Chilcomb is a small village and

civil parish In England, a civil parish is a type of administrative parish used for local government. It is a territorial designation which is the lowest tier of local government. Civil parishes can trace their origin to the ancient system of parishes, w ...

in the English county of

Hampshire Hampshire (, ; abbreviated to Hants.) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South East England. It is bordered by Berkshire to the north, Surrey and West Sussex to the east, the Isle of Wight across the Solent to the south, ...

east of

Winchester Winchester (, ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, cathedral city in Hampshire, England. The city lies at the heart of the wider City of Winchester, a local government Districts of England, district, at the western end of the South Downs N ...

and includes the South Downs Way long-distance footpath.

History

The nearby bowl barrow on Telegraph Hill along the South Downs Way just east of the village centre shows prehistoric settlement. The village has a small Norman 1120-40 church which has a graveyard with views over Winchester. Church services take place at 0930 on the second Sunday of each Month and there is an annual church féte. The

listed building In the United Kingdom, a listed building is a structure of particular architectural or historic interest deserving of special protection. Such buildings are placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Hi ...

s are few but include The Manor House and the thatched cottage. The church has three wall monuments to Edward Hooker, Henry Crosswell and Dorethea Goodman.At nearby Chilcomb Down a prehistoric field system is visible from the air

Geography and economy

The village itself is nestled in a bowl south of the River Itchen surrounded by

chalk Chalk is a soft, white, porous, sedimentary carbonate rock. It is a form of limestone composed of the mineral calcite and originally formed deep under the sea by the compression of microscopic plankton that had settled to the sea floor. Ch ...

downs. The north of the parish is crossed by the A31 between Winchester and Alresford. The M3 motorway runs close to the west of the parish.

Southampton Southampton is a port City status in the United Kingdom, city and unitary authority in Hampshire, England. It is located approximately southwest of London, west of Portsmouth, and southeast of Salisbury. Southampton had a population of 253, ...

is approximately 12 miles away. The village is based around a no through road which ends at the top of the hill. The INTECH science centre is located on the northern edge of the parish.

Geology

Chilcomb lies within the heart of the Winchester anticline, an up-fold in the rocks with older beds exposed in the centre. This is surrounded by outcrops of successively younger beds forming an enclosing ring of steep hills broken only by the Itchen Valley. In the centre a valley running east–west from Chilcomb to Bar End lies on the Zig Zag Chalk formation, grey chalk of

Cenomanian The Cenomanian is, in the International Commission on Stratigraphy's (ICS) geological timescale, the oldest or earliest age (geology), age of the Late Cretaceous epoch (geology), Epoch or the lowest stage (stratigraphy), stage of the Upper Cretace ...

age. This is surrounded successively by narrow, elliptical belts of the much harder Holywell Nodular Chalk, the New Pit Chalk (forming St. Catherine's Hill) and the Lewes Nodular Chalk, forming the peaks of Twyford Down and Deacon hill to the south, Winchester's West Hill and Sleepers Hill to the west, Magdalen Hill Down to the north and Telegraph Hill to the east. Beyond lies a further ring of the Seaford Chalk.British Geological Survey (2002), ''Winchester. England and Wales Sheet 299. Solid and Drift Geology'', 1:50,000 Series geological map, Keyworth, Nottingham: British Geological Survey,

Chilcomb range

Chilcomb range is a Ministry of Defence range to the south of the village. The range has 12 lanes and firing points from 50m to 500m. Targets are both manual and automatic with the ETR coffins in front of the mantlet. The range is used by

British Army The British Army is the principal Army, land warfare force of the United Kingdom. the British Army comprises 73,847 regular full-time personnel, 4,127 Brigade of Gurkhas, Gurkhas, 25,742 Army Reserve (United Kingdom), volunteer reserve perso ...

and

Royal Navy The Royal Navy (RN) is the naval warfare force of the United Kingdom. It is a component of His Majesty's Naval Service, and its officers hold their commissions from the King of the United Kingdom, King. Although warships were used by Kingdom ...

units for personal weapon training in daylight and at night.

References

External links