A
pleasing presentment of Edward VII now looks down this old by-street
from the High Street Gate and is Salisbury's tribute to that lover of
peace. The Close is bordered by beautiful old houses, some quite noble
in their proportions, but likely to be overlooked by all but the most
leisured visitor. It is so difficult to look at anything but the tower
and spire, and it is best to forget that another tower, a campanile,
similar to that at Chichester, once stood on this greensward, to be
wantonly destroyed by James Wyatt. This is said to have been
garrisoned by the Parliamentary army during the Civil War. The
Deanery, opposite the west door, is a quaintly charming building and
the gabled King's House is said to date from the fourteenth century.
No incongruous note ever seems to mar the serenity of the great green
square. The passers-by all apparently fit their environment;
schoolgirls in their teens, fresh faced and happy; clergy of the
Chapter, true type of the modern intellectual priest; an occasional
workman employed about the Cathedral, upon whom its impress has
visibly descended; quaint imps in Elizabethan ruffles playing a
seemingly sedate game upon the lawn while their companions are singing
in the choir; the ordinary sightseers who, apart from bank holidays,
always seem to arrive at the same times and in the same twos and
threes, and put on, as do the inevitable butchers' and bakers' youths,
a cloak of decorous quiet when they enter the guardian gateways.
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