JOHN MAHONEY

"Oh," said the elderly lady taking donations at Salisbury Cathedral, "his mother lives right around the corner. Mr. Rutherfurd often comes in here to pray."

The author Edward Rutherfurd wrote Sarum, the epic novel of England's Salisbury Plain, which traces the intertwined lives of five families from the end of the last ice age down to the twentieth century.

I have read Sarum cover to cover three times and began it once again last week. I am still amazed at Rutherfurd's deft handling of the people and the sweep of events over 100 generations. His work is outstanding.

Old Sarum, the original hilltop fort site of Salisbury, is a few miles from Stonehenge. There is nothing left now of the castle, the cathedral, and the town except excavated ruins covered in grass cropped short by sheep.

The sign pointing to Old Sarum is small and easy to miss, and the tree-lined road leading up the hill to the ancient site is narrow. At first it's difficult to imagine, as you cross the deep protective ditch around Old Sarum, that this hilltop once housed a thriving town of thousands, a mighty castle, and a magnificent cathedral.

The history of Old Sarum echoes over the ages, from neolithic, pre-celtic Britons through Roman occupation, to the creation of the grand cathedral in 1075 - just nine years after William the Conqueror was victorious at Hastings in 1066.

The arid, windswept hill with its commanding view, not far from mysterious Stonehenge, had been in use for thousands of years - lived upon, worshipped upon, grazed upon, defended against all comers. Yet, just 145 years after the cathedral was built Old Sarum was abandoned.

The cathedral and castle were dismantled. A great new cathedral was built a few miles away in a more hospitable site, near the River Afon, beginning in 1220. During the decades between 1280 and 1310, the majestic spire - more than 400 feet high and the tallest in England - was added.

Salisbury was on its way to becoming a thriving town. Old Sarum, abandoned forever, became sheep-grazing ground.

In the early part of this century archaeologists uncovered the ruins, and protected what was left of the walls and foundation. The ancient stone well and the massive stone latrine pits bear mute testimony of lives once lived at Old Sarum.

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