Hamstead Marshall

Hamstead Marshall is a village and civil parish in the English county of Berkshire. The Village is located within the North Wessex Downs. The road signs' name and that accepted by most of the village's organisations is Hamstead Marshall, an alternative Hampstead Marshall was preferred from time to time and remains the official name of the civil parish. The population of this civil parish at the 2011 Census was 275.

In the west of West Berkshire (a unitary authority area), south-west of Newbury, on the Berkshire-Hampshire border, the parish covers 7.78 square kilometres (3.00 sq mi), having lost territory in a boundary change of 1991. The village contains scattered settlements such as Ash Tree Corner, Chapel Corner, Holtwood and Irish Hill. There is a 12th-century church (St Mary's), a village hall, a public house called the White Hart, a Dogs Trust canine rescue kennels and the Organic Research Centre at Elm Farm.

Hamstead Marshall has three sites of medieval motte-and-bailey castles, all on private land, with one a possible site of Newbury Castle. All are registered historic monuments.

A lesser alternative name Hampstead Marshall was preferred from time to time and remains the official name of the civil parish.

William Marshall who became Earl of Pembroke, was a loyal knight to four kings: Henry II, Richard I, King John, and Henry III of England and this is when the Marshall suffix was added to the village. The manor continued to be owned and used by kings and queens throughout the centuries, until it was sold in 1613.

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