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St Lawrence, Stratford-sub-Castle

13th-century church buildings in EnglandChurch of England church buildings in WiltshireChurches in SalisburyGrade I listed churches in Wiltshire
St Lawrence 0097
St Lawrence 0097

St Lawrence's Church at Stratford-sub-Castle is a 13th-century Grade I listed Church of England parish church, to the north of Salisbury, Wiltshire, England. It stands close to the abandoned settlement of Old Sarum and the River Avon, and is about 2 miles (3.2 km) north of Salisbury Cathedral.

Excerpt from the Wikipedia article St Lawrence, Stratford-sub-Castle (License: CC BY-SA 3.0, Authors, Images).

St Lawrence, Stratford-sub-Castle
Stratford Road, Salisbury Bemerton Heath

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Geographical coordinates (GPS)

Latitude Longitude
N 51.0928 ° E -1.8153 °
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Stratford Road
SP1 3LP Salisbury, Bemerton Heath
England, United Kingdom
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St Lawrence 0097
St Lawrence 0097
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Stratford-sub-Castle
Stratford-sub-Castle

Stratford-sub-Castle in Wiltshire, England, was anciently a separate village and civil parish, but since 1954 has been a northern suburb of the city of Salisbury. At approximately 170 ft above sea level, it is dominated to the east by the remains of an Iron Age hillfort within the boundaries of which a Norman castle was built. This now-ruined castle led to the village taking the name Stratford-under-Castle, later changing to Stratford sub Castle. Stratford lies south-west of the abandoned medieval settlement of Old Sarum which was also built within the area of the hill fort. It is approximately twenty one miles from Southampton. Stratford sub Castle is within the current city boundaries. There is a primary school; the nearest secondary school to the village is South Wilts Grammar School, a five-minute walk away from the southern boundary of Stratford sub Castle, on Stratford Road. The oldest building in the area is the Church of St Lawrence, which dates from the 13th century and is a Grade I listed building. The west tower was restored by Thomas Pitt in 1711. A section of the churchyard contains war graves from World War I and World War II that are looked after by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission. Before his conversion to Roman Catholicism, the hymnist Edward Caswall served as a curate. Stratford-sub-Castle cannot expand to the east or the west, being bounded by Old Sarum on one side and the River Avon on the other: it has thus become a linear settlement.

Old Sarum
Old Sarum

Old Sarum, in Wiltshire, South West England, is the ruined and deserted site of the earliest settlement of Salisbury. Situated on a hill about two miles (three kilometres) north of modern Salisbury near the A345 road, the settlement appears in some of the earliest records in the country. It is an English Heritage property and is open to the public. The great stone circles of Stonehenge and Avebury were erected nearby and indications of prehistoric settlement have been discovered from as early as 3000 BC. An Iron Age hillfort was erected around 400 BC, controlling the intersection of two trade paths and the Hampshire Avon. The site continued to be occupied during the Roman period, when the paths were made into roads. The Saxons took the British fort in the 6th century and later used it as a stronghold against marauding Vikings. The Normans constructed a motte and bailey castle, a stone curtain wall, and a great cathedral. A royal palace was built within Old Sarum Castle for King Henry I and was subsequently used by Plantagenet monarchs. This heyday of the settlement lasted for around 300 years until disputes between the Sheriff of Wiltshire and the Bishop of Salisbury finally led to the removal of the church into the nearby plain. As New Salisbury grew up around the construction site for the new cathedral in the early 13th century, the buildings of Old Sarum were dismantled for stone and the old town dwindled. Its long-neglected castle was abandoned by Edward II in 1322 and sold by Henry VIII in 1514. Edward Rutherfurd's 1987 novel Sarum traces the history of the town. Although the settlement was effectively uninhabited, its landowners continued to have parliamentary representation into the 19th century, making it one of the most notorious of the rotten boroughs that existed before the Reform Act of 1832. Old Sarum served as a pocket borough of the Pitt family. Old Sarum is also the name of a modern settlement north-east of the monument, where there is a grass strip airfield and a small business park, and large 21st-century housing developments.