Grateley
Coordinates: 51°10′32″N 1°36′16″W / 51.175517°N 1.604511°W
Grateley is a village and civil parish in the north west of Hampshire, England.
The name is derived from the Old English grēat lēah, meaning 'great wood or clearing'.[1]
The village is divided into two distinct settlements, 0.75 miles (1.21 km) apart: the old village and a newer settlement built around the railway station on the West of England Main Line.[2] The hamlet of Palestine adjoins the railway station settlement, although it is located in the civil parish of Over Wallop.[3]
Grateley lies just to the south of the prehistoric hill fort of Quarley Hill. The parish covers 1,551 acres (6.28 km2) with 616 people[4] living in 250 dwellings. The village has two shops, two pubs, a thirteenth-century church dedicated to St Leonard, a primary school, a school for children with Aspergers Syndrome, a railway station, a small business park, a golf driving range, and is surrounded by farmland with ancient footpaths and droveways.
King Æthelstan issued his first official law code in Grateley in about 930 AD.[5]
In the 20th century Grateley was one of many ammunition dumps during the World Wars.[6]
The economic history of Grateley is agricultural, but less than 10% of the village population now rely upon agriculture as an occupation.
Notes
- ↑ "Grateley, Hampshire". Key to English Place Names. University of Nottingham.
- ↑ "Introduction". Grateley Parish Council.
- ↑ Map of Grateley, Hampshire (Map). Cartography by Ordnance Survey. streetmap.co.uk. Retrieved July 19, 2012.
- ↑ "Neighbourhood Statistics (Test Valley Borough)". Office for National Statistics. Retrieved July 29, 2012.
- ↑ Lavelle, Ryan (2005). "Why Grateley? Reflections on Anglo-Saxon Kingship in a Hampshire Landscape" (PDF). Hampshire Studies: Proceedings of the Hampshire Field Club and Archaeological Society. 60: 154–69.
- ↑ "History - Part twelve". Grateley Parish Council.
Later, Grateley, like many areas within reach of the south coast ports, became a munitions store for part of the invasion force involved in Operation Overlord.
External links
Media related to Grateley at Wikimedia Commons
