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Brief History of the Cathedral

1075 - 1092 Norman Cathedral built at Old Sarum.
1215 Magna Carta sealed.
1220 Building of new Cathedral started on Salisbury Water Meadows. Foundation stones laid.
1258 Cathedral dedicated.
1260s – 1270s Completion of the rest of the scheme: cloisters, Chapter House, West Front and Bell Tower.
1327 Licence granted to build Close Wall from stone taken from Cathedral at Old Sarum.
1330s Completion of Tower and Spire.
1370 Construction of surviving wooden interior tower scaffolding.
1400 – 1500 Nave crossing reinforced with two vast strainer arches, and crossing vault built.
1612 James I lodges at King's House.
1641-1660 Civil War and Commonwealth period: Bishop, Dean and Chapter expelled, cloisters and Chapter House used to house Dutch prisoners of war, much damage done to cathedral.
1714 Wren Hall, the Old Choristers' School is completed.
1788 - 1791 Restoration and radical re-ordering of the Cathedral by James Wyatt. Demolition of the Bell Tower and levelling of churchyard to lawns.
1823 The artist John Constable paints his famous view of the cathedral from the grounds of the Bishop's Palace.
1860 - 1878 Restoration of the Cathedral by Sir George Gilbert Scott.
1945 - 1951 Top 30 feet of spire rebuilt.
1947 The Cathedral School moves to the Bishop’s Palace.
1985 Spire Appeal started to raise £6,500,000 for the repair and conservation of the Spire, Tower and West Front.
1991 Commencement of the Major Repair Programme, a 20 year, £20 million programme partly funded by English Heritage.
1991 Salisbury Cathedral becomes the first English Cathedral to establish a separate girls’ choir.
2000 Re-development of ‘The Plumbery’, providing new shop and restaurant facilities under a glass roof allowing views of the spire.
2000 Completion of the repair and conservation of the Spire, Tower and West Front.
2000-2010 Several new statues installed on West Front including an angel, St Aldhelm (2001), George Herbert (2003), and the Sudanese Canon Ezra (2008).
2001 New cathedral Statutes and Constitution.
2004 Present Dean of Salisbury, The Very Revd June Osborne, installed – the first woman Dean of a medieval Cathedral.
2008 The Cathedral’s 750th anniversary year. Permanent font installed, designed by William Pye and consecrated by the Archbishop of Canterbury at a special anniversary service on 28 September.
2009 The worldwide significance of Magna Carta 1215 was recognised as it was inscribed in the UNESCO "Memory of the World" register. (The finest of the four surviving exemplars is housed in the Cathedral’s Chapter House).
2011 75% of the Major Repair programme has to date been completed. Current work is centred on the Chapter House and North East transept.
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