In its deserted state to-day, the site of Old Sarum vividly recalls the appearance presented by an extinct volcano, the conical hill rising from the downs with the suddenness of an upheaval, and the area enclosed within the concentric rings of banks and ditches forming a hollow space similar to a crater. The total area enclosed within these fortifications is about 28 acres. Within this space was comprised that ancient city, and in its very centre, overlooking everything else, and encompassed by a circular fosse and bank, 100 feet in height, stood the citadel. The site of this castle is now overgrown with dense thickets of shrubs and brambles; the fragments of its flint and rubble walls, 12 feet thick, and some remaining portions of its gateways affording evidence of its old-time strength. [Sidenote: _OLD SARUM_] Within this city, enclosed for centuries by the ring-fence of these fortifications, stood the cathedral, in a position just below the Castle ward. Its exact site and size (although not a fragment of it is standing) were discovered in the summer of 1834. That portion of the vanished city had been laid down as pasture, and the drought of that year revealed the plan of the cathedral, in a distinct brown outline upon the grass. This building, completed in 1092 by Bishop Osmund, furnished the stone in later years for the spire of Salisbury Cathedral and for the walls of the Close, in which, by St. Anne’s Gate, many sculptured fragments of these relics from Old Sarum may yet be seen. A variety of circumstances brought about the removal of the cathedral from Old Sarum. Water was lacking on that height, and winds raged so furiously around it that the monks could not hear the priests say Mass; and, worse than all, during the Papal Interdict, the King, in revenge for many ecclesiastical annoyances, transferred the custody of the Castle of Old Sarum from the bishops to his own creatures, who locked the monks out of their monastery and church on one occasion when they had gone on some religious procession. When the monks returned, they found entrance denied them, and were forced to remain in the open air during the whole of a frosty winter night. There was no end to the hardships which those Men of Wrath brought upon the Church. No wonder that Peter of Blois cried out, ‘What has the House of the Lord to do with castles? It is the Ark of the Covenant in the Temple of Baalim. Let us in God’s name descend into the plain.’