Redlynch is a village and civil parish about southeast of Salisbury in Wiltshire, England. The parish includes the villages of Morgan's Vale and Woodfalls immediately west and southwest of Redlynch; the village of Lover, southeast of Redlynch; and the hamlet of Bohemia, south of Lover. Much of the parish lies within the boundaries of the New Forest National Park. The River Blackwater rises near Lover and flows east through the parish towards Landford and Hampshire, where it joins the Test. History The earliest settlement was at Pensworth, north of Grove Copse and northwest of the present Redlynch, in the 12th or 13th century. This village had declined by the 15th century and in the 20th century the name survived only as Upper Pensworth Farm. In the 18th century settlement was along roads and the edges of commons. Settlement increased in the 19th century, at Redlynch and at Warminster Green (called Lover since 1876) where the church and school were built. Redlynch was home to the clockmaker Peter Bower (1715/21 – 1795) who resided close to the site now known as Bowers Hill. Religious sites Redlynch parish church of Saint Mary at Lover is a yellow brick building dating from 1837. Originally part of Downton parish, a separate ecclesiastical district was created for the church in 1841. The vicarage was the childhood home of Bernard Walke who served as an Anglican priest in three Cornish parishes. The Church of St Birinus at Morgan's Vale was built as a chapel of ease to Downton in 1894–96. It is a red brick Gothic Revival building with stone dressings and Perpendicular Gothic style windows. It was designed by the Gothic Revival architect C. E. Ponting of Marlborough in the style of his architectural contemporary W. D. Caroe. The church gained its own parish in 1915. The benefices of the two Redlynch churches were combined in 1968; as of 2016 the incumbent resides at Downton. Woodfalls Methodist Church was built in 1874 by the Primitive Methodists and joined the Salisbury Methodist Circuit in the 1940s. Notable buildings Redlynch House, built by John Bailey (d. pre-1822), was acquired at some time before 1833, with its 25-acre park, by Rev. William Nelson, 1st Earl Nelson (1757–1835) (elder brother and heir of Admiral Horatio Nelson) of nearby Trafalgar Park, Wiltshire, as a residence for his son-in-law Samuel Hood, 2nd Baron Bridport, also of Cricket House, Cricket St Thomas