Beech, Hampshire

Beech is a village and civil parish in the East Hampshire district of Hampshire, England. It lies 2 miles (3 km) west of Alton, just west of the A339 road.The road between Bentworth and Beech runs over King's Hill (218 m), one of the county's high points. The nearest railway station is 2 miles (3 km) east of the village, at Alton.HistoryOne of the first examples of the village name Beech is in Greenwood's map of Hampshire dated 1826, which shows a "Beech Farm" between "Wivelet" to the west, and "Wellhouse" to the east, now Wellhouse lane in the current Civil Parish of Beech.Modern Beech started to take shape in the 1890s when the landowner began to sell off parcels of land for housing - much of it in the low-cost "colonial" style of wood and corrugated iron construction. This process accelerated after the First World War inspired by Lloyd George's "Homes for Heroes" programme.The small church building on Wellhouse Lane dates from 1902 and the village hall at the east end of Wellhouse lane was established 1932 in a building that was previously part of a print works.At the west end of Wellhouse lane there was a well from which water was pumped by a large wooden wheel inside which was a track operated by a donkey or pony. This was still there in the 1980s but has now disappeared.Since the 1960s the original colonial-style housing has generally been replaced by modern detached houses of high value.Beech used to be part of the parish of Bentworth until boundaries were changed in the 19th century. Today, the Beech Civil Parish is next to the Bentworth CP to the north and the Medstead CP to the west.