click here for the latest History Society program
Honorary President: Norman Powers
This society has been in existence since 1997 and has had many interesting talks about our area and its surroundings over the years as well as being involved with local research, such as the background to all the names on our war memorials. We also try to help with family history enquiries.
The society meets in East Woodhay Village Hall at Heath End once a month between September and March (excluding December) as well as having a visit to a local place of interest in the Spring. The talks programme for the season is published in July on this website & in the parish magazine, Spectrum.
The membership fee for the year is £10.00 and visitors are welcome for an entrance fee to their chosen talk of £4.
The January meeting is our AGM but business is kept to a minimum as we follow it with ten minute talks by the members who come up with very wide ranging topics.
We hope to include items of local history on this website in the future. To start with we would like to explain the East Woodhay parish in which Woolton Hill sits and is covered by this website.
The parish of East Woodhay is made up of many small hamlets, estates, farms and houses. They hamlets include Ball Hill, Heath End, North End, East End, Gore End, Hollington, Hatt Common, Broad Layings and Woolton Hill.
East Woodhay itself is effectively St Martin’s Church, Church farm and a few other houses. However there once was a manor house though the exact site is yet to be confirmed. Archeological surveys have identified several features dating back to the 12th Century when the original church was built
The northern boundary follows the River Enborne, set in Saxon times, and also the County boundary with West Berkshire – as is the western boundary.
The southern boundary follows the hill ridge including Pilot Hill.
The southern boundary is, again, Saxon and originally followed the Andover Road through Highclere. This used to be called Honey Way. In the 1980s the Boundary Commission moved it westwards.
Our parish has been our political ward but this changed in 2020 when we joined with Highclere and Ashmansworth to become Evingar Ward. That name was used for our area in the Domesday Book and originally stretched down to Whitchurch.
The society also produced a very informative book on the History of East Woodhay as a Millenium Project and copies are still available, as are copies of the book on the Parish’s footpaths. Memorial books about those on our war memorials can be found in St Martin’s & St Thomas’.
We are always grateful to receive any information about East Woodhay – memories, photographs, documents etc. Again please get in touch, as we don’t want to lose valuable resources. We can always scan or copy items if you want to keep them.
If you are interested in joining us or have information about anything to do with the Parish’s history then please contact:
Secretary: Christine Dalton chrissie.dalton@yahoo.co.uk 07880 628 114
Research & Talks Programme: Val Pollitt valeriepollitt@googlemail.com 01635 253550
