Place:West Wellow, Hampshire, England

source: Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Names

source: Family History Library Catalog

A Vision of Britain through Time provides the following description of West Wellow from John Marius Wilson's Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales of 1870-72:

"WELLOW (East and West), two parishes in Romsey [registration] district, the former in Hants, the latter in Wilts; 3¾ and 4½ miles W by S of Romsey [railway] station. Post town: Romsey. Acres: 2,373 and 1,344. Real property: £1,856 and £3,194. But the acreage of East [Wellow] includes Dunwood extra-parochial tract; and the real property of West [Wellow] includes Bramshaw parish. Population: 332 and 408. Houses: 61 and 103. The property is divided among a few. Embley Park is the seat of W. E. Nightingale, Esq. The livings are a vicarage in the diocese of Winchester. Value: £245. Patron: W. E. Nightingale, Esq. The church is good; and there is a Baptist chapel."

West Wellow was a separate civil parish originally in Wiltshire. The county border was realigned in 1895 bringing West Wellow into Hampshire, England. In 1932 it was merged with East Wellow under the name Wellow.

According to Wikipedia, today the separation between the villages is indistinguishable. Their combined population is just over 3,000. Wellow is located in the Test Valley District. The village lies just outside the New Forest across the main A36 road which runs from the M27 motorway to Salisbury. The nearest town is Romsey (6 km) and the nearest city Southampton (13 km). West Wellow includes the hamlet of Canada.

West Wellow was probably in the Frustfield Hundred when it was in Wiltshire as this was the hundred in which the neighbouring parish of Landford was located.

For more information, see the EN Wikipedia article Wellow, Hampshire.

Research Tips

• Victoria County History of Hampshire, volume 4, chapter on East Wellow.
• GENUKI has a list of archive holders in Hampshire including the Hampshire Record Office, various museums in Portsmouth and Southhampton, the Isle of Wight Record Office and Archives.
• The Hampshire Online Parish Clerk project has a large collection of transcriptions from Parish Registers across Hampshire.
• A listing of all the Registration Districts in England and Wales since their introduction in 1837 together with tables listing the parishes that were part of each district and the time period covered, along with detailed notes on changes of parish name, mergers, etc. Do respect the copyright on this material.
• The three-storey City Museum in Winchester covers the Iron Age and Roman periods, the Middle Ages, and the Victorian period.
• Volumes in The Victoria County History Series are available for Hampshire through British History Online. There are three volumes and the county is covered by parishes within the old divisions of "hundreds".

A collection of maps on the A Vision of Britain through Time website illustrating the English county of Hampshire over the period 1832-1932 (the last two are expandible):

• The Hundreds of Hampshire, a map from HMSO Boundary Commissioners, dated 1832
• Hampshire showing parishes in their Rural Districts as of 1900, a map from the Ordnance Survey
• Hampshire showing parishes in their Rural Districts after the alterations of 1932, a map from the Ordnance Survey

• A group of maps of the post-1974 municipal districts or boroughs of Hampshire on Wikipedia Commons