Wilton Then

Wilton in the past was an entrely different place, it was the capital of Saxon England. Wiltshire's named for Wilton and there's a road towards it in most old English cities. In London it's from Victoria Underground station, but there's Wilton roads everywhere round here. And they all lead to my ex front door.
The Holy Roman Empire set up shop on some ancient Celtic earthworks a few miles east of Wilton, and built the cathedral city of Old Sarum, which was the seat of power in the region for some time.

An abbey was started at Witon and by the time of the Reformation the Abbess of Wilton owned most of the surrounding countryside. A bunch of sacking and looting and burning fixed that.

Into the power vacuum cam the Pembroke family. I'm not sure how or when but they did. The Earl of Pembroke owned the town and the coutryside for miles around.

Arstocracy back then - such as the Pembrokes - travelled around and married for social climbing. (So if Europe's royal families seem like a set of buck-toothed giggling inbreds, it's only because they are). One of the Pembroke wives was of a Russian roayl family, and she set about building a grand church in Italian style to honor her national saint, St Nicholas. Santa Claus to the rest of us.

And so the Italiante Church of St Nicholas was built, in parts in close imitation of various European cathedrals the Pembrokes liked. She destroyed the original town church in the process - out of wanting to, it's still there, ruined. In their travels and conquests the Pembrokes transported the wealth and history of many European cathedrals to their church on their estate at Wilton and it's well worth seeing.

Getting back to Sarum: it had a problem. Being atop it's celtic earthworks it was very defensible, but it didn't have a water supply. A new city arose in the swamp below Sarum. A city with canals on the trade route from the coast on the south to the Cotswolds in the north. A new and Grander cathedral was built. Salisbury Cathedral. The Old Sarum cathedral is stiil there, from the ruins there's a view of Salisbury down the valley.

Wilton, meanwhile, was frozen in time. Earls came and went. Portraits in Wilton House. The industrial revolution gave the town a carpet factory. The Pembrokes sometimes misbehaved, as those with money can (since they have money, after all). One recent Earl shot is butler for failing to pour his brandy just so. He got off more or less scott free, and the freemasons are said to have had something to do ith that. But hey.

In a dining room alcove of the Pembroke Arms Hotel opposite Wilton House there is a map of the area circa 18something. The little villages around Salisbury are still excactly as on that map.

Wilton has a baker, a greengrocer, a florist, a convenience store, three pubs, a hotel, a few sundry shops, a notable antiques shop off the square and a dog grooming shop of all damned things.

So.. Visit in the spring when the ducks get in the roads. And buy a Barbie doll. And go to the antiques shop off the Market Square.