Whitsbury
The Parish of Whitsbury used to be in Wiltshire until 1895 and it is still under a Wiltshire parliamentary constituency.  The village has over the past centuries had various names and origins which include: Wychbury, Wicheberia (XII Cent), Wicchebun, Wicheburia (XIII Cent), Witchebury, Whyttesbury, Whistlebury (XVI Cent), Whichbury (XVII Cent), Whitchbury (XIX Cent), Witesbury (till 1860). Wicheberia: 1168 Wycn elm burg (Oxford Dictionary of Place Names)

Several tumuli are on Whitsbury down and the Castle Ditches and Whitsbury Camp overlooks the village.

The parish church is dedicated to St Leonard and was built in the 14th century and like most churches underwent restoration and alterations during the Victorian era. The church has always been in the Diocese of Winchester in the hundred of Fordingbridge until the 1980s when it was transferred t the Diocese of Salisbury. St Leonard's is built high on the ridge that is on the eastern side of the valley and a Hog Fair used to be held opposite until 1825.

Whitsbury Methodist chapel was built in 1901 and the village hall five years later. The Cartwheel public house has been turned into a restaurant and the shop closed in 1970.

At the top of the hill to the north stands Whitsbury Manor Stud and Racing Establishment and Whitsbury Manor Farm buildings and houses are just over the brow of the hill.

In the Domesday Survey of 1986 Whitsbury was listed as Witeberge which came from the ruling of Robert Fitzgerald who was the nephew of Edward of Salisbury and Sheriff of Wiltshire.

HISTORY OF ST LEONARDS CHURCH

WHITSBURY CASTLE DITCHES

Standing on top of the hill this Ancient Monument is a very fine example of a fortified Iron Age settlement, is 400ft above sea level at the northern end of the village at the rear of the Racing Stables and Manor Hosue. It is surrounded by three circles of high banks and two deep ditches and the Romans sank a well that was 300ft deep near the western entrance to the castle, Grim's Ditch can be traced at the northeast corner of the camp, a part of the interior was excavated in 1969 and the plan of a circular timber house which was twenty-five fee in diameter was found and some pottery which dated back to the Iron Age.

Whitsbury Castle Ditches were part of a line of fortifications with Clearbury Rings and Old Sarum and faced east to defend the line of the River Avon, After Cerdica and the Saxons advanced through the New Forest and cross the Avon in 519AD at Cerdica's Ford (Charford) they were stopped by the British defenders of this line for over fifty years.