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Human settlement in England From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Grateley is a village and civil parish in the north west of Hampshire, England.
Grateley | |
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![]() The Plough Inn | |
Location within Hampshire | |
Population | 645 (2011 Census including Palestine, Hampshire)[1] |
OS grid reference | SU2774441883 |
District | |
Shire county | |
Region | |
Country | England |
Sovereign state | United Kingdom |
Post town | Andover |
Postcode district | SP11 |
Dialling code | 01264 |
Police | Hampshire and Isle of Wight |
Fire | Hampshire and Isle of Wight |
Ambulance | South Central |
UK Parliament | |
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]