bit of a sluggish start after picking up the rental car at Stansted. Let’s just say the holiday traffic heading southwest toward Salisbury tried its absolute best to test our patience. But once we finally arrived, stretched our legs, and watched the afternoon light break through the clouds, every mile of that bumper-to-bumper drive was instantly forgotten.
We chose Salisbury as our base camp because it’s the perfect geographic anchor for our packed itinerary, but we also had a huge personal reason for wanting to stay here. As Salisbury University alumni, we couldn’t resist checking out the mother ship!
While we were expecting to find a few shared street names, digging into the history reveals that the connection between our old college town on the Eastern Shore of Maryland and this historic English city goes way deeper than just a name.
The Salisbury Connection: Maryland vs. Wiltshire
Our hometown of Salisbury, Maryland, was officially founded in 1732 at the head of the Wicomico River. The English settlers who established it named it directly after this very city in Wiltshire. Looking at them side-by-side, it’s clear they were trying to replicate a bit of home:
- The Geography: Both cities were deliberately founded around intersecting rivers. While Maryland has the Wicomico, English Salisbury is famous for being the meeting point of five different rivers (the Avon, Nadder, Ebble, Wylye, and Bourne).
- The Hub Mentality: Just as Salisbury, MD, quickly became the bustling “Capital of the Eastern Shore” and a major economic shipping hub, English Salisbury was custom-built in the 13th century to be the ultimate medieval market town.
Three Mind-Blowing Facts About Our New Base Camp
As we explored, we uncovered some incredible history about this place that makes our Maryland roots feel a part of something massive:
- The City Literally Packed Up and Moved: The city we are walking around today didn’t grow naturally; it was meticulously planned. It used to sit two miles north on a hill called Old Sarum (which we are exploring tomorrow!). In 1220, the local clergy got fed up with the windy hill, the lack of water, and the rowdy soldiers at the fort. Legend says they shot an arrow from the hillfort battlements, and wherever it landed is where they built the new cathedral.
- It’s a Medieval Grid System: Because the city was custom-built in the 1200s, the planners laid it out in a perfect grid system called “Chequers.” Each square block was designed around a central courtyard, a few houses, and—most importantly—a pub. Because the water wasn’t safe back then, everyone (including kids!) drank small beer, making the neighborhood pub the literal life-source of the block.
- Home to Absolute World Firsts: The towering cathedral spire we saw on our walk isn’t just pretty—at 404 feet, it has been the tallest church spire in England since the 16th century. Inside, it houses the world’s oldest working mechanical clock (built around 1386) and one of the only four remaining original copies of the Magna Carta from 1215.
Golden Hour Magic
To cap off a long travel day, we headed out to the local water meadows just as the sun was beginning to dip.
If you’ve ever seen the famous 19th-century landscape paintings by John Constable, standing in these meadows feels like walking right into a canvas. The way the golden hour light hits the lush green grass with the massive cathedral spire cutting into the sky in the background is completely breathtaking. We managed to get some incredible, glowing photos (and maybe snuck in a quick, scenic drone flight from the public path!) that perfectly set the tone for the rest of the trip.
Tomorrow, we are diving straight into the ancient history with Stonehenge and Avebury. Stay tuned!
