As we enter the Cathedral precincts we are at once struck with the wondrous beauty and charm of this peaceful close, which surrounds, with its circling green sward, the magnificent Gothic pile. All writers have vied with each other in singing the praises of this grand achievement of Gothic art, and nowhere can we gain a better view of the grand proportions of this church, with its noble spire, than from the south-east or north-east corner of the close. Around us are the venerable walls of the fortifications, erected in the time of Edward III., who granted a license for this purpose, and gave leave to the bishop to pull down the walls of Old Sarum, in order to provide the stone. Embedded in the wall we find some stones with Norman carving, which bespeak their former location in the Norman buildings on the old stronghold of Sarum. The grand _Spire_ is the highest in England (400 feet). The tower on which it stands is Early English as far as the first storey; the two higher storeys were added in the early part of the fourteenth century, and are Early Decorated. The whole structure is magnificent. On each side there is an arcade, richly canopied, and having double windows. At each angle there is a turret, with a small crocketed spire, and from a mass of richly-decorated pinnacles the great spire rises. In the capstone still remains a small leaden box containing a fragment of decayed silk or fine linen, doubtless a relic of the Virgin. The spire has sometimes caused anxiety, and has been strengthened by metal bands, but the Early English sub-structure has sustained with wonderful constancy the weight of the two higher storeys and the spire which the somewhat venturesome builders of the time of Edward III. forced them to bear.