Grateley

The name is derived from the Old English grēat lēah, meaning 'great wood or clearing'.^[3]

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.^[4] The hamlet of Palestine adjoins the railway station settlement, although it is located in the civil parish of Over Wallop.^[5]

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^[6] living in 250 dwellings.

King Æthelstan issued his first official law code in Grateley in about 930 AD.^[7] Recorded in the early 12th century Quadripartitus text,^[8] which referred to a ‘great assembly at Grateley’ (magna synodo apud Greateleyam). The legislative assembly and construct of the Grateley law code acted as a manifestation of the peripatetic nature of Anglo-Saxon kingship.^[9]

In the 20th century Grateley was one of many ammunition dumps during the World Wars.^[10]

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.

The economic history of Grateley is agricultural, but less than 10% of the village population now rely upon agriculture as an occupation.^{[citation needed]}