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Bishop's Cannings
20 Wiltshire Scenes (2)
It would be easy to pass by Bishop's Cannings, just off the old Bath to London coach-road between Devizes and Silbury Hill, were it not for the church steeple of St. Mary the Virgin prominent above the surrounding trees and undulating downland. The church is a fine example of the Early English style... its size and grandeur in this diminutive village due to its location on the Bishop of Salisbury's estate.
The Doomsday Book reference to the village names it Cainingham... the ham or hamlet attached to nearby All Cannings. In the 11th century the Bishop of Sarum was the chief tenant and the village name was subsequently recorded as Canyng Episcopi (1294), Canygges Bishop's (1296), Bisshopescanyngges (1314) and Bishops Canynges (1491). However, the only physical evidence of the Bishop's palace is a grassy ditch supposed t have been a moat and now surrounding a field.
The church itself was started in the 12th century and a 130 ft spire added to it's tower in the 15th C. The tower and walls have many a carving and you'll need a pair of binoculars to see them in all their humor and grotesqueness.
Inside the church in this the richest part of Wiltshire for Christian and pagan "sites of rites" is something special... a penitential or confessional pew... or possibly a monastic carrel or study desk. Whilst its past function is uncertain and its dating conjectural - the painting purporting to be 15th century whilst the surrounding woodwork is deemed to be 17th or 18th century at the latest - the Latin inscriptions certainly give rise to much thought in their interpretation as they are helpfully translated for visitors on a hand-held plaque.
The lines on the "Hand of Meditation" as it is called begin with words meaning, "What thou oughest to think upon" and, whilst not exactly prophesying gloom and doom, leave the meditative mind in no doubt about sin and death. The scroll underneath translates as follows...
"Thou shalt not be a happy man
if abundance of wealth flows to thee.
Thou shalt not always be here;
be mindful that thou shalt die.
Wealth shall vanish;
what thou hast here another shall have.
Thy body shall rot;
what thou doest shall remain with thee."
When these words were written life and times were very different... but the words are still worth bearing in mind today. Whether or not the Bishop's Cannings menfolk were thinking about those words one moonlit night many years ago is another matter, but their actions became ingrained into Wiltshire folklore. Legend has it that an Excise man stumbled upon a group of locals busily engaged in raking the surface of a dew pond on which the bright moon was reflected.
"0h, zur, zomebody has been and lost a cheese,
and we'm a-raking of un out thic thur pond."
Simply amused the Excise man rode on into the night... whereupon the wiser men proceeded to rake up from the watery depths several barrels of contraband whisky that had been smuggled in from the south coast. So was born the name "Moonrakers" for all Wiltshiremen.
Photo Note
There are many places in England which have a connection with Captain Cook... and I'll mention a little known one I discovered here. The church owed its music every Sunday to a bequest from a local boy, William Bayley, who sailed around the world with Cook.
Bayley was born in the village in 1737 and "followed the plow" as was expected in the country. But he showed an aptitude for mathematics and was taught by a local Excise Officer (surely not the same one who ignored the Moonrakers!). After various appointments he became assistant to Nevil Maskelyne, the Astronomer Royal, who regarded him as competent to observe the June 1769 Transit of Venus from the North Cape. Three years later he was one of two astronomers chosen to accompany Cook on his "second voyage of discovery" and to Tahiti and beyond... a far cry from the Wiltshire downland.
I have an image on file somewhere, taken in central France, showing the most recent "Transit of Venus" on June 8th 2004 – a once in my (or anyone's) lifetime sighting (although there's another on June 5/6th 2012) of the planet crossing the face of the Sun. Whilst not a great shot, it does record that I witnessed an extremely rare event, using a Nikon F3 and 500mm Reflex-Nikkor with a R60 deep red and a Polarizer (used as neutral density) to help extend the short exposure created by shooting directly at the sun. Oh yes... the tiny dot at 7 o'clock on the sun’s disk is Venus!
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