The valley road runs from Salisbury in the east to Shaftesbury in the west between chalk downs on either side.

The shop was featured on BBC South Today as one of the most unusual locations for a Post Office in the region, and the butcher Robert Fry was the subject of ITV's Country Ways programme.

Chalke Valley Stores[8] opened in the meeting area of the URC chapel in June 2013.

There is a coffee shop in the chapel worship area and an office for the Chalke Valley Community Hub, Chalke Valley Stores, Police, Church Benefice and URC on the balcony, and a village archive on the balcony outside the office.

Watercress has been grown in the River Ebble cressbeds for many years and is sold from the packing station[15] at The Marsh.

The Chalke Valley Sports Centre[16] is located in Knighton Road and has a football pitch, tennis courts, skate park and also a Multi-Use Games Area (MUGA) for table tennis, short mat bowls, pilates and other indoor functions.

Chalke Valley Cricket Club[17] is nominally part of the Sports Centre but has its own management and finances and moved to a new ground at Butt's Field, Bowerchalke[18] in 2010.

[20] The Domesday Book in 1086 divided the Chalke Valley into eight manors: Chelke or Chelce or Celce (Bowerchalke and Broad Chalke), Eblesborne (Ebbesbourne Wake), Fifehide (Fifield), Cumbe (Coombe Bissett), Humitone (Homington), Odestoche (Odstock), Stradford (Stratford Tony and Bishopstone) and Trow (circa Alvediston and Tollard Royal).

This included the parishes of Berwick St John, Ebbesbourne Wake, Fifield Bavant, Semley, Tollard Royal and 'Chalke'.

[20] Circa 1536 Henry VIII granted Chalke to Sir William Herbert, 1st Earl of Pembroke during the Dissolution of the Monasteries.

In 1560 Queen Elizabeth I granted Reddish House and farm to William Reddiche who already owned several properties in the village as a 'Free tenant' of the Earl of Pembroke in Wilton.

[23] The wills of William King (1545) and John Penny (1555) record the village name as Brood Chalke, whilst the Earl of Pembroke surveys of 1567 and 1590 list it as Brodechalke and Broadchalke.

By 1631 the Earl of Pembroke's survey used the modern form of Broad Chalke, as did the will of John Farrent in 1699.

Pupil numbers at Broad Chalke increased after the closure of village schools at Bowerchalke and Bishopstone.