Fonthill Bishop
How to get to Fonthill Bishop
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From the East & South East: From the M3 exit at
Junction 7 onto the A303 (the highway only goes to the West) signposted to
Andover. You cross the A345 roundabout, pass Stonehenge, cross the
A360 roundabout, through Winterbourne Stoke - which has a very active speed
camera - and through the roundabout on the A36. 8 km onwards just at the
end of the dual carriageway turn left onto a slip road signposted Fonthill
Bishop.
At junction 7, you're fifty minutes away from Fonthill Bishop
At Stonehenge, you're ten minutes away from
Fonthill BishopFrom Salisbury: Drive west
along the A36, through the traffic lights 2 km out of town, past the Wilton Garden Centre,
left turn
on the roundabout, through Wilton on the A30. 4 km from Wilton turn
right crossing the main road onto the B3089. 10 km later finds you in
Fonthill Bishop
It's a twenty minute drive from Salisbury
From Warminster: Drive south on the A350 towards
Shaftesbury. 10 km later, turn left at the traffic lights, onto the
B3089 through Hindon and 5 km further on to Fonthill Bishop
It's a twenty minute drive from Warminster.
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HistoryIn 874 the manor of Fonthill
Bishop, 15 miles west of
Salisbury, was granted to the Bishops of Winchester. The church, which is
cruciform in shape, was built around 1240, although there was a previous Norman
church on the site. The tower dates from 1240 and is an excellent example of
13th century work. The south door, the west window and the small window in the
tower date from the late 14th century. In the south transept there is an early
14th century tomb recess and a leger stone with the date 1632. Originally there
were two mediaeval wall paintings below the west window, but these were
obliterated in 1879 when the church was restored by the then Rector, the
Reverend R W Sheldon. He also rebuilt the chancel in 1861, which had survived on
the sane site.Formerly the church was filled with Jacobean
pews, but now only two, early 17th century, have survived the 19th
century restorations. Above the pulpit is an interesting piece of 13th century
carving. In the vestry is a carved stone head of a 13th century priest, which
was unti1 1861 on the founder's tomb in the chancel. Unfortunately, the tomb was
destroyed in that year; but the head suggests that the founder of the church was
a priest.Sir Christopher Wren's father, Dr Wren, was
Rector of Fohthill Bishop from 1620‑1628, when he was also
appointed Rector of East Knoyle. Dr Wren married Mary, the daughter of Robert
Cox, Churchwarden at Fonthill Bishop, whose yeoman family had lived in the
parish since the 13th century.By the south corner of the west wall in the
church-yard is a tombstone inscribed, "Here lies the body of Julius Plutsy,
Gent., a native of Dalmatia, who was brought into England by the Lord Fitz-James
in the reign of James II and died 6th Dec., 1745". This Lord Fitz-James was an
illegitimate son of James II and Mary Churchill. After James had been deposed
Lord Fitz-James joined the French Army and was know as The Marshal, Duke of
Berwick.
Visitors to the village should see the famous arch near the church across the road near
the river, which it is said Inigo Jones built
for Lord Cottington in the reign of Charles I. Lord Cottington purchased
the estate from the Castlehaven family around 1640. The Castlehavens
were notorious for sexual scandal in the 1620/30s which resulted in a
trial in London of the 3rd Lord Castlehaven, a guilty verdict being
returned and his subsequent beheading was on Tower Hill. There is,
incidentally, a very good Van Dyck portrait of his much-wronged wife at
Wilton. The Cottingtons held the estate until 1750
(?) when it was sold to William Beckford Sr. The house, then called Fonthill
Redivivus by Sir Richard Colt Hoare in his History of Modern Wiltshire, was
probably on the north side of the road, between the hill beside the Arch and the
lane to Stop St. It burnt down in 1755, when Beckford immediately built Fonthill
Splendens on the flat ground behind the cricket ground on the other side of the
lane towards the stables. This is all in other Parishes, however. The Arch is in
the parish of Berwick St Leonard, and the parish boundary with Fonthill Gifford
is about 50 yards inside the Arch. The Parish boundary between Fonthill Bishop
and Berwick St Leonard runs betwen the lake and the Arch, and then over the
B3089 by the bridge, so that the Bothy and Marsh Cottage are not even in the
Parish of Fonthill Bishop.Reg, a long time resident of the village,
writes:
'You might be interested in
what All Saints was like in my youth in the late 1920s and early 30s. The
Rector then was the Rev Richard Sutcliffe. Single, he lived with his mother
and married sister Mrs Young and her husband and daughter in the Rectory.
There was a Communion
service every Sunday morning at 11 o'clock, followed by an afternoon service
at 3 o'clock at Berwick St Leonard. Once a month a Communion service was held
at 10 o'clock in Berwick, which gave the Rector time to cycle back to Fonthill
to take the 11 o'clock service. Every Sunday evening there was a service at
Fonthill at 6 o'clock,and in those days there were six of us boys in the
choir, marching in from the Vestry in our white surplices, with my
brother George and me leading the way. About the only one with a decent voice
was my brother George; I was there to make up the number. In those days before radio
and television the church services were about the only entertainment there was
on a Sunday, as the Kings Arms was only open six days a week. Besides the boys
there were three women in the choir, Dorothy Dawe, Amy Hacker and Dora Smith;
all had good voices. The choir outing to Bournmouth was one of the highlights
of the year.A little about Mr Sutcliffe:
a man with a brilliant brain, he came top at Oxford in Latin and Greek and
would have been a wonderful Master at University. He made the first wireless
sets in the area in the 1920s, and supplied a lot of the villagers with them,
buying the components and building them himself. Certainly, we had one which,
by putting coils on the side, we could get America and even Australia on it;
what a pity we didn't keep it. The congregation on a Sunday
evening would be about 30 to 40. Mary Young, now living in London who I still
keep in touch with, has written several books. I have one of them, a biography
of her great-great grand‑father called The Forgotten Victorian, a parson in
Yorkshire. She has just written her autobiography, which she promised to send
me a copy when it comes out, and which will include a bit I told her about her
father.'
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BERWICK ST LEONARD
From the fourteenth century an
annual Sheep Fair was held on St Leonard's day, November 6th on the
downs to the north of Berwick. It was held close to the old trackways and ox
droves that led to London. Bonfires were lit along the drove ways to guide the
shepherds from the West Country, and also the horse traders who had travelled
from
Ireland, to the fair. Inn keepers from the many hostelries in Hindon did a good trade with their
barrels of beer up on Berwick Down.
St Leonard's sheep fair was the
highlight of the villager's year right up until 1867 when more modern methods
for moving livestock became common.
Berwick is a Saxon named meaning
the outskirts of an estate or village where the pigs are kept. Its location by a
stream is also typically Saxon. The earliest references to Berwick are in the
early twelfth century, when the manor of Berwick was granted to Robert of
Berwick and his wife Gode by the Abbess of Shaftesbury. There is no mention of
Berwick in the Domesday Book.
The church, lying hidden by a
grove of trees from the Fonthill Bishop to Hindon road, is the oldest building in
the village. The nave and the chancel were built in the twelfth century. It was
made of flint and limestone rubble and dressed with ashlar. The porch and the
tower were added in the fourteenth century. In 1861 the chancel was rebuilt by
Alfred Morrison, the owner of the Fonthill Estste, at his own expense and new
roofs, windows and interior fittings were added. There are however signs of the
original building, a blocked Norman doorway on the north side of the church and
on the inside above the blocked doorway a 12th century Agnus Dei in
a beaded circle. The simple, unadorned font is also Norman. The church was
closed in 1966 and declared redundant in 1973. It was placed in the care of the
Churches Conservation Trust in 1976. At present a service is held in the church
once a year.
In the early 18th
century the rectory was replaced by a manor house built south west of the
church. By the 1820s this building had deteriorated and was being used as a barn
and towards the end of the century was in use as a hen house. About 1900 the
newly married Lady Mary Morrison took a liking to the remains of the old manor
and had it removed stone by stone to Ridge, 3 miles away, where it became the
nucleus of a new Fonthill house. This in turn was demolished in 1972. The other
buildings in Berwick St Leonard consisted of an 18th century farm
house west of the church , that still survives along with a few 19th
and early 20th century cottages. The current population is about 43
and has fluctuated over the centuries from 33 to 79 in 1921.
The most illustrious visitor to
Berwick was William of Orange in 1688. On his journey from Torbay he stopped at
The Lamb in Hindon for an important meeting with Lord Clarendon and from there
went to lodge for the night at the Manor House in Berwick St Leonard, before
resuming his journey to London to claim the throne. From this time onwards the
manor house was always called The King's House. The route he took towards London
can also be picked out on the ordinance survey map as a trackway and marked as
'The Monarch's Way'.
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CHURCH NOTICES
CHURCH BRASS CLEANING
Flowers
in Church
Services
Dates for your diary
Fonthill Bishop Calendar
If you would like to place
an order please contact Jo Denby on 01747 820071, or Vicky Tait at the Estate
Office.
PARISH COUNCIL
Click for
Nadder
Team Clergy Notices & Focus Point
Other places to Eat and to Stay
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