Grateley

Human settlement in England

Test Valley

Hampshire

Region

South East

CountryEnglandSovereign stateUnited KingdomPost townAndoverPostcode districtSP11Dialling code01264Police Hampshire and Isle of Wight Fire Hampshire and Isle of Wight Ambulance South Central UK Parliament

North West Hampshire

List of places: UK; England; Hampshire

51°10′32″N 1°36′16″W / 51.175517°N 1.604511°W / 51.175517; -1.604511

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'.^[2]

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.^[3] The hamlet of Palestine adjoins the railway station settlement, although it is located in the civil parish of Over Wallop.^[4]

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^[5] living in 250 dwellings. The village has one pub, a thirteenth-century church dedicated to St Leonard, a primary school, a school for children with Asperger 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.^[6] Recorded in the early 12th century Quadripartitus text,^[7] which referred to a ‘great assembly at Grateley’ (magna synodo apud Greateleyam). The legestaive assembly and construct of the Grateley law code acted as a manifestation of the peripatetic nature of Anglo-Saxon kingship.^[8]

In the 20th century Grateley was one of many ammunition dumps during the World Wars.^[9]

The economic history of Grateley is agricultural, but less than 10% of the village population now rely upon agriculture as an occupation.^{[citation needed]}

Notes

^ "Civil Parish population 2011". Neighbourhood Statistics. Office for National Statistics. Retrieved 18 December 2016.
^ "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 19 July 2012.
^ "Neighbourhood Statistics (Test Valley Borough)". Office for National Statistics. Retrieved 29 July 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.
^ name="foo" 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.
^ 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.