Bishop Powys’ agricultural revolution

Recent excavations and architectural recording of the bishops palace at Bishopscourt has raised many issues about its history and archaeology. One area, easily overlooked, is the role of the bishop as a significant land owner with several baronies and a 610 acre demesne around the palace.

The reign of Bishop Powys (1854-77) had a huge impact on the house and demesne. He demolished Bishop Murray’s chapel which had only been consecrated in 1825 and then build the much grander present one consecrated in 1858. He also raised the finds for a large-scale re-building of the dining room and west range in the same period.

Two newly located and transcribed documents in the Manx Museum have shed light on the far-reaching. agricultural changes he made.

This short talk will introduce the documentation and examine the management of the demesne both before Powys’ arrival and after he had effected his ‘revolution’.

Peter is a retired archaeologist educated at Kings College, London, Corpus Christi College, Oxford and Liverpool University. He has worked as a timber broker in London, as a geography teacher in Lincolnshire, as a Reader in Archaeology in the University of Liverpool and as Director of the interdisciplinary Centre for Manx Studies in Douglas from 1992 until retirement in 2008.
His research interests are: the archaeology of the clay tobacco pipe worldwide, early modern ceramics, high medieval monastic archaeology and landscape archaeology and have published books and papers in all these fields. 
He love sailing and early music.