Uncovering Fisherton Anger

In 2018, the Novichok poisonings brought my hometown of Salisbury to world attention. Suddenly everyone seemed to know about the Maltings, Elizabeth Gardens and, of course, the 123-metre spire of Salisbury Cathedral.

My memories of Salisbury are rather different: walking through the Maltings on the way to the library, paddling in the river at Elizabeth Gardens, and looking out for the cathedral spire on the way home from trips away. When we saw the spire, we knew we were home.

Salisbury also hides a forgotten settlement right next to the city centre, one that most visitors walk through without knowing. About 1538 the antiquary John Leland noted "a village at Fisherton over [the river] Avon before New Salisbury was built, and it had a parish church there" (spelling modernised).

St Clement's Church, Fisherton Anger. (Image used with permission of Wiltshire and Swindon History Centre.)

Leland is talking about Fisherton Anger, just west of (New) Salisbury across the River Avon. The 1086 Domesday Book describes Fisherton Anger as three villagers, five smallholders, a slave. mill and 40 acres each of meadow and pasture. (Domesday counted only the heads of households, so perhaps 40 or 50 inhabitants.) The parish church, St Clement's, is first mentioned in the 1300s, although it was likely built much earlier.

Two miles away, a decision was being made that would change Fisherton's future. At Old Sarum, William the Conqueror had built a royal castle inside an Iron Age hill fort. A cathedral followed, consecrated in 1092. But clergy and soldiers, cooped up together on the hilltop, didn’t get on. The bishops and priests complained, it seemed, about everything: the lack of water, the lack of housing, the lack of birdsong, strong winds and even the dazzle of the surrounding chalk. They wanted to move.

In 1218 the Pope granted their wish. The cathedral moved to the river valley below, presumably to the relief of both soldiers and clergy alike. The foundation stone of the new cathedral was laid on 28 April 1220, and the city was laid out around it in a grid pattern. New Salisbury had arrived.

View of Salisbury from the hilltop at Old Sarum. From 1218, the clergy moved down the hill to the river valley below. (© Ian Capper cc-by-sa/2.0)

Only the River Avon now separated Fisherton from the new city. By 1300 a bridge joined the two settlements. Fisherton Street, leading off from the bridge, thus became the western exit from Salisbury. Inns, taverns and housing soon sprang up. By 1686, Fisherton offered 82 beds and stabling for 123 horses, among the highest in the county. A brewery, malthouse and kiln also appeared, possibly helped by looser licensing laws than the city of Salisbury.

Fisherton Bridge over the River Avon 2018. The clock tower dates from 1892 but uses part of the wall of the old gaol. The bridge itself was reconstructed in 1961. (© Brian Robert Marshall cc-by-sa/2.0)

Fisherton had the dubious distinction of holding the county gaol, with the gallows a short, convenient walk away. From the 18^th century onwards, Fisherton gained an infirmary, railway station, playhouse, gas works, brick kilns and the largest private "madhouse" in the country.

Fisherton Anger c.1887, Fisherton Street, Fisherton Bridge and the site of St Clement's Church marked in dark green; other sites of interest marked in olive green.(Ordnance Survey 6-inch map, 1887, Wiltshire Sheet LXVI. Reproduced with the permission of the National Library of Scotland.)

Fisherton's success came at a price: it was losing its identity. Throughout the 19th century, parts of the parish were carved off and absorbed into the city of Salisbury. By 1905 the process was complete, and Fisherton Anger ceased to exist as a civil parish. (The ecclesiastical parish lives on. St Clement's Church was demolished in 1852, but a new church was built elsewhere in the parish, using some of St Clement’s fixtures, monuments and font.)

Fisherton Anger isn't lost entirely. It's still there, if you know where to look. From the main railway station, you have two routes into the city centre. 1) Turn right onto Mill Road, the lane of the original village. You'll pass the graveyard of old St Clement's, now a secret garden, and the Mill House (still standing although the mill itself was pulled down over 50 years ago). 2) Take the direct route - straight ahead, down busy Fisherton Street, still full of eclectic shops and buildings, to Fisherton Bridge over the River Avon.

Both routes take you through the ancient parish of Fisherton Anger and into the new city of Salisbury.

Straight on to Fisherton Street or right to Mill Road? Both routes take you through Fisherton Anger.  (©Chris Talbot cc-by-sa/2.0)

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If your ancestors lived here

• Fisherton's registers begin with baptisms in 1651, burials in 1653 and marriages in 1654.

• Population figures include the gaol, infirmary and asylum. An ancestor recorded "in Fisherton" may have been an inmate or a patient rather than a resident.

• Fisherton Anger is now part of Salisbury, so check records under both names.

Sources & further reading

Chandler, John, Endless Street: A History of Salisbury and its People, The Hobnob Press, 1983.

Crittall, Elizabeth (ed.), "Fisherton Anger" and "Salisbury: Bridges, bars, gates and mills", in A History of the County of Wiltshire: Volume 6, Victoria County History, 1962. British History Online

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A Description of that Admirable Structure, the Cathedral Church of Salisbury, 1774. Internet Archive

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Royal Commission on Historical Monuments, Ancient and Historical Monuments in the City of Salisbury, 1977. British History Online

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Salisbury plaques: the County Gaol

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Wiltshire Online Parish Clerks: Fisherton Anger.

Wright, Jamie, “Fisherton Anger: From Domesday settlement to medieval suburb”, in Hadrian Cook and Alex Langlands (eds), Tales of Two Cities: Settlement and Suburb in Old Sarum and Salisbury, Archaeopress, 2024, pp. 185–202.

Wright, Jamie, Fisherton Anger, Salisbury's older suburb (video), Society for Landscape Studies, 2022.