Whiteparish is a village and civil parish on the A27 about southeast of Salisbury in Wiltshire, England. The village is about from the county boundary with Hampshire. The parish includes the hamlets of Cowesfield Green and Newton.
History
Cowesfield was recorded in the Domesday Book of 1086, together with nearby settlements at Alderstone and Frustfield. The place-name 'Whiteparish' is first attested in 1319. It was earlier recorded as 'la Whytechyrche' in 1278, and 'Album Monasterium' in 1291, which both mean 'white church'. The reference is presumably to a stone or whitewashed church.
The Church of England parish church of All Saints is Grade II* listed. It has 12th-century origins and was restored by William Butterfield in 1870. A painting St Peter denying Christ is by J F Rigaud. A Methodist church was built on Dean Lane in the 19th century. It was sold for residential use circa 2012.
Schools
Whiteparish All Saints Church of EnglandPrimary School teaches children from a nursery class up to year 6. In the middle of Whiteparish, it has about 150 children, some from outside the village. A school for teaching reading, writing, and accounts to twenty poor children had been founded at Whiteparish by the gift of J. Lynch in 1639. In 1833 this school was teaching thirty-five boys. There was also a girls' school, founded in 1722 by the Will of E. Hitchcock, which in 1833 was teaching twenty girls the Church catechism, reading, and needlework. From 1842 there was a National School on the site of the present school, which educated children of all ages until 1955.
Amenities
Facilities in the village include:
Whiteparish Memorial Centre – in the south-east corner of the recreation grounds
All Saints CE Primary School – on Common Road
The Parish Lantern – a public house on Romsey Road
The Kings Head - a gastro pub on The Street - recently re-opened and refurbished October 2017
The village previously had four public houses, but two have now closed. The first to close was the White Hart, around 1990. The site was developed into four houses in 2006, although the pub sign still exists on the opposite side of Romsey Road at the entrance to the recreation grounds. The Fountain Inn closed in 2015 and was converted to a residential property in 2016.
Abbotstone House is a Grade II listed building, adjacent to the A27, in the north-western part of the village. Other major residences include Melchet Park, Cowesfield House, Broxmore House, and Brickworth. Brickworth is an old modernized mansion, which was long the seat of the Eyres; it now belongs to Earl Nelson. Earl Nelson is lord of the manor.
