The True Heart Inn

The True Heart is a historic listed building which is over three hundred years old.

Mr Bill Chaney was one of the first landlords in living memory. His son ran the first bus service to Swindon, using the Inn's car park as a makeshift bus depot.

After Bill Chaney retired, Mr and Mrs Mitchell ran The True Heart for many years. Mr Mitchell also had a milk round in the village so he converted an old stable at the rear of the Inn into a washroom by adding a brick built copper sink where bottles could be washed.

A clubroom was created in about 1938 where the villagers could hold Whist drives or Bingo sessions. It could be hired for private parties, wedding receptions or for teas for the visiting bell-ringers, as it was the largest room in the village at the time.

Mr and Mrs Mitchell's son, Jim, took over the management of the pub and in 1976 converted the stable into "The Stable Bar". Although the chimneystack has since gone, it is still possible to see where the beer was once brewed.

After various landlords, Bryan and Mandy Hickton took over the running of the pub in 1999 and have since turned The True Heart into a thriving business.

Bishopstone

Bishopstone has a fascinating history. You will find here some extracts from a number of documents researched by local people. Over time we hope to include some archive pictures and much more detail. Hopefully what you will find here already will be enough to inspire you to find out more about this unique village. Since history began....

The first mention of the village is in 1086 when the bishop of Ramsbury's estate included lands with that name. The original spelling of Bissopeston which means settlement (tun) belonging to a bishop.

There is evidence to suggest, however, that the area around Bishopstone has been inhabited since prehistoric times, and a Roman mosaic has been uncovered on the downs to the south. In a coombe just south of the village is a flight of well preserved Strip Lynchets.

Bishopstone became a parish in the 13th century. Originally Bishopstone was a cluster of farms grouped around the springs that rose where two coombes meet just north of the ancient Icknield Way. Here the church, the manor and the farmsteads were built. At about the same time a mill and mill pond were added with the mill race plunging under the road.

During the Middle Ages Bishopstone appears to have been quite wealthy returning above average figures in the assessment for taxation of 1334. The number of poll-tax payers in 1377 was 169 - a very high figure for the time. By the 18th century the village had begun to expand south of the Icknield Way with the erection of several lines of cottages. This was supplemented in the 19th century when the school was built.

During the 20th century Bishopstone has continued to expand with the village hall being added in 1977 and several small housing estates being built on the periphery. It has, thankfully, escaped the destructive infilling seen in so many other parts of Wiltshire.

Bishopstone Manor

The earliest record of an Episcopal estate in Bishopstone is 1208. It remained in church hands until the Civil War when in 1647 it was sold on. There was a house on the manor from 1341 and in 1758 it stood north-west of the church. In 1862-63 the Ecclesiastical Commissioners built a new redbrick house (the first in the village). This was originally called Forest House and later Prebendal Farm. The old manor house was demolished between 1884 and 1922.

Economic History

During the late middle ages there were two areas of cultivation, Eastbrook, and Westbrook. These names are referenced in 1425 where there seems to have been a simple two field system established. By 1647-9 there were around 50 farms recorded, each with its own, small area of pasture. This was concentrated in the centre of the parish with the uplands used for common pasture. Sometime before 1758 around 120 acres of Russley Down were enclosed and made into a sporting estate. In 1784 the parish measured 3,520 acres, of which 1,725 were arable land, over 700 acres of meadow and lowland pasture, and 800 acres of upland pasture and down. During the 18th century the number of farms fell and those that remained grew bigger. By the 19th century most of the land had become concentrated into a few large farms. Since the second world war there have been only 3 principle farms in the parish, these are: Manor, Prebendal and Eastbrook. Watercress was grown in the village from 1878 to the 1930's and was famous in London. There are also references to cloth making and in 1927 hemp was being produced commercially.

Demographics

Bishopstone, despite recent development, is one of the most attractive villages in Wiltshire. Many of the original cottages still stand and are much sought after. However, this was not always so because in 1659, John Aubrey writing in his "Topographical Collections" describes them thus: "A more wretched lot could not be found in the whole country". Certainly there was a high death rate in the village as the following figures show:- Between the years 1880 and 1905, there were a total of 232 deaths, 23 of these were babies under one year old, 21 were children aged between one and ten, 18 adults between the ages of ten and thirty and 12 adults between 30 and 40 years. During the same period, however, 50 people were over 80 and seven of these were over 90. Bishopstone longevity is renowned in the village, where people still seem to live to a 'ripe old age'. In the early 1860's there were 712 people living in the village occupying 146 houses. By the early 1890's this number had dropped to 503 and in 127 residences, 75 of which had less than five rooms. The census of 1901 tells us that there had been a further drop of 89 in the population and the remaining 414 people now lived in only 108 houses, of which 55 had fewer than five rooms. Families of 10 or 12 were not exceptional here and often crude sacking screens were erected in the bedrooms to separate boys from girls. Most of the houses were of chalk and thatch, in fact there was no brick in the village until Prebendal Farm, then Forest House, was built, were clustered around the many springs. As the 20th century dawned it was quite common to see groups of young men, some in their teens and early twenties crawling around dying of tuberculosis. The pools connected to the springs, which had been in use for a thousand years or more, must have contained every form of pollution and only strong constitutions could survive drinking the water. Many thanks to Bill Woodward and Rob Clark for the content shown here.

The Church

Bishopstone is part of the Parish of Bishopstone, Hinton Parva, Liddington and Wanborough. A beautiful church is always seen to advantage in a beautiful setting. Bishopstone Churchyard, irregular in shape and falling away steeply to the north-east, makes a wonderful setting for the church. It is dedicated in honour of the Blessed Virgin Mary and its Patronal Festival is kept on the feast of her Purification, the ancient Candlemas Day, February 2nd. Quite distinct from this is its Dedication Feast, held on August 26th or the Sunday after at. On this day thanks are given for the church, a fair formerly visited the village and relatives from afar came back to visit their families. Bishopstone was an Episcopal manor from pre-conquest days and continued so until 1869 when the Ecclesiastical Commissioners became owners of the village upon the death of the then Bishop of Salisbury.