Nether Wallop in Hampshire

Since World War II, Nether Wallop has seen accelerating social change resulting from countrywide causes-the motor car, television, supermarkets, farm mechanisation, and the affluent society are a few, all of which have affected the village. The conditions which caused it to be a tight-knit community dependent on the land no longer exist. Today a farmer and three men can farm 1000 acres of mechanised mixed farming. Scarcely a sheep is seen in the parish where large flocks have grazed on the chalk downs for centuries. Old farmhouses and cottages which would have fallen into decay have been bought by townsfolk, renovated and given a new lease of life. Their gardens, too large for today's owners, are being infilled with modern houses, their former farmland and outbuildings increase the few large mechanised farms. A residential area is being created where before was a village community.

The village shops where villagers met and exchanged friendly gossip have inevitably gone. Nether Wallop is becoming well known - in 1972 Danebury, now a Hampshire open space of some 76 acres of downland including the Iron Age Hill Fort was visited by 70,000 people; in 1973 about 30,000 people attended the Army Air Show on the Airfield. But the surprisingly small variation in its population (887 in 1971) shows that the village has not yet been engulfed by modern estates.

Nether Wallop has a distinctive personality with certain constant characteristics. It has always been associated with royalty. Its Iron Age Chieftains succumbed to the young commander, later Roman Emperor Vespasian; the Saxon kings owned Wallope and had a demesne here; the Norman kings knew it well for Buckholt Forest was part of the great hunting area used by William the Conqueror and his sons, and King John and Edward I; Charles II reputedly stayed at Berry Court; William III passed through Wallop after landing in England to become King; George III knew Wallop and Broughton from his journeys to and from Weymouth, and Edward VII was a frequent visitor to the Stockbridge Races at Danebury. During World War II George VI visited the Airfield and met 'Cat's eyes' Cunningham, the famous night fighter pilot, and in the last decade Prince Philip has visited Wallop several times, in 1965 to receive his wings as an Army Air Corps Pilot, and later to see Danebury Ring.

Nether Wallop's larger houses, the lineal descendants of older ones, have been the homes of people eminent in their generations; those in the twentieth century include the Duke of Hamilton, physician to Queen Victoria, High Sheriff of the County, gynaecologist to Queen Elizabeth II, a world famous conductor, a well known actor, famous equestrian artist, a British international skier (Davina Galicia), a broadcaster, an Admiral, a General, and an Air Chief Marshall.\par The beauty of its environment and the friendliness of its people continues, and under its modern skin its basic structure and continuity of life are the living witnesses to 4000 years of its past.

In 1974 Nether Wallop had to face another change when Local Government Reorganisation is put into effect under the new County Council.

But that chapter has yet to be written.

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