Old Sarum hillfort, is like a fine piece of abstract art in the landscape of Britain. It sits a small distance from Salisbury, the cathedral city of Wiltshire, though not the county town This fort is celebrated by I think most would agree by the greatest painting of a hillfort in terms of looks and history. So Constable as you see on this page, made that watercolour. Though possibly it is not the hillfort element that makes it so unusual, it is the fact it is a hillfort, and how there was a Norman motte and bailey castle, placed on it, and a Roman fort, that made it so unique and extraordinary. If anything this is what makes it have a very unusual appearance.

So then also in that it was occupied as a major site in the Iron Age, then in the Roman era it had a Roman fort, and the Anglo-Saxon era saw it become a major fort for the Saxons, unusual for a hillfort, indeed they used it against the Vikings. Then it was important as a cathedral site in the Medieval era of England. Strangely then it declined afterwards, and was famously a deserted hill, that had the most rotten borough in Britain before the Great Reform act, with 2 MPs, for no inhabitants. There were many sites like that, so nobody has any ill will towards it. 
It has seen more population in recent eras, as occurs across Southern England, and has houses and streets nearby, but there are plenty of fields around for what has in the past been a great urban centre.

Maybe the unusual history, has added to the preservation of the site, and it's quirky in a good way appearance

Anyway these are my slingshot points regarding it. 

* Old Sarum is the most multi role hillfort there is, in the amount of roles it had, well among that so, 

* Among it's MPs was William Pitt the Prime minister, William Pitt the elder, but not his son, Pitt the younger. So Pitt the elder sat here as a Member of parliament, and became PM. The Elder was PM in the 1760s, and the younger for almost a combined 2 decades between the 1780s and 1810s. So a amazing achievement for the family there we can all agree. 

It seems Pitt The Elder became MP for Old Sarum when he was 27 or so, in the 1730s, it was a borough with 2 MPs, one of 7 or 8 boroughs that the Pitt family owned. With the seven plots of land or houses there each having a vote, whether someone lived there or not. It was owned by older brother, and previously by his grandfather, who was Diamond Pitt, who was famed for selling a diamond for tens of thousands to a French regent, after serving as a merchant in the East India Company in the early 18th Century. Indeed this fellow who made such a fortune also sat at Westminster at Old Sarum, as did the older brother of Pitt the Elder, who as of inheriting the constituency could nominate the MP of his choice. At the same time, the whole county of Yorkshire elected 2 MPs. Though I am unsure if it had boroughs as well. Good things that was sorted out in the 19th Century reform acts. 

* So Old Sarum, became the worst example of a rotten borourgh, as by the 17th Century it was likely quite depopulated, and certainly by 1830 it's 2 MPs for what were now no inhabitants, were a big comparison, as before the Chartists and co, over 90% of the population had no MPs they could vote for. Thus was the story of Old Sarum rotten borough. Today it is usually part of the Salisbury constituency, a normal sized seat for the house of Commons, in voter numbers, but which of course with all it's residents did not have a vote in the Old Sarum constituency ironically, when it was a rotten a borough. 

* Old Sarum had been occupied from at least 400 BC as a defensive settlement with exterior ramparts there to keep protected animals and such like. 

* It then expanded into becoming a hillfort, pretty much the shape you see today, oh than the motte bit. that some could call Old Sarum Castle. 

*Old Sarum is now a tourist and heritage focussed location, indicating a cross-functional spread of roles over it's history arc. Whereas in the past cutting edged practices were maybe carried out in the fields of military, and religious observation, now they will be on customer focussed objectives to do with visitors, and history  teaching and learnings.  The final deliverable product for the stakeholders, as in those who visit or know of the site, is thus a task that "Historic England" and English Heritage, interested media, Salisbury City Council, and and the UK and pan-Wiltshire government and other key bodies, plus interested members of the general public keep an eye out for, and task themselves with. 

* The Romans had the site from soon around their conquest of South Eastern Britain around 43 AD, and had a continual settling of the area, with a town outside the well protected site. 

* Wessex and then England as a whole, used the site to help protect their burgh. 

* The Normans turned Seresberi into a very unusual sight, by putting that motte on it. The name Seresberi later mutated into Salisbury which is why you can say Old Sarum, Salisbury, as this is where it is. As I say they had a 12th and 13th Century fortification here. 

* So the site was started, a number of centuries, BC / BP and continues now into the second millennium AD. It has had visits by BBC, ITV, and more TV presenters, with people visiting in cars, motorbikes, 4 X 4s, SUVs and more, parking up close. In 2022 the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS), has authority over "Historic England", who look over such sites. It sits near the A345 road, and has had MPs and future PMS represent it in the House of Commons. With Salisbury City Council, SCC, and Wiltshire. With organisations like Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural History Society WAS, and the Ordinance Survey OS based in Southampton, with offices in nearby Swindon historically,;. Interestingly it was not much used, the cathedral by the COE, Church of England, despite there being something called the Sarum rite as the cathedral was not really used after 1220, what with the newer cathedral in Salisbury.

* The Sarum Rite or Sarum Litergy was one of a number of examples of what we call the Roman Rite which itself was used in England before the schism  that split the Church of England, and the Roman Catholic Church. This example was carried out at the post 1220 Cathedral of Salisbury (I don't mean Old Sarum at this point), sometimes labelled Sarum, and from there in various parts of England, and the British Isles as a whole but mostly more so in the south of England, from the thirteenth to sixteenth centuries. Actually the first Book of Common Prayer of the year 1549 was partly based on this rite, with it then the base of the rites of both the Episcopal & Anglican churches. Also it must be said there was  variations of the said Sarum Rite.  Before the year 1549, no rite was used universally across England.  It seems the rite developed from In 1078, when William the Conqueror appointed a Norman noble, Osmund, as bishop of Salisbury, so of what is now the ruins of Old Sarum. Who as a bishop made revisions to existing Celtic-Anglo-Saxon rites and local adoptions of the more typical Rome and other Continental based Roman rites, with him fusing in Norman and Roman traditions in. So this rite can be said to have started at Old Sarum in a sense. It is still influential in English liturgies, so to a extent rites across the Anglican world today. 

* William the Conqueror actually used Old Sarum as a base, building a motte and bailey here in 1069. It became a stone castle later. It was used till the castle saw most of the population move to Salisbury, so despite building work into 1215, before which it had been a town of it's own, it was quite a deserted castle and town by the 1240s. With a effort to rebuild it in the 14th Century unsuccessful, so it then was left to go to ruin. 

* The site was listed in later centuries to be preserved, like actions in 1972, and 1882. With it among 26 sites listed in 1886 by a act of parliament as deserving protection. With today English Heritage looking after the site. 

* This saw a cathedral built on the site in the 11th Century, consecrated in 1092. This lasted till when in 1220, a new cathedral was consecrated on the Salisbury plain, finished in the 1250s. Indeed the new Salisbury Cathedral still stands majestically today in 2022. With Old Sarum dissolved in 1226. The stone of Old Sarum cathedral was partly used to help construct that new site, with relics transferred in cases as late as the 15th Century. 

* Salisbury Cathedral is a leading English one. 

* It seems Henry VIII allowed all the remaining stonework to be used for building, so it declined a lot after that. 

* Another interesting site near here, is Figsbury Ring only 4 miles north east of Salisbury a very round hillfort from above, as indicated by the name ring. The site is 6.4 hectares in size. It may have been a hillfort, but there is a case it was previously a henge as of a inner ditch, with no rampart behind it. 

So they are my facts on Old Sarum's hillfort. 

​