Place:Broad Chalke, Wiltshire, England

source: Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Names

source: Family History Library Catalog

the text in this section is based on an article in Wikipedia

Broad Chalke, sometimes spelled Broadchalke, Broad Chalk or Broadchalk, is a village and civil parish in Wiltshire, England, about 8 miles (13 km) west of the city of Salisbury. The civil parish includes the hamlets of Knapp, Mount Sorrel, Stoke Farthing and Little London. The parish had a population of 680 in the UK census of 2011.

Broad Chalke is halfway along the 13 miles (21 km) of the Chalke Valley. The parish has two chalk streams, as the River Chalke flows into the River Ebble at Mount Sorrell in the parish, and the main settlement stands on the banks of the Ebble.

The valley road runs from Salisbury in the east to Shaftesbury in the west between chalk downs on either side. The village sits at a crossroads where a road from Hampshire in the south runs down Knowle Hill and another route from Fovant and Tisbury in the north runs down Compton Down via Fifield Bavant and all roads meet near the public house in North Street.

For more information, see the EN Wikipedia article Broad Chalke. An interesting article on 20th century inhabitants of the parish and a timeline history from the 9th century to the 21st.

Research Tips

• Victoria County History - Wiltshire - Vol 13, pp36-52 - Parish: Broad Chalke. British History Online. University of London.
• From this Ancestry page you can browse the Wiltshire parishes which have parish register transcripts online, quite often from very early dates. However, reading the early ones requires skill and patience. Transcriptions should also be in FamilySearch.
• A further collection of online source references will be found on the county page for Wiltshire.