CATHEDRALS are some of our most remarkable buildings – ancient, up to 800 years old in some cases, beautiful, spiritual and often located in remarkable positions. Durham immediately leaps to mind and St Paul’s in the Blitz is truly described as iconic. But perhaps the most extraordinary is Salisbury, not just for its undeniable beauty (the West front is a marvel, the stained glass breathtaking, the view along the nave profoundly moving) but for its location in a valley, where five rivers meet.

As you drive into Salisbury from any direction, the first thing you see is the spire. It has inspired (pun intended) writers, includng William Golding, and painters – most notably John Constable. And now a contemporary Wiltshire-based painter, Nick Andrew, has celebrated this lofty, elegant needle in the sky in a book of plein air drawings and paintings.

Simply called Spire, the book captures elusive and enchanting images of the cathedral spire, whether glimpsed through the willows along the river banks, viewed across the water meadows or spotted in the distance as you drive towards the city on the A36 over Pepperbox Hill or the A30, the old Roman road, past Figsbury Rings.

From January 2022 to September 2023, Nick Andrew, who has his studio at Bull Mill, Crockerton near Warminster, worked on a collection of mixed media drawings, documenting that ‘first glimpse’- looking back at the spire from as far as possible beyond the city from 32 compass points, through the seasons, surrounded by the stunning wider landscape around Salisbury.

The charm of the book is not only the paintings – anyone who knows Nick Andrews’ work will be familiar with his special feeling for moving water and for the plants and trees that grow alongside the Avon, the Wylye and Wiltshire’s other chalk streams. He has also shown his feeling for urban spaces in recent projects drawing some of London’s secret gardens and quiet leafy squares.

In this new book, he also puts the images into words, capturing the sights and sounds around him as he draws – coal tits that “hop and chee and burr overhead” … “leeks, beans and sweet peas twisting over ex-clothes driers” … “a young child’s song, tuneless and free” …”a ragged gather of rooks [that] squabble and twist”

It makes the countryside around Salisbury and the everyday life of unnoticed corners of the city come alive – and always, somewhere, that elegant 404 foot (123 metre) high spire pointing to the heavens.

The pictures were first exhibited at Fisherton Mill, in Salisbury in September 2023. This year, all the drawings, along with illustrations of work in progress, as well as accompanying narratives have been published as a book, which can be bought online at www.nickandrew.co.uk/spire-book-by-nick-andrew