The village of Broad Chalke is situated in Wiltshire, England, around 8 miles (13 km) southwest of the city of Salisbury. Broad Chalke, sometimes spelled Broadchalke, Broad Chalk or Broadchalk, is a village and civil parish in Wiltshire, England, about 8 miles (13 km) west of the city of Salisbury. The civil parish includes the hamlets of Knapp, Mount Sorrel and Stoke Farthing. Geography
Broad Cha
lke is in the Cranborne Chase and West Wiltshire Downs Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty and is halfway along the 13 miles (21 km) Chalke Valley. The parish has two chalk streams, as the River Chalke flows into the River Ebble at Mount Sorrell in the parish, and the main settlement stands on the banks of the Ebble. 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. Religious sites
Parish church
All Saints' Church
The parish church of All Saints is a Grade I listed building.[2] It is from the late 13th and 14th centuries, with a 15th-century porch. Restoration in 1846-7 was by Wyatt and Brandon.[3]
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.[4] Broad Chalke and Bowerchalke were united in 1952[5] and became part of the Chalke Valley team ministry in 1972.[4]
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.[4] Two more were added to mark the end of the 20th century, as part of a renovation funded by the Millennium Commission.[6]
Other churches
United Reformed Church
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.[7] In 2006 the church was refurbished and divided to provide a community room, then in 2013 the village shop and post office[8] moved into the church.[9] As of 2016, services continue to be held in the church.[10]
Primitive Methodists built a chapel in 1843. The chapel closed c. 1965 and was demolished in 1970.[11]
Amenities
The village has a C of E Primary School[12] and a doctors' surgery. There has been a village hall[13] since 1914 and a Reading Room (also called the Parish Room) on the same site before the village hall was built. The village has a pub, The Queen's Head.[14]
J E Fry & Son, the village shop and Post Office was in South Street and traded as family butchers under the Fry family for almost 100 years. After the closure of the shop and Post Office around Christmas 1992, the butchers began to sell groceries and everyday items and also incorporated the village Post Office which opened within the butchers on 15 June 1993. The shop was featured on BBC South Today as one of the most unusual locations for a Post Office in the region, and the butcher Robert Fry was the subject of ITV's Country Ways programme. He retired on 31 May 2013 and the shop in South Street closed. Chalke Valley Stores[8] opened in the meeting area of the URC chapel in June 2013. There is a coffee shop in the chapel worship area and an office for the Chalke Valley Community Hub, Chalke Valley Stores, Police, Church Benefice and URC on the balcony, and a village archive on the balcony outside the office. Watercress has been grown in the River Ebble cressbeds for many years and is sold from the packing station[15] at The Marsh. Sport
The Chalke Valley Sports Centre[16] 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. Chalke Valley Cricket Club[17] is nominally part of the Sports Centre but has its own management and finances and moved to a new ground at Butt's Field, Bowerchalke[18] in 2010. The Gurston Down speed hill-climb course is at Gurston Farm in Broad Chalke and attracts many hundreds of visitors every year.[19]
Local government
The civil parish elects a parish council. It is in the area of Wiltshire Council unitary authority, which is responsible for most local government functions.
