Eyes from the streets of Salisbury UK
Finally! An amazing band is coming to Salisbury. They are Dreadzone and they are playing at Salisbury Arts Centre on 4 April (9pm, bar open 8.30pm).
The gig is in aid of local charity Naomi House children’s hospice.
Tickets £15, no concessions. To book phone 01722 321 744.
3 Fish Row
Mon - Sat 8.30am - 6pm
Sun - 10am - 4pm
A very recent addition to Salisbury is Bird and Carter Delicatessen, housed in a fine timber-frame building on Fish Row, next to Pritchetts the butchers. It is independently run by Joff Bird and Annie Carter. They offer fine chacuterie (cooked and cured meats, English and continental), cheeses, pastries, hand-made cakes, savouries such as olives, pickles, sauces and chutneys, tinned fish (including the sublime Cornish pilchards from Newlyn, Penzance), coffee and all manner of dry deli items, interesting soft drinks, and filled baguettes (beautifully, and more importantly ecologically, wrapped in a peace of food grade wax paper which is biodegradable). They also provide a small catering service. Continue reading ‘Bird and Carter Delicatessen’
69 Brown Street, Salisbury, SP1 2AS.
For reservations: 01722 327137
Freehouse, with ancient origins (apparently 1292), the Rai d’Or - literally, Beam of Gold is a pub of good character and also lovingly known as Salisbury’s best ‘Thai pub’. It used to be the city’s medieval brothel whose madam, later founded Trinity Hospital next door for retired prostitutes in 1370. More recent infamy, some would say, was the pub’s period as a rough biker’s pub, then known as The Star. Continue reading ‘Rai d’Or’
Harnham Road, Salisbury, SP2 8JG
I mentioned East Harnham Deli a few posts back on our walk to Odstock. Here’s a little more about it. Neatly perched just beyond Harnham bridge, it retains its original name on the shop hoarding, ‘A. Hand and Sons’. Outside are blackboards advertising the delicious wares of the deli from sweets and cakes (the best lemon drizzle cake we’ve tasted, they use real lemons and lots of them!) to homemade tarts and pasties. It sells a good selection of ‘dry’ deli foods made by decent companies including pasta, rice, cereals, tinned soup and more.
99 Park Street, Salisbury
Harrison Bros butchers are the best butchers in town. Hidden away from the main run of shops in the city centre, you will find Harrisons on the corner of College Street and Park Street (where the entrance is). As you jingle through the chain door curtain you are not greeted by a clinical high glass or perspex counter and unsure looks from teenagers doing their first job, but a proper butcher’s block, well hewn from the daily shave it gets to ensure its clean and level for the next day. You are face to face with either of the Harrison brothers and their polite countenance and attentive manner make shopping here a joy. Their meat is well-provenanced and the butchers are knowledgeable about the proper cuts needed for your recipes.
On Wednesday 7th we attended our second Salisbury International Arts Festival event, the Bardi aboriginal dancers at Stonehenge. The Bardi are salt-water people from Western Australia’s Ardiyooloon community. Elders and future leaders performed a story about getting lost at sea, facing peril, coming home again and meeting the ancestors through dance, mesmeric chant song and gentle rhythm beaten on boomerangs. It was an amazing but surreal affair. The audience were roped off behind one of the paths that take you around the stone circle while the dances were on the other side, hiding then emerging from the giant sarsens and blue stones. In amongst the squeezing-fup sounds of opening and closing wicker picnic basics and the rustling of carrier bags was on the one hand the drone of traffic on the A303, and on the other the baa-baaing of sheep from the adjacent fields. Very English too was the polite applause in between each stage of the dance and story. Still, it all created an occasion which was truly unqiue.
More info on the performance can be found on the website of Australia’s “The Age“.
Salisbury’s Farmers’ Market takes place every 1st and 3rd Wednesday of the month, from 9am-2pm in the Market Square. This isn’t the most convenient of times to have a farmers’ market if the whole household are usually at work. However, I managed to catch it yesterday. A few farmers’ market stalls do make an appearance at the bi-weekly Charter Market with one stall each of trout (smoked and fresh, brown and rainbow), vegetables, home-made pies, English wine, bread, cheese, and meat (usually bacon and sausages). The Wednesday farmers’ market is a completely different affair. There are a wide variety of meat stalls proffering free range rare breed British Saddlebacks from the Pigman, handsome organically reared chickens (and their bones for stock for just 50p!), and even English bison, locally grown fresh-out-the-ground vegetables that smell amazing - yes, it’s amazing, vegetables have a wonderful scent if they’re grown properly and haven’t travelled hundreds of miles, garlic from specialist Isle of Wight growers the Garlic Farm, and cheese! Continue reading ‘Salisbury Farmers’ Market’
The walk from Salisbury to Odstock via the beautiful footpaths through fields of oil seed rape and wheat is thoroughly recommended. It doesn’t take long to be on your own as you leave Harnham. At Harnham, stop off for picnic supplies at the excellent East Harnham Deli (the shop’s hoarding says A. Hand and Sons Grocers, 1 Harnham Road). We armed ourselves with a home-made scotch egg (one of the best I’ve had), a broccoli and cheese pasty, two slices of lemon drizzle cake and two bottles of proper Dandelion and Burdock. In a very civilised way they are open from 10 - 3.30 on Sundays, ideal for anyone wanting to take a Sunday lunchtime walk. The round trip is about 8 miles. The highlight is meeting the River Ebble (and its cows). Odstock is nice ok though our impression was slightly marred by our hopes of getting a nice cool pint dashed. When we arrived at the village pub, the Yew Tree (about 2.30pm) it was closing and we were turned away. Not very good for hot and thirsty walkers!
St Thomas Square, opp. St Thomas’s and St Edmund’s church
Monday - Friday - 8.30 - 5.00, Saturday - 8.00 - 5.00
Last Saturday afternoon, after a hard day’s wandering, we finally managed to go into Polly Tearooms rather than walk past wistfully. I ordered a traditional cream tea, consisting of a pot of tea (enough for at least two cups), a sizeable fruit scone (choice of fruit or plain), strawberry jam (choice of strawberry, raspberry, apricot) and clotted cream (or whipped if preferred but why would you?), while my partner-in-tea went for a cream slice (slice is far too diminuative for what it was). As you enter, you can’t stop coveting the array of beautiful cakes and confectionery to choose from: gateaux, meringues, eclairs like you’ve never seen such things. Which one? Which one shall I have?? Continue reading ‘Polly Tearooms’
