Stratford sub Castle village website
Salisbury, Wiltshire UK
The answers to two Local History Photo Quiz Questions are on this page:
Question No. 4 - Ownership of Old Sarum
and Question No. 49 which is further down the page.
Old Sarum - ownership
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Who owns Old Sarum?
The freehold is owned by the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport.
Old Sarum is managed by English Heritage. It was owned by the Dean and Chapter of Salisbury Cathedral, in 1886 they offered to place the site in the guardianship of the State. In 1892 it became the first major earthwork to come under guardianship of the Office of Works. In WWII this became the Ministry of Works. In 1961 the Church Commissioners gave the land to it, a year later it became the Ministry of Public Building and Works which then became absorbed into the Department of the Environment in 1970. Old Sarum is designated as a Site of Nature Conservation Interest (SNCI) by the Wiltshire Wildlife Trust but they have never owned it.
Source:
Richards, Julian. 2010. Old Sarum Castle, Wiltshire. Conservation Plan
More information on the history of local landholding by the Church Commissioners is available on the village website here
Kerry O’Connor
Local History Group
October 2020
Where would you go locally to see a good example of an iron age hill fort and have a distant view of Salisbury Cathedral?
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The answer is Figsbury rings.
The answer is NOT Old Sarum as there is nothing from the Iron Age to see there, it is all buried. Everything Roman is buried, several metres down and it came later. What you see now is some Saxon, mostly Norman and then changes over a thousand years to follow including the excavations in the early 20th C and works of the Air Ministry in WW2.
Ogbury Camp is not a good example to view from the ground as the ditch has been filled in and much of the rampart has been lost to cultivation and Salisbury Cathedral is not visible from there.
Kerry O’Connor
August 2022