Old Sarum

views updated Jun 08 2018

Old Sarum was the original site of the city of Salisbury, abandoned in 1220 for the situation closer to the river Avon. By Tudor times it was totally deserted. It continued to return two members of Parliament until 1832 and became a symbol of the old regime, having, by the 18th cent., no more than a handful of voters and not knowing a contest between 1728 and its abolition in Schedule A of the Great Reform Act.

J. A. Cannon