Salisbury Cathedral, located in the heart of the town with the same name, was the successor to an older cathedral built next to Old Sarum Castle, the ruins of which now stand about one and a half miles from the newer cathedral. The older buildings were erected by the Normans in 1075, but by the 1190's it was clear that a new cathedral was needed. The stones for the newer cathedral were laid in the meadow that became the center of the town in 1220 by Bishop Richard Poore, and the church was consecrated only 38 years later, in 1258. Despite its being a "secular" cathedral (i.e., not being the main place of worship for or housing a particular monastery) a cloister, the largest in England, was also built shortly after the cathedral and houses the oldest working mechanical clock in England. This clock, which originally sat in the bell tower, was replaced sometime in the 17th century but the old one still runs.

Some seventy years after the cathedral was completed (the precise dates are unclear), probably in the 1320's, the 404-ft. spire was added. Almost all of its 6400-lb. load is born by the four central pillars below it, which were not originally intended to hold a spire and are visibly strained by the weight. Several supporting iron bands were wrapped around the inside and the outside of the spire at the time of its construction; the connecting joints of these supports are considered to be very sophisticated ironwork for the time. More stability was given by crossbeams added in about 1450, and although the spire leans about 0.7 meters, it appears to be fairly stable to this day. Indeed, the scaffolding installed inside the spire to aid in cleaning and repair work actually hangs from the top of the spire and is not supported by anything other than those same four pillars. In the eighteenth century, the architect James Wyatt was asked to improve the cathedral, both structurally and aesthetically. The most notable of his changes were the installation of a wall around the Close, a drainage system for the surrounding land, and the removal of all medieval stained glass from the windows, which he replaced with plain clear glass. Some of this plain glass has subsequently been replaced with the modern compositions seen in the images below.

The cathedral is currently undergoing extensive repair work on the west end to counteract the continually-disintegrating force of pollution. The stone work all over the building is visibly corroded, and even what has been replaced recently shows signs again of wear. Indeed hard hats are mandatory on the 2-hour tour of the tower spire that involves some 500 tight spiralling stone stairs and culminates at a height of almost 400 feet over the town of Slaisbury. Inside the top of the tower lies one of only three medieval hauling wheels that still haunt English cathedrals. The wheel pictured below was turned by four or five men and was used to haul stone and other building materials up to the top of the tower from about the 14th century onward. Interestingly, the wheel had no breaking mechanism save the strong hands of the men turning it. If something was momentarily dropped, there was no way of keeping it from leaving a crater in the cathedral floor hundreds of feet below.