How was the site chosen?

The cathedral’s video says that its site was selected by firing an arrow and possibly hitting a deer.  Is this true?

Nope.

The book “Endless Street” by John Challenger is very helpful here.

The Bishop already had a manor at Milford – which was also and confusingly called Old Sarisburie  –with a small village including St Martin’s church.  The churchmen’s plans were bigger than just a cathedral – they were going to lay out a whole new town, and they needed a lot of space for it.

The land chosen was conveniently near the crossroads between the east-west road from Winchester via Clarendon Palace to Wilton, and the north-south road from Old Sarum to the Avon ford and onwards to the important port at Christchurch.

The lines of these key roads can still be seen, incorporated into, and distorting a bit, the new town’s grid of roads.

The bishop would get the planning uplift (as we now call it) from the conversion of fairly low-grade agricultural land into residential plots which could be rented out for 12d a year.  More money would come from running a market and having a water mill, so although the bishop would be putting a lot of money into the construction project, he could also expect to get plenty back.

Other villages already established nearby were Fisherton Anger to the west and Harnham to the south.

A Curious Reader might be thinking:

• What is Clarendon Palace?
• Was Salisbury the only New Town being built?
• Why are some of the streets in the grid wiggly?

PS Both the old and new cathedrals are apparently on a ley line joining Stonehenge to Clearbury Ring through Old Sarum