Medieval and Manuscripts

List of places of worship in the Borough of Eastleigh

There are nearly 70 current and former places of worship in the borough of Eastleigh in Hampshire, England. Various Christian denominations and groups use 53 churches, chapels and halls for worship and other activities, and a further 14 buildings no longer serve a religious function but survive in alternative uses. Eastleigh is one of 13 local government districts in the county of Hampshire—a large county in central southern England, with a densely populated coastal fringe facing the English Channel and a more rural hinterland. The borough, which is predominantly urban and suburban in character, is centrally located in the south of the county between the major cities of Southampton and Portsmouth and forms part of the South Hampshire conurbation. Its main town is also called Eastleigh. Many settlements in the borough have ancient origins, being recorded in the Domesday Book, and several churches can trace their origins back to that period. A French-owned alien priory at Hamble-le-Rice controlled three of the oldest churches, all of which survive with varying degrees of alteration; but the ancient chapels at Bishopstoke and North Stoneham have been replaced by newer buildings, and of Botley's medieval church—superseded since the 1830s—only the chancel remains. Most of the borough's places of worship, though, are from the 19th and 20th centuries. "For Victorian churches Hampshire is a bumper county", and this applies especially in the Eastleigh area where the sudden growth of Eastleigh town (which "owes its very existence to [a] railway junction" built in 1841) encouraged the Church of England, the Roman Catholic Church and various Nonconformist denominations to provide churches and chapels for the influx of new residents in the town and its rapidly suburbanising hinterland. Steady population growth continues to the present day, and many new places of worship opened in the 20th century—including churches, chapels and meeting halls for smaller groups such as Spiritualists, Jehovah's Witnesses and Plymouth Brethren. The 2011 United Kingdom census recorded a majority Christian population in the borough of Eastleigh, and there are no places of worship in the borough for followers of other faiths. The Church of England—the country's Established Church—has the largest stock of church buildings, but many other denominations and groups are represented.

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See also

• ▸History of Christianity in Great Britain
• ▸Godflesh
• ▸Gentry

Uncatalogued shelf

Text from Wikipedia; plate via Wikimedia Commons. Text CC BY-SA 4.0; plate freely licensed (see Commons). Source record. Images and catalogue data are reproduced from open-access collections.