Grateley is a village,

parish A parish is a territorial entity in many Christianity, Christian denominations, constituting a division within a diocese. A parish is under the pastoral care and clerical jurisdiction of a priest#Christianity, priest, often termed a parish pries ...

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 north west 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, ...

, England.

Name

The name is derived from the

Old English Old English ( or , or ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the Early Middle Ages. It developed from the languages brought to Great Britain by Anglo-S ...

''grēat lēah'', meaning 'great wood or clearing'.

Geography

The village is divided into two distinct settlements, apart: the old village and a newer settlement built around the

railway station Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport using wheeled vehicles running in railway track, tracks, which usually consist of two parallel steel railway track, rails. Rail transport is one of the two primary means of ...

on the

West of England Main Line The West of England line (also known as the West of England Main Line) is a British railway line from , Hampshire, to in Devon, England. Passenger services run between London Waterloo station and Exeter; the line intersects with the Wessex Ma ...

. The hamlet of

Palestine Palestine, officially the State of Palestine, is a country in West Asia. Recognized by International recognition of Palestine, 147 of the UN's 193 member states, it encompasses the Israeli-occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and th ...

adjoins the railway station settlement, although it is located in the civil parish of

Over Wallop Over Wallop is a small village and civil parish in the Test Valley district of Hampshire, England. The village lies close to the border with Wiltshire, approximately northwest of Stockbridge. Over Wallop is the westernmost of the three villag ...

Pre-history

Grateley lies just to the south of the prehistoric

hill fort A hillfort is a type of fortification, fortified refuge or defended settlement located to exploit a rise in elevation for defensive advantage. They are typical of the late Bronze Age Europe, European Bronze Age and Iron Age Europe, Iron Age. So ...

Quarley Hill Quarley Hill is the site of an Iron Age univallate hill fort in Hampshire, southern England. The hill affords commanding views of the surrounding countryside. Oval in plan, the fort is in good condition with a counter-scarp and well defined en ...

. The parish covers with 616 people living in 250 dwellings.

History

King Æthelstan issued his first official law code in Grateley in about 930 AD. Recorded in the early 12th century

Quadripartitus The title ''Quadripartitus'' refers to an extensive legal collection compiled during the reign of Henry I, king of England (1100–1135).Wormald, ''Making of English law'', p. 236 The work consists of Anglo-Saxon legal materials in Latin tran ...

text, name="foo" which referred to a ‘great assembly at Grateley’ (magna synodo apud Greateleyam). The legislative assembly and construct of the Grateley law code acted as a manifestation of the peripatetic nature of

Anglo-Saxon The Anglo-Saxons, in some contexts simply called Saxons or the English, were a Cultural identity, cultural group who spoke Old English and inhabited much of what is now England and south-eastern Scotland in the Early Middle Ages. They traced t ...

kingship. In the 20th century Grateley was one of many ammunition dumps during the World Wars.

Amenities and economy

The village has one pub, a thirteenth-century church dedicated to

St Leonard Leonard of Noblac (also Leonard of Limoges or Leonard of Noblet; also known as Lienard, Linhart, Lenart, Leonhard, Léonard, Leonardo, Annard; died 559) is a Frankish saint closely associated with the town and abbey of Saint-Léonard-de-Noblat, ...

, a primary school, a school for children with

Asperger syndrome Asperger syndrome (AS), also known as Asperger's syndrome or Asperger's, is a diagnostic label that has historically been used to describe a neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by significant difficulties in social interaction and no ...

, a railway station, a small business park, a golf driving range, and is surrounded by farmland with ancient footpaths and droveways. The economic history of Grateley is agricultural, but less than 10% of the village population now rely upon agriculture as an occupation.

Notes

External links

{{authority control Villages in Hampshire