Salisbury (GB)

Salisbury 683 cancel

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Salisbury is a cathedral city in Wiltshire, England, with a population of 40,302, at the confluence of the rivers Avon, Nadder, Ebble, Wylye and Bourne. The city is approximately 20 miles (32 km) from Southampton and 30 miles (48 km) from Bath.

Salisbury is in the southeast of Wiltshire, near the edge of Salisbury Plain. Salisbury Cathedral was formerly north of the city at Old Sarum. Following the cathedral's relocation, a settlement grew up around it which received a city charter in 1227 as New Sarum, which continued to be its official name until 2009, when Salisbury City Council was established. Salisbury railway station is an interchange between the West of England Main Line and the Wessex Main Line.

Stonehenge, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, is 8 miles (13 km) northwest of Salisbury.

The name Salisbury, which is first recorded around the year 900 as Searoburg (dative Searobyrig), is a partial translation of the Roman Celtic name Sorbiodūnum. The Brittonic suffix -dūnon, meaning "fortress" (in reference to the fort that stood at Old Sarum), was replaced by its Old English equivalent -burg. The first part of the name is of obscure origin. The form "Sarum" is a Latinization of Sar, a medieval abbreviation for Middle English Sarisberie.

Salisbury was allocated the 683 post office numeral in the lists of 1844

Salisbury (GB)

REGISTERED SALISBURY on 4½d Jubilee in 1894

Experimental cancels

In the 1850's Salisbury Office trialled a new type of postal cancelling machine.

E coded Experimental cancel without pins

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Army Encampments and Field Post Offices - On Salisbury Plain

The British Army first purchased land for military training on Salisbury Plain in 1897.

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The Bustard Camp Field Post Office

The British Army first purchased land for military training on Salisbury Plain in 1897. The outbreak of war in 1914 led to a huge increase in the size of the Army. The existing barracks could no longer accommodate all the troops. Tented camps soon sprang up all over the plain, serried ranks of white bell-tents lined the roads and tracks.

Initially the camp FPO was channelling their post via the towns of Aylesbury and Salisbury Offices. Later becoming a Branch Office of the Devizes office at the onset of the First World War.

The camp was used by both the Canadian and New Zealand Army for war training.

THE BUSTARD CAMP FIELD P.O. 1903	Another Postcard view of Bustard Field Camp c.1914
THE BUSTARD CAMP B.O. DEVIZES 1910	(Reverse of Right postcard.) Postcard view of Bustard Field Camp featuring A Friend that never leaves us on the Plain an Earwig.