Old Sarum is the site of the earliest settlement of Salisbury in England. Located on a hill about 2 miles north of modern Salisbury near the A345 road, the settlement appears in some of the earliest records in the country, it is open to the public. The great monoliths of Stonehenge and Avebury were erected nearby and indications of prehistoric settlement have been discovered from as early as 3000 BC. An Iron Age hillfort was erected around 400 BC, controlling the intersection of two native trade paths and the Hampshire Avon; the site continued to be occupied during the Roman period. The Saxons took the British fort in the 6th century and used it as a stronghold against marauding Vikings; the Normans constructed a motte and bailey castle, a stone curtain wall, a great cathedral. A royal palace was built within the castle for King Henry I and was subsequently used by Plantagenet monarchs; this heyday of the settlement lasted for around 300 years until disputes between the Sheriff of Wiltshire and the Bishop of Salisbury led to the removal of the church into the nearby plain.

As New Salisbury grew up around the construction site for the new cathedral in the early 13th century, the buildings of Old Sarum were dismantled for stone and the old town dwindled. Its long-neglected castle was abandoned by Edward II in 1322 and sold by Henry VIII in 1514. Although the settlement was uninhabited, its landowners continued to have parliamentary representation into the 19th century, making it one of the most notorious of the rotten boroughs that existed before the Reform Act of 1832. Old Sarum served as a pocket borough of the Pitt family. Edward Rutherfurd's 1987 novel Sarum traces the history of the town; the present name seems to have been a corruption of the medieval Latin and Norman forms of the name Salisbury, such as the Sarisburie that appeared in the Domesday Book. The longer name was first abbreviated as Sar̅, but, as such a mark was used to contract the Latin suffix -um, the name was confused and became Sarum sometime around the 13th century; the earliest known use was on the seal of the St Nicholas hospital at New Salisbury, in use in 1239.

The 14th-century Bishop Wyvil was the first to describe himself as episcopus Sarum. The addition of'old' to the name distinguished it from New Sarum, the formal name of the present-day city of Salisbury until 2009; the hilltop at Old Sarum shows evidence of Neolithic settlement as early as 3000 BC. There is evidence that early hunters and farming communities occupied the site. A protective hill fort was constructed by the local inhabitants around 400 BC during the British Iron Age by creating enormous banks and ditches surrounding the hill; the hillfort is broadly oval measuring 400 m in length and 360 m in width. It consists of intermediate ditch with an entrance on the eastern side. Numerous other hillforts of the same period can be found locally, including Figsbury Ring to the east and Vespasian's Camp to the north; the archaeologist Sir R. C. Hoare described it as "a city of high note in the remotest periods by the several barrows near it, its proximity to the two largest stone circles in England, namely and Avebury."

At the time of the Roman conquest of Britain in the 1st century, the area of Old Sarum seems to have formed part of the territory of the Atrebates, a British tribe ruled by Gaulish exiles. Although the dynasty's founder Commius had become a foe of Caesar's, his sons submitted to Augustus as client kings, their realm became known as the Regnenses and the overthrow of one of them, was the casus belli used to justify the Emperor Claudius's invasion. Claims that the British hillfort was called Sorviodunum result from misinterpretation of the Roman road network and Sorbiodoni in the Antonine Itinerary, it does not seem to have been occupied by the Roman army at all, although it may be that the fort has not yet been located. The settlement appeared in the Welsh Chronicle of the Britons as Caer-Caradog or Gradawc and as Caer-Wallawg. Bishop Ussher argued for its identification with the "Cair Caratauc" listed among the 28 cities of Britain by the History of the Britons traditionally ascribed to Nennius.

Cynric, king of Wessex, captured the hill in 552. It remained part of Wessex thereafter but, preferring settlements in bottomland like nearby Wilton, the Saxons ignored Old Sarum until the Viking invasions led King Alfred to restore its fortifications. In the early part of the 9th century, it was a frequent residence of Egbert of Wessex and, in 960, King Edgar assembled a national council there to plan a defence against the Danes in the north. Along with Wilton, it was abandoned by its residents to be sacked and burned by the Dano-Norwegian king Sweyn Forkbeard in 1003, it subsequently became the site of Wilton's mint. A motte-and-bailey castle was built by four years after the Norman conquest; the castle was held directly by the Norman kings. In 1075, the Council of London established Herman as the first bishop of Salisbury, uniting his former sees of Sherborne and Ramsbury into a single diocese which covered the counties of Dorset and Berkshire, he and Saint Osmund began the construction of the first Salisbury cathedral but neither lived to see its completion in 1092.

Osmund was a cousin of Lord Chancellor of England.

The Hyde Novices' Hurdle is a Grade 2 National Hunt hurdle race in Great Britain, open to horses aged four years or older. It is run on the Old Course at Cheltenham over a distance of about 2 miles and 5 furlongs, during its running there are ten hurdles to be jumped; the race is for novice hurdlers, it is scheduled to take place each year in November. The event was given its present name when it attained Grade 2 status in 2008. Prior to this it had been run at a lower grade under various titles. From 2010 to 2016 the race was sponsored by Neptune Investment Management and run as the Neptune Investment Management Novices' Hurdle. Since 2017 it has been run as the Ballymore Novices' Hurdle; the race was first run in 1996. Horse racing in Great Britain List of British National Hunt races Racing Post: 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019pedigreequery.com – Hyde Novices' Hurdle – Cheltenham

A variance is a deviation from the set of rules a municipality applies to land use and land development a zoning ordinance, building code or municipal code. The manner in which variances are employed can differ depending on the municipality. A variance may be known as a standards variance, referring to the development standards contained in code. A variance is granted by a Board or Committee of adjustment. A variance is an administrative exception to land use regulations; the use and application of variances can differ throughout the great number of municipalities worldwide that regulate land use on this model. The issuance of variances may be common, or nearly unheard-of in a given municipality; this can depend on a municipality's regulations, built environment and development pattern, political climate. One city may view variances as a routine matter, while another city may see variances as unusual exceptions to the norm. Community attitudes and political climates can change within a city as well, affecting the manner in which variances are granted when no changes are made to the regulations governing variances.

In the United States, the process for a variance must be made available to a landowner upon request, or the municipality may be in danger of committing a regulatory taking. The variance process has been described as "a constitutional safety valve" to protect the rights of landowners. Two broad categories of variances are used in the practice of local land use planning: area variances and use variances. An area variance is the most common type, it can be requested by a builder or landowner when an odd configuration of the land, or sometimes the physical improvements on the land, requires a relaxation of the applicable regulations to avoid denying the landowner the same rights and use of the property enjoyed by owners of neighboring properties. A textbook example would be a house built on an oddly-shaped lot. If the odd shape of the lot makes it onerous for the landowner or builder to comply with the standard building setbacks specified in the code, a variance could be requested to allow a reduced setback.

Another would be a house built on a sloping lot. If the slope of the lot makes it onerous to comply with the height limit—typically due to the way the municipality's code requires height to be measured—then a variance could be requested for a structure of increased height because of the special conditions on the lot. A use variance is a variance that authorizes a land use not permitted by the zoning ordinance; such a variance has much in common with a special-use permit. Some municipalities do not offer this process, opting to handle such situations under special use permits instead. Grant of a use variance can be similar, in effect, to a zone change; this may, in certain cases, be considered spot zoning, prohibited in many jurisdictions. In either case, the variance request is justified only if special conditions exist on the lot that create a hardship making it too difficult to comply with the code's normal requirements. A request for a variance on a normal lot with no special conditions could judiciously be denied.

The special conditions or hardship must arise from some physical configuration of the lot or its structures. The financial or personal situation of the applicant cannot be taken into consideration. Under most codes governing variances, approval of the variance must not result in a public health or safety hazard and must not grant special privilege to the property owner. In other words, when a variance is granted, any other property owner with similar site conditions should be able to obtain a similar variance. Zoning Spot zoning Zoning in the United States Special use permit Nonconforming use 1 ^zoning information about Residential Investment Property Schindler's Land Use Page Land Policy Institute at Michigan State University