The current parish was established in 1986, but the
manor is much older and was first recorded in the
Domesday Book as
Chineham in
Basingestoch Hundred – Hantescire in 1086. The suffix “ham” name may suggest a farm or enclosure, and Coates suggests “Chine” is derived from the Old English 'cinu' which means a 'ravine or rift', which may refer to the way that the Basingstoke-Reading railway line passes between low hills in the vicinity, and implying that Chineham means 'rift estate'. The
ecclesiastical parish was formed in 1990, prior to this Chineham formed a detached part of the parish of
Monk Sherborne, and its
tithing was part of Basingstoke
hundred. Predating the manor but within the current parish, an
Iron Age settlement has been
excavated recently in Great Binfield Copse. The
Agger of the
Roman road from
Silchester to
Chichester uncovered during the laying of an electricity pipeline in 2002 and evidence of a Roman enclosure and metal working site found in Daneshill during the 1980s. Binfields Farm, now the site of Chineham District Centre, was first documented in 945 as
Becmnit Felda (open land with bent grass). By 1848, Chineham had developed into a tiny hamlet with 34 inhabitants,. In the same year, the
Berks and Hants Railway was opened, crossing the Basingstoke to Reading road nearby. By the 1960s there were about seventy dwellings, mostly along the road from Basingstoke to Reading, with a small wooden church, a village shop, a petrol station, a small village hall, and a
Toll House at the Reading end of the village. Since the late-1970s, Chineham has developed into a sizeable residential suburb, and a
bypass was constructed on the main A33 road so that the growing traffic flow was moved away from the housing areas. The railway has survived and prospered, as an increasingly important link between the port of
Southampton and northern England. However, no passenger station has ever been built in Chineham, despite several recent attempts to promote one. Chineham District Centre is effectively the town centre with a wide array of high street retail outlets (including a Tesco superstore and branches of Boots, Marks & Spencer Food and Matalan) and a public library. There is also a large, modern business park called Chineham Park, which incorporates the Hampshire International Business Park, harbouring many offices of national and international organisations, including
Techdata,
Gist Limited, and
Lenovo's Technology Centre. Today Chineham is partly contiguous with the Basingstoke urban area and is generally considered one of the town's outer suburbs, though many residents perceive Chineham as more of a small satellite town. In fact Chineham has its own town sign on the A33 when approaching from Basingstoke. ==Chineham today==