St Peter & St Paul

Thruxton is in the borough of Test Valley some ten miles east of the World Heritage site of Stonehenge and close to the Iron Age hill forts of Danebury, Quarley and Woolbury.

This area is of international importance and the wider area of Stonehenge attracts large numbers of tourists travelling on the A303 to the south of the village.

St Peter & St Paul’s church is situated in the conservation area to the north west of the village, adjacent to and surrounded on three sides by the grounds of the manor house in an area which has been inhabited since historic times prior to the Norman conquest. It is likely that a church has been on this site since that time, the village being mentioned in the Doomsday Book.
In a neighbouring field are the remains of a Roman marching camp and flint tools of the Palaeolithic and Mesolithic era have been found in adjacent fields.

At the eastern end of the village the Thruxton Mosaic (now on permanent exhibition in the British Museum) was discovered in 1823, more proof of the antiquity of the village.

King Henry VIII is known to have stayed in the manor on several occasions, once for five days on the way to Wolf Hall following the death of Jane Seymour. There is anecdotal evidence of Queen Elizabeth I visiting the manor shortly after the siege of Tilbury in 1558.