Local historian publishes collection profiling 40 eminent Tisburghers

Now 85, she remembers the village in the early 1970s. 

“A terribly trendy hippy sort of place, it was hilarious,2 she said. "I used to come down here from Wales [to stay with her best friend, sculptor Althea Wynne]. We had a lovely time.  It was my get-out place.”

The village of Tisbury and the eminent people who have lived here over the centuries are the inspiration for Christina’s latest edited book: Eminent Tisburghers: A celebration of past inhabitants of Tisbury written by some of its current members.

In this edited collection, Christina has drawn together essays about 40 former residents of Tisbury and the Nadder Valley, all of national importance, some of whom she knew personally.

Christina is an eminent Tisburgher in her own right, having made a name for herself, in retirement, as a local historian: she has already published three books, The Grotto Makers: Joseph and Josiah Lane of Tisbury (2018), Mr & Mrs Lockwood Kipling: from the Punjab to Tisbury (2021), about the parents of Rudyard Kipling, and The Pythouse Rioters, from Tisbury to Tasmania (2024). All of them are published by Hobnob Press.

I meet Christina (‘Tina’ to her wide circle of friends) in her cosy stone cottage, just by Tisbury’s  churchyard, to record an interview for our community podcast, TisTalk, ahead of her book launch on November 23. 

“Look at that beautiful church,” she said as she gestured out of the window towards the 12th Century Saint John the Baptist.

“Think about this churchyard: there are thousands of bodies here, including Kipling’s parents, of course, layers and layers of history.” 

But Tina’s view of the past is anything but dry-as-bones. For her, the old days are as fresh as the present. 

The subjects of her book are not only the bohemian artists, actors, journalists and scientists that Christina knew personally, but historical figures that go back as far as Tudor times.

For example, Lawrence Hyde, the Tudor grandee and grandfather of two English queens; John Bradshaw of Fonthill House, who signed the warrant to behead King Charles the 1st in 1649; the 19th Century noble-woman and fossil hunter Etheldred Bennett; the authors Rudyard Kipling and Arthur Ransome; and the Himalayan mountaineer Eric Shipton (1907-1977), who took photographs of what he claimed were the Yeti’s footprints. 

Christina Richards (Image: Mary Myers) More recent subjects include luminaries of government and the services, such as Black Rod (Sir John Gingell); Lord Brooke, a minister under Margaret Thatcher and “the brains behind the National Lottery”; Charles Wintour, editor of the London Evening Standard; as well as Jinny Fiennes, writer and mother of actor Ralph Fiennes. All lived in or around Tisbury at one time.

Christina talks about many of her subjects fondly. 

She said: “John Gingell and Lady Pru were in Tuckingmill and she was a Bletchley girl. Althea’s piece is done by her lovely daughter, Ruth.”  

Even those long dead are mentioned as if she knew them personally.

“Fancy being called Etheldred!” she exclaimed. “But she [Etheldred Bennett] was brilliant, the mother of British palaeontology really.”  

Her favourite person in the collection is Eric Shipton, the mountaineer, for whom she wrote the profile in the book. 

I suggest tentatively that Shipton may remind Christina of her son, Mark, also a mountaineer, who died tragically at the age of 37 in a climbing accident, in 2000.

“Perhaps…” she trails off for a sad moment, before gathering herself again with a brave smile.  “I need to have a project. The whole thing is for Tisbury History Society because it’s our 50th anniversary in 2025 so I wanted to celebrate that.”

She added: “I am lucky enough to have a lovely daughter who lives in London with her architect husband and I also have three grandchildren, Meena Rose, a journalist, Hedi May, just come down from Liverpool with a 1st in Psychology, and Henry who is at Leeds studying Human Geography.   They love Tisbury too.

“Initially I found out that three or four ladies in Tisbury had been [codebreakers] at Bletchley [Park], and nobody seemed to realise that. Then I thought, gosh, we’ve had quite a lot of interesting people in Tisbury.”

Christina then found “enthusiasts in the Tisbury History Society who wanted to write about them, so I put it together like that.” 

The result is a vivid and thoroughly researched book, full of photos and pictures, including a beautiful endpaper by local artist Jane Alyson Smart, showing a map of Tisbury and the Nadder Valley with the places linked to the 40 figures in the book.

Her affection for our village shines through. After falling in love with the arty scene in Tisbury in the 1970s, she moved here with her beloved husband Mike (who died last year) in the early 1980s and worked as a secretary at Salisbury Hospital for many years, whilst enjoying painting and organising the Tisbury Arts Festival week, with her great friend Althea (Wynne).  

“Why the term ‘Tisburghers’?” I ask.  Christina laughs mischievously

“Althea and I used to call everyone ‘Tis-buggers’ – so I had to commemorate it in some way.  I could have called the book ‘Eminent Tis-buggers’ but I decided better not,” she joked. 

“Someone called a ‘burgher’ owned a small plot of land in the medieval period, usually in a town, usually a 12-foot piece.  So that was the basis of the word ‘bury’, at the end of a lot of place names in England. Tisbury was originally called ‘Tysse’s Burgh’ a Saxon name, probably meaning a place belonging to someone called Tysse."

Cheerful is a word that might have been invented for Christina. Despite having been touched by personal tragedy – not only her son died young but her best friend, Althea, was killed in a car crash some 10 years ago, and her husband Mike died last year - she is always smiling, always getting on with a project.

Her next subject is the English Civil War. She seems almost at home with the dead.

“I’m not bothered by all those bones,” said Christina, pointing again at the churchyard. “I even have Mike here next to me in the living room (referring to the urn containing her husband’s ashes) and at six o’clock every evening I have a little drink and raise a glass to him and say ‘Cheers’.”

Eminent Tisburghers is published by Tisbury History Society (THS).  The launch is at 10am-12pm Saturday, November 23 in the Hinton Hall, Tisbury, Wiltshire. Book costs £20. All proceeds to the THS.