Two Counties, One Village: The Peculiar History of West Dean
West Dean is an unusual village in that it straddles the county boundary between Wiltshire and Hampshire.
The ecclesiastical parish is the combination of West Dean St Mary, entirely in Wiltshire, and West Dean All Saints, partly in Wiltshire and partly in Hampshire, which were united in 1474. When civil parishes were created in 1866 the Wiltshire portion became a parish on its own and the Hampshire portion was united with West Tytherley civil parish. It was one settlement, but with two governing parish councils in two different counties.
Landowners held property on both sides of the county boundary. These included members of the Barings family, of Barings bank, and Washington Singer the founder of Singer sewing machines, who successively owned Norman Court.
The dual jurisdiction created some rather peculiar circumstances. The Red Lion pub straddled the county boundary; it had one bar in each county. Because the two counties had different licencing hours the drinkers in the Hampshire bar were obliged to move to the Wiltshire bar at 10.30 to carry on drinking until 11 o'clock. The pub was located close to West Dean station and became a popular evening venue for young people looking for a late night out.
Local tradition relates a more serious circumstance when the coroner for Hampshire, using one of the pub's rooms to conduct an inquest, was informed that he was in Wiltshire and obliged to move to a part of the building located within his own county for proceedings to continue.
Several consultations have been held over the years to discuss the possibility of uniting the village in a single county. They have always been opposed by the inhabitants on both sides of the boundary - not least the landlord of the Red Lion whose advertising campaign was based around the pub being in two counties. Residents decisively rejected a plan to place the whole of West Dean in Wiltshire in 1989/90. In 2016 an application for the designation of West Dean and West Tytherley Neighbourhood Area was approved under the Town and Country Planning Act and a joint neighbourhood plan was developed by West Dean and West Tytherley parish councils.
Mark Forrest