Another day on the rails and this time using a Freedom of Severn and Solent Rover ticket which allows travel in quite a wide area, including Cardiff, on three within any seven day period.
Salisbury has very much been in the news for the past year because of the Salisbury poisonings on 4 March 2018. Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia Skripal were poisoned as were policeman DS Bailey who became contaminated at the Skripal house and Dawn Sturgess and Charlie Rowley who came across the discarded poison. Dawn Sturgess later died from the poison. The Russian agents accused of carrying out the poisonings explained away their presence in Salisbury by saying that they were there to see the sights including the cathedral. Well, it’s good enough for them then it’s good enough for me.
As a toxicologist I naturally had an interest in the Skripal story. In fact a month after the poisoning took place I was booked to give a talk on people who had been murdered by poisons. I thought I had the talk all prepared but the events in Salisbury meant I had to add an extra section on the end. In fact, it was even stranger than that. A week before the talk I was contacted by a Russian lady I didn’t know, who asked be two questions: ‘Are you fit?’ and ‘Do you want to go for a walk in the woods?’. It turned out to have nothing to do with poisonings but purely a coincidence!
It was a two hour ride from Cardiff to Salisbury. The theme for the day ended up being churches. I hadn’t planned it that way. In fact I had a list of geocaches to find, plus some trig points, benchmarks and flush brackets, but that probably doesn’t mean much to most people so let’s just concentrate on the churches, sculptures and other buildings of beauty. After wandering around the cathedral and the open spaces outside I went I visited the area around St Edmund’s church which has now been converted to an Arts Centre. Nestling in the backstreets I discovered the church of Sarum St. Martin. Most of my pictures however were taken around the central cathedral and town centre area. I tell you what, I’ll let the pictures do the talking.
After all that excitement there was just time to pop into one of Salisbury’s fine old pub before heading back to the station. Another fine and different day out.
Date of trip: 14 Jun 2019
See progress to date: A-Z of Railway Stations
Cardiff Capers 