Shalbourne

Shalbourne
St. Michael and All Angels
Shalbourne Location within Wiltshire
Population	558 (in 2011)[1]
OS grid reference	SU3163
Unitary authority	Wiltshire
Ceremonial county	Wiltshire
Region	South West
Country	England
Sovereign state	United Kingdom
Post town	Marlborough
Postcode district	SN8
Post town	Hungerford
Postcode district	RG17
Dialling code	01672
Police	Wiltshire
Fire	Dorset and Wiltshire
Ambulance	South Western
UK Parliament	East Wiltshire
Website	www.shalbourne.org
List of places UK England Wiltshire 51°22′05″N 1°33′00″W / 51.368°N 1.550°W / 51.368; -1.550

Shalbourne is a village and civil parish in the English county of Wiltshire, about 3 miles (4.8 km) southwest of Hungerford, Berkshire. The parish has a number of widely spaced small settlements including Bagshot and Stype, to the north, and Rivar and Oxenwood to the south. Before 1895, about half of the parish of Shalbourne (including its church) lay in Berkshire.

Domesday Book of 1086 recorded a settlement of 48 households at Saldeborne or Scaldeburne.^[3]

Under the Counties (Detached Parts) Act 1844, Oxenwood tithing was transferred from Berkshire to Wiltshire. Bagshot tithing was transferred in 1895, to complete the consolidation of the parish within Wiltshire.^[4]

The Anglican Church of St Michael and All Angels is Grade II* listed. Built in flint and stone with tiled roofs, it dates from the 12th or 13th century and was partly rebuilt and extended by G.F. Bodley in 1873.^[5][6]

The nave is either 12th century or a 13th-century rebuilding; reconstruction of the south aisle in the 19th century reused two 12th-century doorways.^[7] The chancel was rebuilt around 1300, and the tower added in the 15th century.^[4]

Three of the six bells in the tower are from the 17th century.^[8] The east chancel window has 1871 stained glass by Kempe.^[6] A window by Henry Haig was added in 1995, from designs of Karl Parsons, who lived at Shalbourne from 1930 until the onset of ill health in 1933.^[9][10]

The benefice was united with that of Ham with Buttermere in 1956.^[11] Today the parish is part of the Savernake Team, a group of eleven village parishes.^[12]

Also Grade II* listed are West Court farmhouse (15th and 17th centuries) and Shalbourne Manor farmhouse (16th century).^[13][14]

The Shalbourne Stream flows northeast from its spring-fed source near Shalbourne village, to join the River Dun above Hungerford.^[15][16]

The civil parish elects a parish council.^[17] It is in the area of Wiltshire Council, a unitary authority, which is responsible for all significant local government functions.

Shalbourne has a primary school,^[18] and a village hall which was built in 1843 as a schoolroom.^[19][20] It has a cricket pitch and pavilion with a bar. At the centre of the village, near the village green, are the pub (The Plough) and a small post office and shop which sells a variety of products and refreshments. The shop stocks organic vegetables from Shalbourne's community project, a small allotment that sells vegetable boxes to the village and surroundings.

• Alexander Chocke of Shalbourne (1594–1625) was elected to Parliament for Ludgershall in 1621.^[21]
• From 1608 until late 1637, tenants of the parish's Westcourt Manor included William Carpenter and his namesake son, both of whom emigrated to Weymouth, Massachusetts in 1638 on the Bevis from Southampton. The younger William was a founder of Rehoboth, Massachusetts. The Rehoboth Carpenter family's descendants number in the tens of thousands, among whom are two U.S. presidents and a Project Mercury astronaut. William Carpenter [Jr.] married at Shalbourne in 1625 Abigail Briant, whose family had resided in the parish since at least the late 16th century.^[22]
• Jethro Tull (1674–1741), agricultural pioneer, from 1709 owned Prosperous farm, close to the northeast boundary of the present parish.^[23]
• Marguerite de Beaumont (1899–1989), founding member of Girl Guides, biographer of Lord Baden-Powell, and recipient of the Silver Fish Award, Girl Guiding's highest adult honour.

• Botley Down, a biological Site of Special Scientific Interest near Oxenwood

Media related to Shalbourne at Wikimedia Commons

• "Shalbourne". Wiltshire Community History. Wiltshire Council. Retrieved 19 April 2015.
• Shalbourne village website