FEW places convey the spirit of ancient England better than the ruins and ramparts of Old Sarum — especially on a windy day.

Yet the hilltop bleakness which enhances the old walled city’s appeal today was also a key contributor to its abandonment over eight centuries ago.

“The continual gusts of wind make such a noise that those celebrating the divine offices can hardly hear each other speak,” says a papal document dated 1217.

“The place is so rheumatic by reason of the wind that they often suffer in health.

“The church is so shaken by wind and storm that it daily needs repair, and the site is without trees and grass, and being of chalk has such a glare that many of the clerks have lost their sight.” These were not the only problems.

“Water is so scarce that it has to be bought at a high price and access to it is not to be had without the governor’s permission.

“People wishing to visit the cathedral are often prevented by guards from the garrison.

“Housing is insufficient for the clergy who are forced to buy houses from laymen.”

By the early 13th century most of Old Sarum’s congregation had already deserted.

Now their church leaders decided to follow the flock.

In 1217, Bishop Richard Poore obtained royal and papal permission to build a new cathedral in “spacious fields of pleasantness” near the River Avon.

Work began in 1220, and as the new Salisbury appeared in the lowlands, the old walled city two miles away entered its death throes with reluctance.

It was an uninhabited ruin by 1535, yet still it maintained its grip on history, continuing until 1832 to elect two Members of Parliament as the rottenest of England’s “rotten boroughs”.

Archaeological exploration apart, the 1832 Reform Act wrote the last chapter of a story begun during the un-chronicled days of pre-history.

The Ancient Britons settled here first, Iron Age Celts who built a hillfort about 2,000 years ago.

For them, the site had much to offer, including access to water and fertile valleys.

Old Sarum’s qualities were also not lost on the Romans.

They created a military town called Sorviodonum.

The Anglo-Saxons came next, renaming the hillfort Searoburh, meaning “place of battle”.

The Saxons preferred to build their homesteads in the fertile valleys, with Wilton as their provincial capital.

Only when the Vikings posed a new threat 300 years later was the hillfort resettled.

In the ninth century, King Alfred had the outer ditch re-dug and the earthworks lined with palisades. In the tenth King Edgar held his court at Sarisberie.

In the 11th century coin producers sought safety in the hillfort after Danes sacked the Saxon mint at Wilton.

In 1066 the Normans found a thriving community, an outpost of Wilton with its own mint and fine earthwork defences.

In 1086 the Domesday Book noted four mills along the Avon and the beginnings of a township on the slopes beyond the hillfort’s main ramparts.

Construction of a cathedral was also well under way following Bishop Herman’s decision to transfer his see from Sherborne to Salisberie, as the Normans subtly renamed it.

The hillfort’s new-found ecclesiastical importance was about to lead it into its greatest period of prosperity — and, ironically, to its abandonment a century-and-a-half later in favour of a replacement city two miles away.