Kimpton is a village and

civil parish In England, a civil parish is a type of administrative parish used for local government. It is a territorial designation which is the lowest tier of local government below districts and counties, or their combined form, the unitary authorit ...

in the

Test Valley Test Valley is a local government district and borough in Hampshire, England, named after the valley of the River Test. Its council is based in Andover. The borough was formed on 1 April 1974 by a merger of the boroughs of Andover and Romsey, a ...

district of

Hampshire Hampshire (, ; abbreviated to Hants) is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in western South East England on the coast of the English Channel. Home to two major English cities on its south coast, Southampton and Portsmouth, Hampshire ...

, England. The village is situated west of

Andover Andover may refer to: Places Australia *Andover, Tasmania Canada * Andover Parish, New Brunswick * Perth-Andover, New Brunswick United Kingdom * Andover, Hampshire, England ** RAF Andover, a former Royal Air Force station United States * Andove ...

, in the north of the county, and has a boundary with Ludgershall, in

Wiltshire Wiltshire (; abbreviated Wilts) is a historic and ceremonial county in South West England with an area of . It is landlocked and borders the counties of Dorset to the southwest, Somerset to the west, Hampshire to the southeast, Gloucestershire ...

. South of Kimpton there is Thruxton motor racing circuit, in the parish of Thruxton. The main settlement in the parish is the village of Kimpton, in the south of the parish; in the north there is the

hamlet ''The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark'', often shortened to ''Hamlet'' (), is a tragedy written by William Shakespeare sometime between 1599 and 1601. It is Shakespeare's longest play, with 29,551 words. Set in Denmark, the play depicts ...

of Shoddesden. In the 2001 census, the parish had a population of 352. Before the reorganisation of local government in 1974, the parish was in

Andover Rural District Andover may refer to: Places Australia *Andover, Tasmania Canada * Andover Parish, New Brunswick * Perth-Andover, New Brunswick United Kingdom * Andover, Hampshire, England ** RAF Andover, a former Royal Air Force station United States * Andove ...

. The A342 passes through the north-east corner of the parish. The

Midland and South Western Junction Railway The Midland and South Western Junction Railway (M&SWJR) was an independent railway built to form a north–south link between the Midland Railway and the London and South Western Railway in England, allowing the Midland and other companies' tr ...

, which runs parallel to the road, was closed to passengers in 1961, however the line remains open as far as Ludgershall to serve an army depot on the edge of the town. Kimpton Down, a rural area in the north and west of the parish, contains the remains of several historical sites including

bowl barrow A bowl barrow is a type of burial mound or tumulus. A barrow is a mound of earth used to cover a tomb. The bowl barrow gets its name from its resemblance to an upturned bowl. Related terms include ''cairn circle'', ''cairn ring'', ''howe'', ''ker ...

s and Roman buildings. Excavations near Shoddesden found a former

Iron Age The Iron Age is the final epoch of the three-age division of the prehistory and protohistory of humanity. It was preceded by the Stone Age ( Paleolithic, Mesolithic, Neolithic) and the Bronze Age ( Chalcolithic). The concept has been mostl ...

Romano-British The Romano-British culture arose in Britain under the Roman Empire following the Roman conquest in AD 43 and the creation of the province of Britannia. It arose as a fusion of the imported Roman culture with that of the indigenous Britons, ...

settlement site. A racehorse training complex at Kimpton Down Stables was opened in 2003 by

Toby Balding Gerald Barnard Balding Jr. OBE (23 September 1936 – 25 September 2014), known as Toby Balding, was a British racehorse trainer, one of the few to have won the "big three" British jump races—the Grand National, Cheltenham Gold Cup and ...

Ralph Beckett Ralph Michael Beckett (born June 1971) is a British racehorse trainer who specialises in training horses for Flat racing. He is based at Kimpton, Hampshire. Beckett comes from an aristocratic racing background. He is the grandson of Ralph Beck ...

bought Kimpton Down Stables and gallops in late 2010, and trained Talent to win the 2013 Oaks at Epsom Downs Racecourse The Grade I listed Church of St Peter & St Paul is situated in the village. The church is built of

flint Flint, occasionally flintstone, is a sedimentary cryptocrystalline form of the mineral quartz, categorized as the variety of chert that occurs in chalk or marly limestone. Flint was widely used historically to make stone tools and sta ...

, stone rubble and brick, and has a tower and a

cruciform Cruciform is a term for physical manifestations resembling a common cross or Christian cross. The label can be extended to architectural shapes, biology, art, and design. Cruciform architectural plan Christian churches are commonly describe ...

layout. The oldest parts of the church are the

nave The nave () is the central part of a church, stretching from the (normally western) main entrance or rear wall, to the transepts, or in a church without transepts, to the chancel. When a church contains side aisles, as in a basilica-type ...

and

chancel In church architecture, the chancel is the space around the altar, including the choir and the sanctuary (sometimes called the presbytery), at the liturgical east end of a traditional Christian church building. It may terminate in an apse. Ov ...

, built in the 13th century; other parts were added later. Kimpton Manor, originally built in 1444, is one of the oldest inhabited houses in Hampshire. The village has a small pub called The Welcome Stranger, The Kimpton Apple Press, a park and a village hall which also acts as a pre-school.

References

External links

Kimpton Village Web Site

Kimpton
on

British History Online ''British History Online'' is a digital library of primary and secondary sources on medieval and modern history of Great Britain and Ireland. It was created and is managed as a cooperative venture by the Institute of Historical Research, Univer ...

Villages in Hampshire Civil parishes in Hampshire Test Valley {{Hampshire-geo-stub