Description
Broad Chalke is in the Cranborne Chase and West Wiltshire Downs Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty and is halfway along the 13 miles (21 km) 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.
At the heart of the village is the Church of England's All Saints' Church, dating from the 13th century. Following a major restoration project leading up to the millennium year, 2000, it boasts a peal of eight bells.
The village has been home to several notable people, including Sir Anthony Eden (Prime Minister). Sir Cecil Beaton the photographer lived at Reddish House, as did Dr. Lucius Wood, father of the painter Christopher Wood. Later Reddish House was owned by musicians Toyah Wilcox and Robert Fripp. The village is also home to the author James Holland, his brother Tom Holland and Sir Terry Pratchett.
John Aubrey (1626–1697) and Maurice Henry Hewlett (1861–1923), both authors, lived in Broad Chalke. Reverend Professor Rowland Williams (1817–1870), a theologian whose essays and sermons caused him to be charged with heterodoxy, was later vicar of Broad Chalke and is buried there, as is Cecil Beaton.
The Gurston Down hill-climb course is within the parish of Broad Chalke and attracts many hundreds of visitors every year.
The local pub is the Queen's Head which enjoys a prime position in North Street adjacent to the Chapel.
J E Fry & Son, the village shop and Post Office is in South Street and has traded as family butchers under the Fry family for almost 100 years. Since the closure of the old village shop and Post Office around Christmas 1992 the butchers began to sell groceries and everyday items and also incorporated the village Post Office which opened within the butchers on 15 June 1993. The shop was featured on BBC South Today as one of the most unusual locations for a Post Office in the region, and the current butcher Robert Fry was the subject of ITV's Country Ways programme some years ago.
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“As they are not seen on their way down the streams, it is thought by fishermen that they never return, but waste away and die, clinging to rocks and stumps of trees for an indefinite period; a tragic feature in the scenery of the river bottoms worthy to be remembered with Shakespeare’s description of the sea-floor.”
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