Below you will find a potted history of Bishops Cannings.  If anyone would like to add to the history page please contact mail@bishopscannings.com

The Anglo Saxon Chronicles
The earliest reference to Bishop’s Cannings can be found in the Anglo Saxon Chronicles [1], where it is stated that in AD 1010 the Danes, after taking over East Anglia and moving out across the country, eventually returned over the Thames into Wessex, and so by Cannings-marsh, burning all the way. When they had gone as far as they would, then came they by midwinter to their ships.  Cannings marsh is thought to be in the area of the now Kennet and Avon Canal between Bishops to the west of the village.

The Doomsday Book
In the Doomsday book Bishop’s Cannings was surveyed in 1086 when it was called Cainingham, which, according to Archdeacon McDonald [2] in his article written in 1859 for the Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural History magazine means Canning’s estate or farm.  He goes on to say that in other documents of about the same time it was called Canyngas [3] this being the nominative plural, in the Saxon declination of the family, or clan, of Canning.  The prefix Bishop’s came later possibly in the 13^th Century. 

The doomsday book records Cainingham as being a large and rich manor with enough land for 45 plough teams and with a population of about 600. The tithing of Cannings consisted of the manor of Cannings Canonicorum which consisted of 140 acres of arable, 32 acres of meadow and enough pasture for 730 sheep.

The Parish
The original parish was much larger than the present one encompassing the villages of Bourton, Easton, Coate and Horton, but the chapelry of St. James also known as Southbroom and the detached tithing of Chittoe 

In its present smaller form Bishop’s Cannings is the third largest parish in Wiltshire. Chittoe with the villages of Bromham and Poulshot  were separated away in 1883, and the Chapelry of St. James, which also included the tithings of Roundway, Wick, Nursteed and Bedborough, became the present day parish of Roundway in1894.

The main road from Devizes to Swindon (A361) runs just north of the village and crosses a minor road that runs from Calne to the village. Part of this road is known as Harepath Way, a name said to be derived from the Old English herepæeth indicating the track followed by a Saxon army.

The Waynsdyke runs east west through the parish just to the north of the village.  Originally a defensive earthwork comprising a large bank with a deep ditch to the north side, the Wanysdyke runs from the Avon valley south of Bristol to Savernake Forest near Marlborough. The Wanysdyke dates from 400 to 700 AD and is one of the largest linear earthworks in the UK.  The name Wanysdyke probably comes from the Saxon god Woden, but that does not mean that the Saxons actually built it.  The remains north of Bishops Cannings are still impressive.

The modern road breaches the Wansdyke, at Shepherd’s Shore.  Further north the old Bath and London coach road breaches the Waynsdyke at Old Shepherds' Shore. The word Shore deriving from a characteristic Wiltshire word 'sceard' meaning a notch or a gap [4].

At the extreme north of the parish is the course of a former Roman road. 

Bishops Cannings and the village of Horton used to be joined by a track which ran across the canal via a swing bridge to Horton Mill.  This track (which is still a public right of way today, but which probably is not as grand as it used to be was said to be haunted by a large black pig and in the 1800’s was used safely be day but little by night.

A Royal meeting
In 1613 Queen Ann, wife of James I was returning to London having taken the waters at the spa in Bath.  The then vicar George Ferrebe, together with a bunch of parishioners went out to meet her coach by Shepherd’s Shore.  The queen’s carriage stopped and they sang a specially composed song for the queen.  The words are recorded in Ida Gandy’s book [5] about the village. After the song, the Queen was invited to listen to the bells of the church in the valley below.  The Queen must have been pleased with the show as George Ferrebe was made a Court Chaplain.  The story is recorded in th parish register.

The Civil War
In July 1643, Sir Ralph Hopton’s Royalist army defeated Sir William Waller’s Parliamentary forces at the battle of Roundway Down.

A Hanging
In 1720 John Morgan, having robbed and murdered his uncle, was hung on Morgan’s hill just to the west of Shepherds Shore, (the hill then being named after him). The post hole from the gallows was still visible in 1894. 

Simple or cunning people?
Around 1790, the Moonraker legend started.  This concerned a group of men smuggling brandy. To avoid being caught by a passing exciseman while getting their contraband out of a pond, they pretended that they were trying to get what they thought was a cheese. The exciseman, identified the cheese as the reflection of the moon on the water, left chuckling at their stupidity leaving the smugglers to recover their goods. On the face of it Bishops Canning’s, which has no village pond, seems an unlikely venue for the story. However, this can be easily explained as 'the Crammer' in Devizes, a seemly excellent pond for moonraking used to lie within the parish of Bishop’s Cannings, until 1835. Secondly, as John Chandler noted “the village has long had a reputation for idiocy, or feigned idiocy, which made it the butt of many folk tales recorded in the 19th and 20th centuries.”

A second hanging
Around 1811, on the parish boundary alongside the Devizes to Beckhampton road there is a grave marked by stones at its head and foot. This is reputed to be the grave of Walter Leader who was returning home, drunk on the night that the royal mail coach was attacked by a gang of highwaymen.  During the attack, the driver of the coach Henry Castles was murdered.  Leader was allegedly met by the highwaymen who knocked him out and left him beside the dead driver with a pistol in his hand.  At the trial the evidence seemed conclusive and Walter Leader was condemned to death.  He was hanged on a misty morning and, a short time later a horseman arrived bearing a reprieve, one of the Highwaymen having turned king’s evidence at Bath.  The body was taken down from the gallows and buried by the side of the road.

Ida Gandy in her book [6] states that the Highwayman’s grave was where he was said to have fallen, struck dead whilst trying to escape justice.

Bishops Cannings village
Ida Gandy (born 1885) who in her childhood was a daughter of the vicar in Bishops Cannings wrote two books about the village and surrounding countryside.  These two books give a good picture of what the village was like in the late 18 hundreds.

She describes the village as “All round the church was scattered the village.  There was no concentration of houses in any particular place; they just gathered in little groups along the by-lanes, like friendly neighbours met for a gossip.  Some of a less sociable nature, had set themselves right in the heart of the fields.”

There were apparently three shops in the village and a post office.  She describes one as being very little where she would buy sherbet.  This shop is described as being opposite the church wall and may well have been the right hand end cottage opposite the present day Crown Inn.  The cottage is indeed tiny.

The second was more imposing with a steep red roof.  It combined as a bake house and grocery stores.  Lardy cakes could be bought on Tuesday and Fridays! 

There was a saddlers and cobblers shop run by the sexton

West End, she describes as the prosperous end of the village, church lane, (presumably now Church Walk), housed the sober and godly people and Pip lane where the poorest and most afflicted lived.

 Chandlers lane was lined with elm trees, long since gone due to Dutch elm disease

The ‘Gentry’
The manor of Bishop’s Cannings was held by the Bishop of Salisbury as early as 1086 and remained in the hands of successive bishops until Bishop Roger (1102- 1139), the builder of Devizes Castle, who forfeited the estates in the reign of Stephen.

The estates were then restored in 1157 and remained in the hands of the bishop until the 17th century.

Between 1647 and 1659 the estates were sold by the state to Samuel Wightwick for £6,065 15s and 7d but were restored again to the bishop in 1660.

The manor had a number of lessees including Robert Drew of Southbroom, the Principle Secretary of State to Charles I and II, and Thomas Henry Sutton Southeron Estcourt who would later endow the National School in Bishop’s Cannings with £20 a year for ever!

In the 19th century the manor of Bishop’s Cannings passed into the hands of Ecclesiastical Commissioners and was sold to the crown in 1858. Many of the houses and farms remain Crown property today

The Church
The Church of St Mary the Virgin in Bishop’s Cannings was built in the second half of the 12th century. It then probably consisted of chancel, nave, north and south transepts and a two-story sacristy.

In the 13th century a central tower was added or possibly re-built and the porch was either added or rebuilt in the following century.

During alterations in the 15th century a spire was added to the tower and at the same time the north and south walls of the aisles were raised. The nave walls were also raised effectively blocking the original clerestory windows and so traceried windows were fitted in their place.

Before the Reformation there was a chantry chapel in the church of Bishop’s Cannings called “Our Lady of the Bower”. In 1563 this chapel since it had been built in a way that was “repugnant and contrary to divine law” became a tomb for John Ernle and his family. Sir John Perrott, Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, purchased the chancel land in the 16th century.

There were two Methodist societies in the parish at Coate and Horton. The former in 1832, 1837 and 1842 reported at having 5 members but by 1850 it no longer existed. The latter continued with more success and in 1951 still had 9 members.

Coate school was built in 1858 by E. B. Anstie the tobacconist from Devizes.  In 1859 30 children attended the school which was also used as a chapel. When the Anglican school was built in around 1870 the school had few pupils.  Today it continues as a chapel.