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

Kent Kent is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South East England. It is bordered by Essex across the Thames Estuary to the north, the Strait of Dover to the south-east, East Sussex to the south-west, Surrey to the west, and Gr ...

, 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, city and UNESCO World Heritage Site, in the county of Kent, England; it was a county borough until 1974. It lies on the River Stour, Kent, River Stour. The city has a mild oceanic climat ...

and centred from

Dover Dover ( ) is a town and major ferry port in Kent, southeast 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 southeast 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. Civil parishes can trace their origin to the ancient system of parishes, w ...

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 (: tumuli) is a mound of Soil, earth and Rock (geology), stones raised over a grave or graves. Tumuli are also known as barrows, burial mounds, mounds, howes, or in Siberia and Central Asia as ''kurgans'', and may be found through ...

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

Amenities

Bishopsbourne's church, St Mary's, is one of the

Church of England The Church of England (C of E) is the State religion#State churches, established List of Christian denominations, Christian church in England and the Crown Dependencies. It is the mother church of the Anglicanism, Anglican Christian tradition, ...

, 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 is a structure of particular architectural or historic interest deserving of special protection. Such buildings are placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, H ...

. A

pub A pub (short for public house) is in several countries a drinking establishment licensed to serve alcoholic drinks for consumption on the premises. The term first appeared in England in the late 17th century, to differentiate private ho ...

trades in Bishopsbourne, ''The Mermaid Inn'', which was built in 1861 and previously called the ''Lion's Head''.

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 historical Metal Ages, after the Chalcolithic and Bronze Age. It has also been considered as the final age of the three-age division starting with prehistory (before recorded history) and progre ...

remains.

Mozart Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (27 January 1756 – 5 December 1791) was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical period (music), Classical period. Despite his short life, his rapid pace of composition and proficiency from an early age ...

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. Mann was a

cricket Cricket is a Bat-and-ball games, bat-and-ball game played between two Sports team, teams of eleven players on a cricket field, field, at the centre of which is a cricket pitch, pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two Bail (cr ...

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 that was used by the Royal Air Force and other Allied countries before, during, and after World War II. It was the only British fighter produced continuously throughout the ...

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-19 ...

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 Univer ...

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 ''Of the Lawes of Ecclesiastical Politie'' 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 (architecture), choir and the sanctuary (sometimes called the presbytery), at the liturgical east end of a traditional Christian church building. It may termi ...

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

William Cowper William Cowper ( ; – 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 scenes of the Engli ...

. "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 story writer. He is regarded as one of the greatest writers in the Eng ...

, still stands and the

village hall A village hall is a public building in a rural or suburban community which functions as a community centre without a religious affiliation. United Kingdom In the United Kingdom, a village hall is a building which is owned by a local gover ...

is called "Conrad Hall" in his honour. The author and naturalist Jocelyn Brooke lived in a house called "Forge House", just opposite the village hall.

Photographic Photography is the art, application, and practice of creating 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 in many ...

pioneer Joseph Bancroft Reade was rector from 1863 until his death in 1870, and is buried at St Mary's. The poet and mystic A. E. Waite 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