| Back Story |
 Toby Melville/Reuters |
| Last week, two Russians named by Britain as the prime suspects in a nerve agent attack said that they were merely visiting the “wonderful” English city of Salisbury as tourists. |
| They wouldn’t have been alone. |
| Near the famous Stonehenge site, the city is about 90 miles southwest of London and is perhaps most famous for its Gothic cathedral, above, which attracts half a million visitors a year. |
| In “Notes From a Small Island,” the best-selling author Bill Bryson explained, “There is no doubt in my mind that Salisbury Cathedral is the single most beautiful structure in England.” |
| The main body of the cathedral was completed in 1258 and, as noted by one of the suspects in an interview on Russian TV, “It’s famous for its 123-meter spire.” (That’s equivalent to 404 feet, making it the tallest church spire in Britain.) |
| The cathedral contains the best-preserved of the four original copies of Magna Carta, the 13th-century document to restrict the powers of the king. |
| It’s also the burial place of Edward Heath, the former British prime minister, and is home to what is thought to be the world’s oldest mechanical clock. |
| The cathedral has also featured widely in literature and art, particularly in the work of the landscape painter John Constable. |
| Chris Stanford wrote today’s Back Story. |
