Wiltshire is a large English county situated in central southern England. Although it does not boast any coastline, it is crisscrossed by beautiful rivers teeming with rainbow trout.

As in many other English counties the capital, Salisbury, is not the largest city. That honour now belongs to the sprawling town that is Swindon, but it is in Salisbury that we will start our tour.

You cannot think of Salisbury, you cannot visit Salisbury, without paying your respects to the magnificent Cathedral. It boasts the tallest spire of any English cathedral at 404 feet and indeed it was the tallest building in all of Britain for an amazing 700 years. The spire was added around 1300. See www.salisburycathedral.org.uk for more details. And yet it was not the first cathedral in the area, the previous one was began in the eleventh century out at Sarum, on a windswept site. Not surprising then that when the time came to replace it, those in positions of power chose a more amenable site down in the valley close to the river.

Salisbury has always attracted artists, John Constable