Bishopsbourne is a mostly rural and wooded village and civil parish in

Kent Kent is a county in South East England and one of the home counties. It borders Greater London to the north-west, Surrey to the west and East Sussex to the south-west, and Essex to the north across the estuary of the River Thames; it faces ...

, England. It has two short developed sections of streets at the foot of the Nailbourne valley south-east of

Canterbury Canterbury (, ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, cathedral city and UNESCO World Heritage Site, situated in the heart of the City of Canterbury local government district of Kent, England. It lies on the River Stour, Kent, River Stour. ...

and centred from

Dover Dover () is a town and major ferry port in Kent, South East England. It faces France across the Strait of Dover, the narrowest part of the English Channel at from Cap Gris Nez in France. It lies south-east of Canterbury and east of Maidstone ...

. The settlement of Pett Bottom is included in the

civil parish In England, a civil parish is a type of administrative parish used for local government. It is a territorial designation which is the lowest tier of local government below districts and counties, or their combined form, the unitary authority ...

Geography

Bishopsbourne is located within the Kent Downs Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. High-up Goresley Wood occupies about half of the parish, which rises gradually in the south-west. A Roman Britain collective burial mound (

tumulus A tumulus (plural tumuli) is a mound of earth and stones raised over a grave or graves. Tumuli are also known as barrows, burial mounds or ''kurgans'', and may be found throughout much of the world. A cairn, which is a mound of stones buil ...

) is at a point in the north-centre of this forested area.

Amenities

pub A pub (short for public house) is a kind of drinking establishment which is licensed to serve alcoholic drinks for consumption on the premises. The term ''public house'' first appeared in the United Kingdom in late 17th century, and was ...

trades in Bishopsbourne, ''The Mermaid Inn'', which was built in 1861 and previously called the ''Lion's Head''. Its church, St Mary's, is one of the

Church of England The Church of England (C of E) is the established Christian church in England and the mother church of the international Anglican Communion. It traces its history to the Christian church recorded as existing in the Roman province of Britain ...

, and contains notable 14th-century wall paintings. It is listed in the highest grading of the national system at

Grade I In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Irel ...

. The Tadpole Tearoom, located on Frog Lane, opened in a converted farmyard in 2017 and serves hot and cold food, drinks and baked goods.

History

In 1844 an excavation at Bourne Park in the civil parish (and always in the village's boundaries) revealed

Iron Age The Iron Age is the final epoch of the three-age division of the prehistory and protohistory of humanity. It was preceded by the Stone Age (Paleolithic, Mesolithic, Neolithic) and the Bronze Age (Chalcolithic). The concept has been mostly appl ...

remains.

Mozart Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (27 January 17565 December 1791), baptised as Joannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart, was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical period (music), Classical period. Despite his short life, his ra ...

visited

Bourne Park House Bourne Park House is a Queen Anne style country house on Bourne Park Road, between Bishopsbourne and Bridge near Canterbury in Kent. Built in 1701, it has been listed Grade I listed on the National Heritage List for England since 1954. An 18th ...

in 1765 when it was owned by

Sir Horatio Mann Sir Horatio (Horace) Mann, 2nd Baronet (2 February 1744 – 2 April 1814) was a British politician who sat in the House of Commons between 1774 and 1807. He is remembered as a member of the Hambledon Club in Hampshire and a patron of Kent cricket ...

. Mann was a

cricket Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of eleven players on a field at the centre of which is a pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two bails balanced on three stumps. The batting side scores runs by striki ...

patron and a number of top-class cricket matches were held at

Bourne Paddock Bourne Paddock was a cricket ground at Bourne Park House, the seat of Sir Horatio Mann, at Bishopsbourne around south-east of Canterbury in the English county of Kent. It was a venue for first-class cricket matches from 1766 to 1790. The groun ...

, a ground he built in the park.Bourne Paddock, Bishopsbourne
CricketArchive. Retrieved 2017-12-17. 10 buildings in the village are listed in the National Heritage List for England and a wall. On 30 August 1940, a

Spitfire The Supermarine Spitfire is a British single-seat fighter aircraft used by the Royal Air Force and other Allied countries before, during, and after World War II. Many variants of the Spitfire were built, from the Mk 1 to the Rolls-Royce Griff ...

piloted by Sgt J I Johnson was shot down and crashed near Bishopsbourne. He was killed in the crash.

Transport

Bishopsbourne had a train station on the

Elham Valley Railway The Elham Valley Railway was a line connecting Folkestone and Canterbury in Kent, England. It opened between 1887 and 1889 and closed in 1947. The line was originally proposed by the independent Elham Valley Light Railway Company in the mid-1 ...

until the line closed in 1947. The station building is now a private residence.

Notable residents

Richard Hooker Richard Hooker (25 March 1554 – 2 November 1600) was an English priest in the Church of England and an influential theologian.The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church by F. L. Cross (Editor), E. A. Livingstone (Editor) Oxford University ...

was the Rector from 1595 to 1600. Hooker played a significant part in the development of Anglicanism, championing a 'middle way' between Puritanism and Catholicism. His 8-volume work ''The Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity'' was partly written in the Rectory at Bishopsbourne. After his death, he was buried in the

chancel In church architecture, the chancel is the space around the altar, including the choir and the sanctuary (sometimes called the presbytery), at the liturgical east end of a traditional Christian church building. It may terminate in an apse. Ove ...

of the church, and a memorial to him was provided by

William Cowper William Cowper ( ; 26 November 1731 – 25 April 1800) was an English poet and Anglican hymnwriter. One of the most popular poets of his time, Cowper changed the direction of 18th-century nature poetry by writing of everyday life and scen ...

. "Oswalds", the house of author

Joseph Conrad Joseph Conrad (born Józef Teodor Konrad Korzeniowski, ; 3 December 1857 – 3 August 1924) was a Poles in the United Kingdom#19th century, Polish-British novelist and short story writer. He is regarded as one of the greatest writers in t ...

, still stands and the

village hall A village hall is a public building in a village used for various things such as: United Kingdom In the United Kingdom, a village hall is usually a building which contains at least one large room (plus kitchen and toilets), is owned by a local ...

is called "Conrad Hall" in his honour. The author

Jocelyn Brooke Bernard Jocelyn Brooke (30 November 1908 – 29 October 1966) was an English writer and naturalist. He wrote several unique, semi-autobiographical novels, as well as some poetry. His most famous works include the Orchid Trilogy—''The Mil ...

lived in a house called "Forge House", just opposite the village hall.

Photographic Photography is the art, application, and practice of creating durable images by recording light, either electronically by means of an image sensor, or chemically by means of a light-sensitive material such as photographic film. It is employed i ...

pioneer

Joseph Bancroft Reade Rev. Joseph Bancroft Reade FRS FRMS (5 April 1801 – 12 December 1870) was an English clergyman, amateur scientist and pioneer of photography. A gentleman scientist, Reade co-founded the Royal Microscopical Society and the Royal Meteorological ...

was

rector Rector (Latin for the member of a vessel's crew who steers) may refer to: Style or title *Rector (ecclesiastical), a cleric who functions as an administrative leader in some Christian denominations *Rector (academia), a senior official in an edu ...

from 1863 until his death in 1870, and is buried at St Mary's.

A. E. Waite Arthur Edward Waite (2 October 1857 – 19 May 1942) was a British poet and scholarly mystic who wrote extensively on occult and esoteric matters, and was the co-creator of the Rider–Waite tarot deck (also called the Rider–Waite–Smith o ...

spent most of his later life in Bishopsbourne and was buried in the churchyard at Bishopsbourne in Kent.

References

External links

{{authority control Villages in Kent City of Canterbury Civil parishes in Kent