Broad Chalke
| Broad Chalke | |
| Wiltshire | |
|---|---|
 Reddish House Cottages, Broad Chalke | |
| Location | |
| Grid reference: | SU039255 |
| Location: | 51°1’41"N, 1°56’35"W |
| Data | |
| Population: | 680 (2011) |
| Post town: | Salisbury |
| Postcode: | SP5 |
| Dialling code: | 01722 |
| Local Government | |
| Council: | Wiltshire |
| Parliamentary constituency: |
Salisbury |
| Website: | BroadChalke.info |
Broad Chalke, sometimes spelled Broadchalke, Broad Chalk or 'Broadchalk', is a village in te south of Wiltshire, about eight miles west of the City of Salisbury. The wider civil parish includes the hamlets of Knapp, Mount Sorrel and Stoke Farthing.
Geography
Broad Chalke is halfway along the thirteen-mile Chalke Valley. The parish has two chalk streams, as the River Chalke flows into the River Ebble at Mount Sorrell in the parish, and Broadchalke village itself stands on the banks of the Ebble. It is all in the 'Cranborne Chase and West Wiltshire Downs Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty'.
The valley road runs from Salisbury in the east to Shaftesbury in the west between chalk downs on either side. The village sits at a crossroads where a road from Hampshire in the south runs down Knowle Hill and another route from Fovant and Tisbury in the north runs down Compton Down via Fifield Bavant and all roads meet near the public house in North Street. There is also a spur road along the River Chalke valley from Bowerchalke and Sixpenny Handley.
Churches
The parish church, All Saints is from the late 13th and 14th centuries, with a 15th-century porch. Restoration in 1846-7 was by Wyatt and Brandon.
The church is a Grade I listed building.[1]
Churches at Alvediston and Bowerchalke were considered to be chapels of the Broad Chalke church, until they became separate parishes in 1861 and 1880 respectively.[2] Broad Chalke and Bowerchalke were united in 1952, and became part of the Chalke Valley team ministry in 1972.[2]
There are eight bells in the church tower, including one from the 14th century. By 1553 there were four bells, with a fifth added in 1616 and a sixth in 1660.[2] Two more were added to mark the end of the 20th century, as part of a renovation.[3]
A Congregational chapel was built in or before 1801, and replaced by a new church in 1864, which joined the United Reformed Church at its formation in 1972. In 2006 the church was refurbished and divided to provide a community room, then in 2013 the village shop and post office[4] moved into the church.[5]U R C Chapel, Broad Chalke: Chalke Valley Church</ref>
Primitive Methodists built a chapel in 1843. The chapel closed c. 1965 and was demolished in 1970.
History
It is not known when Broad Chalke was first inhabited or what it was called but fragmentary records from Saxon times indicate that the whole Chalke Valley area was thriving.
Middle Ages
An Anglo-Saxon charter of 826 records the name of the area including Bowerchalke and Broadchalke as Cealcan gemere.[6]
In 955, King Eadwig granted the nuns of Wilton Abbey an estate called Chalke which included land in Broad Chalke and Bowerchalke. The charter records the village name as aet Ceolcan.[2][6] Another charter in 974 records the name as Cheolca or Cheolcam.[6]
The Domesday Book of 1086 divided the Chalke Valley into eight manors: Chelke or Chelce or Celce (Bowerchalke and Broad Chalke), Eblesborne (Ebbesbourne Wake), Fifehide (Fifield), Cumbe (Coombe Bissett), Humitone (Homington), Odestoche (Odstock), Stradford (Stratford Tony and Bishopstone) and Trow (circa Alvediston and Tollard Royal).
In the 12th century the area was known primarily as the Stowford Hundred, then subsequently as the Chalke Hundred. This included the parishes of Berwick St John, Ebbesbourne Wake, Fifield Bavant, Semley, Tollard Royal and 'Chalke'. A charter of 1165 records the village name as Chalca, and the Pipe Rolls in 1174 have it as Chalche.[6]
All Saints' Church was built during the 13th century. The Curia Regis Rolls of 1207 records the village name as ChelkFeet of Fines, and another of 1242 records it as Chalke.[6] The name Burchelke (Bowerchalke) first appeared in 1225.
The village is recorded in deeds of 1425 as Brodechalke.[6]
Modern Age
Around 1536, King Henry VIII granted Chalke to Sir William Herbert, 1st Earl of Pembroke during the Dissolution of the Monasteries. In 1560 Queen Elizabeth I granted Reddish House and farm to William Reddiche who already owned several properties in the village as a 'Free tenant' of the Earl of Pembroke in Wilton.[2][6]
A rectory (now Grade II* listed) was built to the west of the church.[7]
By 1608 the Pembroke estate had also acquired the manors of Knighton and Stoke Farthing.[6] The house called Knighton Manor was built towards the end of the century.[8]
By 1846 a cottage served as a National School, and in 1860 a new school and teacher's house were built opposite the church.[2]
In 1919 the Pembroke family started to sell the individual farms.
Sport
The Chalke Valley Sports Centre[9] is located in Knighton Road and has a football pitch, tennis courts, skate park and also a Multi-Use Games Area (MUGA) for table tennis, short mat bowls, pilates and other indoor functions.
- Cricket: Chalke Valley Cricket Club, which plays at at Butt's Field in Bowerchalke
- Motor sport: The Gurston Down speed hill-climb course is at Gurston Farm in Broad Chalke and attracts many hundreds of visitors every year.[10]
Outside links
 |
("Wikimedia Commons" has material about Broad Chalke) |
- Wiltshire Community History
- General information, News, Events, Clubs, Churches, Sport, Services, History
- Church in the Chalke Valley
- 1841 Census data
References
- ↑ National Heritage List 1146136: Broad Chalke (Grade I listing)
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 A History of the County of Wiltshire - Volume 13 pp 36-52: Parishes: Broad Chalke (Victoria County History)
- ↑ "Ring out the old, ring in the new". 28 December 2006. http://www.salisburyjournal.co.uk/features/journalfeatures/1093853.Ring_out_the_old__ring_in_the_new/. Retrieved 28 February 2016.
- ↑ "Chalke Valley Stores | The HUB - shop, post office, coffee shop". http://www.chalkevalleystores.co.uk/.
- ↑ "Local Services : Broad Chalke". http://www.broadchalke.info/services.php. Retrieved 28 February 2016.
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 6.3 6.4 6.5 6.6 6.7 'Broad Chalke, A History of a South Wiltshire Village, its Land & People Over 2,000 years'; by 'The People of the Village', 1999
- ↑ National Heritage List 1146135: Kings Old Rectory (Grade II* listing)
- ↑ National Heritage List 1198385: Knighton Manor (Grade II listing)
- ↑ "Chalke Valley Sports Centre". http://www.southwilts.com/site/Chalke-Valley-Sports-Centre/.
- ↑ "Gurston Down Speed Hillclimb, Salisbury, Wiltshire" (in en-GB). http://www.gurstondown.org/.