century. The main London-Exeter road ran across the downs, and in 1754 there were fourteen inns and public houses in the village, with associated stabling for the horses. Such was the vitality of Hindon that it quickly recovered after the disastrous fire of 1754. In 1801 the population was 793. In 1830 London coaches from Exeter left daily from the Swan and from Barnstaple nightly from the Lamb Inn, and there were corresponding services westwards. Stabling can still be seen at the Grosvenor Arms (also known at various times in its history as the Angel Inn): the exterior of the stable block facing Angel Lane bears a text which reads: GROSVENORS ARMS GOOD STALL STABLEING [sic] AND LOCK-UP COACH HOUSES. The population of the village reached a peak of 921 in 1831 when there were some 190 houses. Other trades undertaken in the village over the centuries include weaving, linen and tick-weaving, silk twist manufacture, inn-keeping, baking, brewing, clock-making, gunpowder manufacture, and wood, metal and leather working. A school was built on the east side of the village in the 1850s, at the expense of Lady Octavia Shaw-Stewart. Children of all ages attended until 1961, when those aged 11 transferred elsewhere. Several reasons for Hindon's decline have been put forward: its disenfranchisement in 1832; the railway connection of London to Taunton and Exeter in the 1840s which reduced coach traffic significantly (coupled with the opening of the station at Tisbury, southeast of Hindon, in 1859); and a general decrease in road traffic. By 1875 all but two of Hindon's inns were closed down. The High Street was lined with trees in 1863. These still remain, mostly lime but with a few oak trees. The trees are pollarded annually, giving the wide straight village street an almost French look. Hindon is mentioned in A Shepherd's Life: Impressions of the South Wiltshire Downs by W. H. Hudson, published in 1910. Hudson stayed in the Lamb Inn in the spring and summer of 1909. Chapter 16 of the book concerns Hindon, in which Hudson describes the village thus: 'Hindon is a delightful little village, so rustic and pretty amidst its green, swelling downs ... its last state, sober and purified, is very much better than the old. For although sober, it is contented and even merry, and exhibits such a sweet friendliness toward the stranger within its gates as to make him remember