bring the explorer to the old Poultry Cross.  The square pillar surmounted by sundial and ball which for years supplanted the original finial has in turn been replaced by a new canopy and cross.  The original erection has been variously ascribed to two individuals, Lawrence de St. Martin and John de Montacute Earl of Salisbury, in each case for the same reason, namely, as a penance for “having carried home the Sacrament bread and eaten it for his supper,” for which he was “condemned to set up a cross in Salisbury market place and come every Saturday of his life in shirt and breeches and there confess his fault publickly.”  Not far away is the church of St. Thomas of Canterbury, the only really interesting ecclesiastical building in the city apart from the Cathedral.  It is a very beautiful specimen of Perpendicular and replaced a thirteenth-century church founded by Bishop Bingham.  The painting of the Last Judgment over the chancel arch was covered with whitewash at the Reformation and the Tudor arms were placed in front of it.  About forty years ago this disfigurement to the church was removed and the picture brought once more into the light of day.  The old font would seem to have originally belonged to another church, as its style antedates the foundation (1220) of St. Thomas’ church.  A few fragments of old stained glass remain in the east window and in that of the Godmanstone aisle, in which aisle is an altar tomb of one of the members of that family.  Of the other churches St. Martin’s, in the south-eastern part of the city not far from the Southampton road, is the oldest, and has an Early English chancel.  St. Edmund’s, originally collegiate, was founded in 1268; it has been almost entirely rebuilt.  The Church House, near Crane Bridge, is a Perpendicular structure, once the private house of a leading citizen and cloth merchant named Webb.  Other fine old houses are the Joiners’ Hall in St. Anne’s Street and Tailors’ Hall off Milford Street.  The George Inn in High Street has been restored, but its interior is very much the same as in the early seventeenth century and part of the structure must be nearly three hundred years older.  It will be remembered that Pepys stayed here and records that he slept in a silk bed, had “a very good diet,” but was “mad” at the exorbitant charges.  He was much impressed with the “Minster” and gave the “guide to the Stones” (Stonehenge) two shillings.  In 1623 a pronouncement was made that all theatrical companies should give their plays at the “George.”  Cromwell stayed at the inn in 1645.  Salisbury seems to have been fairly indifferent to the cut of her master’s coat; Royalist and Republican were equally welcome if they came in peace.  Only one fight is worth mentioning during the whole course of the Civil War—­in which the city was held by each party in turn—­and that was the tussle in the Close, along High Street, and in the Market Place, when Ludlow, with only a few horsemen, held his own against overwhelming odds.