West End is a parish in Hampshire in the borough of Eastleigh, east of the city of Southampton. The village of West End is small and generally classed as an area in the outer suburbs or rural urban fringe of the borough of Eastleigh because of the surrounding woodland and countryside, including Telegraph Woods and Itchen Valley Country Park. The village is mainly known for being home of the Rose Bowl, the stadium where Hampshire County Cricket Club plays, and occasionally England. Aside from a typical number of listed houses, main landmarks of the parish are Moorgreen Hospital — a large, ornate Victorian building, the original St James School, built in 1901, on the high street, and West End Fire Station — a museum in the centre of the village. History Early history A series of round barrows, dating from the Bronze Age (2000-600 BC), have been discovered in the Moorgreen area of the parish. There were five of these to the north of the former Moorgreen Hospital site. A hilltop fort from the Iron Age was built on the ridge above the village around 600-100BC. A shutter telegraph station operated from the site during the Napoleonic Wars, forming part of the line connecting London to Plymouth. It was this station that gave the name to the nearby Telegraph Woods. The village was originally a hamlet which grew up around a track between Romsey and Portsmouth. The hamlet had a chapel by 1552 primarily for the use of the lords of the manor of Allington. When the track became a turnpike road in the early 19th century, the hamlet began to grow. 19th century In 1838, a national school was opened to house 192 children. St James' Church was founded in the same year. The hamlet was mostly within the tithing of Shamblehurst, with a small section at the northern end in the tithing of Allington, both within the parish of South Stoneham. The ecclesiastical parish of West End was established in 1840, two years after the construction of the original St James' Church. In 1846 a Bible Christian chapel was constructed in Chapel Road. A poor house had existed at the eastern end of the village for some time, and in 1848 this was replaced by a red-brick workhouse. This eventually became Moorgreen Hospital. An extra room was added to the national school in 1866. In 1871 an independent