Overview of Stockbridge

Stockbridge is a small town and civil parish in Hampshire, England. It has an acreage of 1,323 acres (5.35 km) and a population of little under 600 people according to the 2001 census in Hampshire, England. It lies on the River Test, in the Test Valley district and renowned for trout fishing. The A30 road goes through the town, which once carried most of the traffic from London to the South West. However, today most of the traffic uses the A303 road to the north of Stockbridge. As in the 12th century, the town consists of one long wide street, and it is to this characteristic that it owed its early name of The Street. This street crosses the River Test at the junction of the parishes of Stockbridge and Longstock by a low bridge of three arches rebuilt and widened in 1799. A number of smaller river channels also flow through the town. The town was once given the right to hold a market by 1190, and elected two members to the unreformed House of Commons from the 1560s. The Reform Act 1832 abolished it as a rotten borough. Stockbridge had a railway station on the Andover & Redbridge Railway (known as the Sprat and Winkle Line), later part of the LSWR. This closed in 1967. Hicks Withers-Lancashire was Lord of the Manor from the 1890's until 1902. Stockbridge is a recurring setting for several Doctor Who stories. Not only being the temporary home for the Fifth Doctor, it is the home of fictional companions Izzy Sinclair and Maxwell Edison.