Wilfred Middlebrook, in The Changing Face Of Warminster, first written in 1960, updated in 1971, noted:
Bishopstrow is said to get its name from the fact that Bishop Aldhelm planted his ashen staff in the ground while preaching to the villagers in 700 A.D., and the staff took root and put forth leaves, thus being acclaimed a miracle; the place became known as “ad episcope arbores” or “Bishop’s Trees.” There are other versions, all of them interesting, and some based on the fact that “trow” could mean “a cross.’ In 1300 the village was called, simply, Trowe, but the Domesday Book names it Biscopestreu. In 1236 it was Bisshopestre and in 1365, Busshepestrowe.
One version is that a cross probably stood here as a memorial to Aldhelm, Abbot Of Malmesbury and Bishop Of Sherborne. Then someone points out that Aldhelm’s crosses are found only in the villages where his body rested on its way from Frome, nearby where he died, to Malmesbury, where he was buried. He often journeyed from Malmesbury to Sherborne and would never have passed through Bishopstrow on such journeys.
There is yet another explanation. In Saxon times, when Aldhelm was alive, great parliaments or moots were held at Bradford On Avon and Salisbury, where representatives of the “hundreds’ met to hold trials and make new laws. There were also two synods held at Calne and Amesbury. This means that St. Aldhelm might well have passed through Bishopstrow to reach the ancient track over Salisbury Plain to Amesbury, for the synod, or to Old Sarum for the moot; or his body might have been brought this way from Frome to Amesbury.