[3] Since 1971, the village has been host to the annual Netley Marsh Steam and Craft Show,[4] a three-day event dedicated to demonstrations of steam-powered vehicles and traction engines held in July of each year.

Netley Marsh is often identified with the "Natanleaga" described in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle under the year 508, where it is reported that the Anglo-Saxon kings Cerdic and Cynric "killed a certain British king named Natanleod, and five-thousand men with him – after whom the land as far as Cerdic's ford[6] was named Natanleaga".

[11] The village suffered some damage during World War II, when one day in 1942 an enemy plane dropped bombs on the church and along Woodlands Road, causing the deaths of three people.

[11] Its history dates from the 10th century when a hide and a half of land in Tatchbury[16] and Slackstead[17] was given to Hyde Abbey (near Winchester) on its foundation in 903 by Edward the Elder.

[18] The abbot and convent evidently held the manor in demesne from the 12th to the 13th century, and a rent from Litchfield and Tatchbury was included in the estates of the Abbey at the time of the Dissolution.

[11] Another estate in Tatchbury is recorded in the 13th century which may have been the nucleus of the later manor which was held in 1316 by Elias Baldet, and of which John Romsey died seised in 1494, holding it of the warden of Winchester College.