Littleton and Harestock is a civil parish consisting of the villages of Littleton and Harestock in the City of Winchester district of Hampshire, England.
Littleton is situated slightly north-west of Harestock, and is roughly 3 miles (4.8 km) north of Winchester city centre. It is 1,300 acres (5.3 km2) in size, and is home to around 2,800 people.[1]
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Littleton was originally a small hamlet outside Winchester and still retains half a dozen very old houses dating from the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Some of them are Hampshire Hall houses. They are clustered around St Catherine's church, and include the old parsonage beside the church itself. Later development of housing began chiefly in the early twentieth century.
It was decided after the end of the First World War to build a village hall in Littleton, which was to be dedicated to the residents of the village who had been killed during the war. The Memorial Hall was opened in October 1923 [2] and remained the focus of the village for over 70 years. However, over this time the population of the village grew steadily, and in the 1990s it became clear that the hall could no longer meet the requirements of the residents. At a meeting in 1995 it was decided that a new hall would be built.[2]
The construction of the new hall began in July 1998 and the building was completed in February of the following year. The official opening took place on 15 May 1999,[1] although the first event in the hall, a professional performance of Macbeth, occurred two months earlier.