The White Hart Hotel was burning as we arrived in Salisbury on the 9.40 bus from Warminster. A large crowd had gathered to watch on the street outside, which has been cordoned off with blue and white police line tapes. There were several bright red fire engines present, and their hoses criss-crossed the street like a web of rubber.
There were no flames to be seen, but the huge clouds of white and grey smoke billowed up from the caved-in roof, and from the charred windows through which jets of water were being directed. Aloof to the disaster happening around it, the concrete White Hart statue above the entrance remained untouched by the flames or the smoke, and the Union Jack hung from its pole below, gently swaying in the air.
We spent a couple of hours shopping in Salisbury’s busy street, and then met Vicky for lunch at the Red Lion, an old coaching inn. Entered through a gate in the Tudor façade, the courtyard was hung with colourful hanging baskets, and from a darkened beam, bright green tumbrels of ivy hung down into the yard, which was paved with grey, well-worn cobblestones.
Inside the darkly wooded parlour, the very history of the place was almost tangible. The energy left by countless travellers passing through in days gone by, en route to London or Bath or Bristol, seemed to charge the air, which was one of genteel dignity. We dined and chatted for an hour, then left, pausing to look at a grotesque clock carved apparently by convicts awaiting transportation to Australia. Its black frame, over 8 feet high, was covered in a bizarre array of skulls, demons, dragons, and dying men. The mechanism for striking the hour, rather than a cuckoo or a little Swiss maid, was a pair of brass skeletons that fought each other to a musical accompaniment.
We caught the bus back to Warminster at 3pm and went up to Betty’s for tea.
CurseOfTheTraveller 