Michelmersh

Michelmersh is a village and former civil parish, now in the parish of Michelmersh and Timsbury, in the Test Valley district, in the county of Hampshire, England. It is 3 miles (4.8 km) north of Romsey. The Monarch's Way long-distance footpath crosses the parish, passing through the churchyard of the 12th century St Mary's Church. The Georgian former rectory, Michelmersh Court, is Grade II* listed and was for many years the home of Sir David and Lady Carina Frost. The parish is located to the east of the River Test on the northern edge of the Hampshire Basin, with chalk in the north. To the south and east of the village this is overlain by Palaeocene sands and clays of the Lambeth Group. At the southern are younger deposits of Eocene age, sloping from a ridge of the Nursling sands into a valley of London Clay. It has a brick and tile works, and extensive former sand pits on Casbrook Common, now used as a landfill site. The name Michelmersh is derived from the Old English micel + mersc, meaning ' large marsh'.