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Bathford HouseThe present Bathford House is a conversion of the stable block of the old Bathford House destroyed by fire in November 1913. The original house was built as the Rectory House on land leased from the dean and chapter of Bristol, by John Tyndale in 1686. He had purchased other property in the parish in 1675. On his death in 1717 his nephew, Thomas Tyndale, succeeded to his properties in Bathford. The majority of the property was sold in 1796 and all by 1800. |
Picture: Bathford House with St Swithun's Church beyond, c1850
The family came from Thornbury in Gloucestershire and its best known member was William Tyndale, one of the greatest leaders of the English Reformation. His title to fame is his translation of the New Testament into English, but at the instigation of Henry VIII he was imprisoned for heresy, strangled and burnt at the stake in 1536 in Belgium.
The Tyndale family is remembered in Bathford; the former home for the elderly being named after them. The lease of Rectory House was held by the Tyndale family until 1779 and in 1801 the dean and chapter of Bristol sold the house and its land to John Wiltshire of Shockerwick. It was the home of his son, also named John, until his father's death in 1842, when he succeeded to Shockerwick.
After about 1850 it was leased to a succession of tenants and was known as Bathford House. It remained in the ownership of the Wiltshires until, in 1889, on the death of John Walter Wiltshire it passed to his niece Mrs. Inskip. At the time it was burned down the tenants were Major and Mrs. G. Russell Tod. The property was sold in 1919.