Built in a single generation and crowned by the tallest church spire in Britain, Salisbury is the purest expression of Early English Gothic. Its unity of style is unmatched among the English cathedrals.
The cathedral was raised on a new site by the meadows of the Avon between 1220 and 1258, its whole body conceived and completed in one sustained campaign, giving it a rare harmony of design.
The soaring spire was added a little later, about 1310–1330, reaching 123 metres (404 feet) — to this day the tallest church spire in the country, a feat of medieval daring on foundations barely four feet deep.
Within its chapter house Salisbury preserves one of only four surviving 1215 originals of Magna Carta, and its cloister houses one of the oldest working clocks in the world, dating from about 1386.