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Alderbury is a village and civil parish in Wiltshire, England, in the south of the county around southeast of Salisbury. (1980). 9780340254875, Drive Publications Limited. ISBN 9780340254875
The parish includes the village of Whaddon, which is adjacent to Alderbury, and the hamlet of Shute End. The Hampshire Avon forms the western boundary of the parish. The villages are on the Salisbury-Southampton road which became the A36 primary route; a bypass was opened in 1978, taking the A36 to the east of the villages.
Ivychurch Priory was founded in the late 12th century by King Stephen, on the site of the Ivychurch chapel. After the dissolution, lessees of the bishop included the Earls of Pembroke (1551–1647) and the Earls of Radnor (1757–1801). Longford Castle, on the opposite bank of the Avon, has been the Radnor seat since 1717.
The ancient Alderbury parish had two detached areas at Farley and Pitton, adjacent to each other but around to the northeast of Alderbury and separated from it by Clarendon Park. At some point before the 1881 census they were made a separate civil parish, Pitton and Farley.
The population of the parish reached a peak of around 700 in the middle of the 19th century, and was little changed until after the Second World War. The 1951 census recorded 1,029 and by 2001 numbers had more than doubled to 2,143.
Between 1961 and 1991, the village was the location of a Royal Observer Corps monitoring bunker, to be used in the event of a nuclear attack. It remains mostly intact and in June 2000, it was re-equipped for three days to film a documentary on the ROC.
The Grade II listed church has a northwest tower and octagonal spire, and is built in random flint with Bath stone dressings, some of the materials being recovered from the earlier church. Two tablet monuments were retained from the previous church, while tombstones from the churchyard were used to pave the floor. There is stained glass by Henry Holiday; Clayton and Bell; Heaton, Butler and Bayne; and William Morris. In 1960, wrought iron panels designed by Sir George Gilbert Scott for an 1870 screen at Salisbury Cathedral were used to make the communion rail.
The parish had Chapelry at Farley and Pitton until 1874, when the parish of Farley with Pitton was created. From 1964 the vicar was appointed as rector of West Grimstead, and the two benefices were united in 1971 although the parishes remained distinct. Today, Alderbury parish is part of the Clarendon group, alongside the West Grimstead, Farley and Pitton churches and five others.
Although the previous church at this site (demolished in 1857) is well covered in histories of the region, there has been a place of worship here for centuries. There is mention of one in a 1341 document, and a 15th-century document discusses St John of Alwardburie. The church on this site was called St Mary's by 1754, "a plain building with a wooden turret, perpendicular windows in the chancel and a post-Restoration south porch with a belfry" according to Wiltshire Council. That was the building that was demolished in 1857.
There was a church or chapel at Whaddon in the 12th to 14th centuries, which fell into disuse sometime before 1536.
Not far from Alderbury, Ivychurch Priory was an Augustinians monastery established in the 12th century and dissolved in 1536. According to Historic England, "all that remains is a cylindrical pier with multi-scalloped capital and part of the double-chamfered arch with a respond to the west with a half-pier and capital; this is attached to the west wall of the church which retains one buttress".
A Wesleyan Methodist chapel was built at Alderbury in 1825 and demolished in 1970. A Primitive Methodist chapel built at Whaddon in 1884 became a Roman Catholic chapel in 1990.
A water trough in limestone under a tiled roof was erected in 1902 on the village green, to commemorate the coronation of Edward VII and in appreciation of the Earl of Radnor for providing a water supply to the village. The structure re-uses four double capitals from the remains of Ivychurch Priory.
At Shute End, just inside Clarendon parish, St Marie's Grange was built in 1835 by architect Augustus Pugin for his own occupation, but enlarged in 1841 after he had left. Nikolaus Pevsner describes the "romantic dream come true" in some detail. The house is Grade I listed.
Tennis player Violet Millicent Pinckney (1871–1955) was born at Alderbury, as was Anglo-Scottish educator and social reformer Lileen Hardy.
The Bishopstoke-Romsey-Salisbury section of the London and South Western Railway was built north of Alderbury and Whaddon, turning west into the Dean valley towards station at West Dean. Opened in 1847, it continues in use as part of the Wessex Main Line between Bristol and Southampton. In 1866 the Salisbury and Dorset Junction Railway was built from a junction with the earlier railway near Alderbury, skirting Whaddon and turning south towards and the south coast. This line was closed in 1964 and the track was lifted.
Whaddon has a post office / newsagent, and there is a local shop in Alderbury. There is one pub, the Green Dragon at Alderbury. A social club is next to the village hall in the grounds of the recreation field.
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