Wickham Bishops is a village and

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 authorit ...

in the

Maldon Maldon (, locally ) is a town and civil parish on the Blackwater estuary in Essex, England. It is the seat of the Maldon District and starting point of the Chelmer and Blackwater Navigation. It is known for Maldon Sea Salt which is produced ...

district of

Essex Essex () is a county in the East of England. One of the home counties, it borders Suffolk and Cambridgeshire to the north, the North Sea to the east, Hertfordshire to the west, Kent across the estuary of the River Thames to the south, and Grea ...

, England. It is located around three miles north of the town of

and around two miles south-east of

Witham Witham () is a town in the county of Essex in the East of England, with a population ( 2011 census) of 25,353. It is part of the District of Braintree and is twinned with the town of Waldbröl, Germany. Witham stands between the city of Che ...

, in whose

post town A post town is a required part of all postal addresses in the United Kingdom and Ireland, and a basic unit of the postal delivery system.Royal Mail, ''Address Management Guide'', (2004) Including the correct post town in the address increases ...

it lies. The place name ''Wickham Bishops'' is first attested in the

Domesday Book Domesday Book () – the Middle English spelling of "Doomsday Book" – is a manuscript record of the "Great Survey" of much of England and parts of Wales completed in 1086 by order of King William I, known as William the Conqueror. The manus ...

of 1086, where it appears as ''Wicham'', meaning 'dwelling place with a (dairy) farm'. ''Bishops'' refers to the fact that the land belonged to the Bishop of London. Other references note the historic name of ''Wycham Episcopi''.

Governance

Wickham Bishops is part of the electoral ward called Wickham Bishops and Woodham. The population of this ward at the 2011 census was 3,500.

Churches

The Church of England parish church is St Bartholomew's. The church was built on the western side of the hill on which the village stands. The clock on its steeple was converted to an electronic mechanism in June 2008 (previously being wound by hand). St Bartholomew's is a Victorian replacement for the medieval St Peter's Church, which stands alone in the fields to the west near the River Blackwater, and beyond the disused railway line to Maldon. The redundant Church of St Peter was probably built as a private chapel for the bishops of London who then owned the village. Since 1975 it has belonged to the

Friends of Friendless Churches Friends of Friendless Churches is a registered charity formed in 1957, active in England and Wales, which campaigns for and rescues redundant historic places of worship threatened by demolition, decay, or inappropriate conversion. As of April ...

Local amenities and organisations

Wickham Bishops has a village hall (reconstructed in 2005), playing fields, a library, tennis courts, a hairdresser, health food shop, estate agent, a ''One Stop'' local shop/off licence and two

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 ...

s: the Mitre and the Chequers. There is a small library which is located in the old school building in School Road.

Wickham Bishops Drama Club

The village's drama club, named 'Wickham Bishops Drama Club', first performed in 1928 with a production of ''

HMS Pinafore ''H.M.S. Pinafore; or, The Lass That Loved a Sailor'' is a comic opera in two acts, with music by Arthur Sullivan and a libretto by W. S. Gilbert. It opened at the Opera Comique in London, on 25 May 1878 and ran for 571 performances, which ...

''. Since then, the club continues to perform various productions throughout the year featuring both their adult group and Junior Workshop. The club rehearses twice a week, Mondays and Thursdays 8–10 pm, all year round currently producing 4 shows a year: the pantomime, the summer production, a spring play and an entry for the ''Gimson One Act Play Festival''.

Girlguiding in Wickham Bishops

Witham South District of

GirlGuiding UK Girlguiding is the operating name of The Guide Association, previously named The Girl Guides Association and is the national guiding organisation of the United Kingdom. It is the UK's largest girl-only youth organisation. Girlguiding is a char ...

covers the area of Wickham Bishops, Great Totham and the surrounding villages; it is made up of two Rainbow packs for girls aged 5–7 years old and a Brownie pack for girls aged 7–10.

Scouting in Wickham Bishops

''1st Beacon Hill'' is a part of Maldon and East Essex Scouts and is made up of Beaver, Cubs and Scout packs for boys and girls who live in Wickham Bishops, Great Totham and the surrounding villages.

Transport

Wickham Bishops is located close to the

A12 road This is a list of roads designated A12. Entries are sorted in alphabetical order by country. * A012 road (Argentina), a road around the city of Rosario * A12 motorway (Austria), a road connecting Kufstein and the German Autobahn A 93 to Landec ...

. The village once had a railway station of its own on the Witham–Maldon branch line, which opened in 1848 and closed in 1964. Nowadays, the nearest railway station is

on the Great Eastern Main Line. The number 90 bus service runs between

, Wickham Bishops and Witham generally every half an hour on weekdays.

Notable people

England cricket captain

Alastair Cook Sir Alastair Nathan Cook (born 25 December 1984) is an English cricketer who plays for Essex County Cricket Club, and played for England in all international formats from 2006 to 2018. A former captain of the England Test and One-Day Intern ...

lived in Wickham Bishops as a boy. Composer

Nicola LeFanu Nicola Frances LeFanu (born 28 April 1947) is a British composer, academic, lecturer and director. Life Nicola LeFanu was born in Wickham Bishops, Essex, England, to William LeFanu and Elizabeth Maconchy (also a composer, later Dame Elizabeth ...

was born in Wickham Bishops

References

External links

Wickham Bishops Parish Council websiteSt Bartholomews Church WebsiteGuardians of the Village Churches of St. Bartholomew's Wickham Bishops and St Nicholas' Little Braxted
{{authority control Villages in Essex Maldon District