Place:Salisbury, Wiltshire, England

source: Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Names

source: Family History Library Catalog

the text in this section is based on an article in Wikipedia

Salisbury (various pronunciations, but locally "Salsbury") is a cathedral city in Wiltshire, England, and the only "city" within the county. It is the third-largest settlement in the county, after Swindon and Chippenham, with a population of 40,302 in the UK census of 2011.

The city is located in the southeast of Wiltshire, near the edge of Salisbury Plain. Its cathedral was formerly located to the north at Old Sarum. Following its relocation before 1227, a settlement grew up around it, drawing residents from Old Sarum and Wilton. The new town received its city charter in 1227 under the name New Sarum, which continued to be its official name until 2009, when the Salisbury City Council was established. It sits at the confluence of five rivers: the Nadder, Ebble, Wylye, and Bourne are tributary to the Hampshire Avon, which flows to the south coast and into the sea at Christchurch in [[Place:Dorset. Salisbury railway station serves the city and is a regional interchange, at the crossing point between the West of England Main Line and the Wessex Main Line.

Salisbury now falls under two authorities created in 2009, Salisbury City Council and Wiltshire Council. It was once at the heart of the Salisbury District which, during the period 1974-2009, oversaw most of south Wiltshire as well as the city. When Wiltshire's local government was reorganised under a unitary authority in April 2009, Salisbury City Council was formed, although with fewer responsibilities than the former district council.

Salisbury Rural District was an administration for a number of rural parish councils surrounding Salisbury during the period 1894-1934. Salisbury Registration District was reponsible for the registration of vital statistics and also for the administration of the national census during the periods 1837-1869 and 1895-2009. During the earlier of these two periods, Salisbury Registration District only included the three civil parishes that were made out of the earlier ecclesiastical parishes within the city of Salisbury: Salisbury St. Martin, Salisbury St. Edmund and Salisbury St. Thomas. These three parishes have been redirected here.

Salisbury Cathedral, formally known as the "Cathedral Church of the Blessed Virgin Mary", is the Anglican cathedral, and one of the leading examples of Early English architecture. The main body of the cathedral was completed in only 38 years, from 1220 to 1258.

History

For more information, see the EN Wikipedia article Salisbury.

For more information, see the EN Wikipedia article Salisbury Cathedral.

Research Tips

• From this Ancestry page you can browse the Wiltshire parishes which have parish register transcripts online, quite often from very early dates. However, reading the early ones requires skill and patience. Transcriptions should also be in FamilySearch.
• A further collection of online source references will be found on the county page for Wiltshire.