| Static Image Name: | The Plough Inn, Grateley - geograph.org.uk - 1716016.jpg |
| Static Image Width: | 240 |
| Static Image Caption: | The Plough Inn |
| Static Image Alt: | The Plough Inn |
| Country: | England |
| Coordinates: | 51.1755°N -1.6045°W |
| Official Name: | Grateley |
| Population: | 645 |
| Population Ref: | (2011 Census including Palestine, Hampshire)[1] |
| Shire District: | Test Valley |
| Shire County: | Hampshire |
| Region: | South East England |
| Constituency Westminster: | North West Hampshire |
| Post Town: | Andover |
| Postcode District: | SP11 |
| Postcode Area: | SP |
| Dial Code: | 01264 |
| Os Grid Reference: | SU2774441883 |
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, 0.75miles 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 1551acres 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.