Mottisfont Abbey

Alien is a 2012 sculpture by the British artist David Breuer-Weil. It depicts a giant humanoid figure five times as large as a person, embedded head-first in grass. The sculpture was first installed in Grosvenor Gardens in the City of Westminster in April 2013, as part of the City of Sculpture initiative. In September 2015 it was moved to the National Trust property of Mottisfont in Hampshire.The work is executed in glass reinforced plastic with a bronze powder coat. It was scaled up from a much smaller maquette and incorporates hugely enlarged versions of the artist's fingerprints as well as his own graffiti. It was inspired in part by Breuer-Weil's grandfather Ernst, who fled to England after the Nazi takeover of Austria in 1938 but subsequently found himself labelled an "enemy alien". In acknowledgement of the link, the name "Ernst" is written in large letters on the surface of the sculpture. The sculpture also incorporates a portrait of the fictional Kaiser of Nerac, a character who rules an imaginary world conceived of by Breuer-Weil as a source of inspiration for his artworks.According to Breuer-Weil, Alien is intended to evoke "the shock of an alien landing in the heart of London and taking everybody by surprise"; he comments that "every new work of art should be like an alien landing, something sudden and unexpected." The sculpture is meant to be more about "our sense of belonging than any sci-fi theme", but Breuer-Weil suggests that "extra-terrestrials are completely human, maybe just different in scale, as is the case with my sculpture, which is five times the size of an ordinary person, but very human otherwise." He notes that to a certain degree, being Jewish is like "landing on an alien planet ... We belong in this culture, but our forebears crash-landed into it."The work was well received by the public and critics, being named as one of Time Out's "Top 10 Public Sculptures" in July 2013. Permission was initially granted for the piece to be on display at Grosvenor Gardens for a period of six months and a subsequent application was made to extend its appearance for a further 18 months. This was approved by Westminster City Council and the statue remained there until 13 April 2015. It was then moved to the grounds of Mottisfont in Hampshire, where it was unveiled on 7 September 2015.

Mottisfont is a village and civil parish in the Test Valley district of Hampshire, England, around 4 miles (6.4 km) northwest of Romsey. The village is the location of Mottisfont Abbey. Much of the surrounding land, which is part of the Mottisfont Estate, and several other buildings in the village are in the care of the National Trust. The unusual name is probably derived from the Old English motes funta, meaning 'spring near the confluence' or 'spring of the moot' or possibly 'spring of the stone' (from the Old English motere: sonte).The village church is dedicated to St Andrew and its oldest parts date from the 12th century. Restorations were carried out in the 1870s and 1880s.Mottisfont formerly had a railway station on the Sprat and Winkle Line, which closed in the 1960s. The nearby Dunbridge station on the Wessex Main Line has recently been renamed as Mottisfont and Dunbridge. The Test Way and Monarch's Way long-distance footpaths pass through the village.

Mottisfont railway station served the village of Mottisfont, Hampshire, England, from 1865 to 1964 on the Sprat and Winkle Line.

Mottisfont & Dunbridge railway station serves the village of Dunbridge in Hampshire, England. It is on the Wessex Main Line, 84 miles 21 chains (135.6 km) from London Waterloo. It is the closest station to Mottisfont Abbey and the village of Mottisfont, and was renamed Mottisfont & Dunbridge in 2006 to reflect this, having been previously known simply as Dunbridge. Mottisfont previously had a station of its own on the Andover to Romsey line, known as the Sprat and Winkle Line, but this closed on 7 September 1964 under the Beeching Axe.Since 9 December 2007, a new service has served Mottisfont & Dunbridge. It runs from Salisbury to Southampton Central, via Romsey. South Western Railway operates the service using two-car Class 158 units. In consequence, Mottisfont & Dunbridge now has a roughly hourly service, a great improvement over the previous frequency. As a result of this, Great Western Railway no longer serves the station, although it continued to manage the station, and the station still carried First Great Western branding. In April 2020, the management of the station was transferred to South Western Railway.The station is one of 20 covered by the Three Rivers Community Rail partnership.According to station usage statistics, Mottisfont & Dunbridge is the second least frequently used station in Hampshire, with only Beaulieu Road having fewer passengers.

Dunbridge is a hamlet in the Test Valley district of Hampshire, England. It is on the River Dun, a tributary of the River Test. Its nearest town is Romsey, which lies approximately 3.75 miles (6 km) south-east from the village. The Doomsday Book records the manor of Denebrugg being held by one Gilbert de Breteville.The hamlet is served by Mottisfont & Dunbridge railway station on the Wessex Main Line. There is one pub, the Mill Arms.

Kimbridge is a small village and civil parish in the Test Valley district of Hampshire, England. Its nearest town is Romsey, which lies approximately 4 miles (6.3 km) south-east. Originally called "King's Bridge" in Civil War times. According to the 2011 census, the population was approximately 144. It consists mainly of a Farm Shop and Restaurant ("Annies") and a trout farm. Most of the area is owned and managed by Kimbridge Estates, but there are a small number of private houses - including a large mansion on the water's edge. The bridge itself is on some of the best fishing waterway in the country. The Test Way long-distance footpath passes through the village, as does the Cardiff-Southampton railway.

Brook is a small medieval hamlet situated 1–2 miles south of the village of King's Somborne in the Test Valley, Hampshire. Brook features on a number of mediaeval maps of Hampshire and England, and has a significant population until the 17th century, when the population was decimated by the plague. The most significant building in Brook today is Brook Farm House, an 18th-century farmhouse which may have been the manor house of the village. It is a Grade II listed building.

Mottisfont Bats is a 196.7-hectare (486-acre) biological Site of Special Scientific Interest west of Winchester in Hampshire. It is also a Special Area of Conservation.The site consists of woods around Mottisfont, which supports a population of the barbastelle bat which is considered by Natural England to be of national importance. The site is used by the barbastelles for breeding, roosting, commuting and feeding. It is the only known maternity roost in Hampshire and one of only six known sites in the United Kingdom as of 2002. Eight other bat species have been recorded at Mottisfont: whiskered, brown long-eared, common and soprano pipistrelles, serotine, noctule, Daubenton's and Natterer's. Mottisfont contains a mix of woodland types including hazel coppice with standards, broadleaved plantation and coniferous plantation.

The 1987 IFMAR/Parma 1:10 Electric Off-Road World Championship was the second edition of the IFMAR 1:10 Electric Off-Road World Championship that was held on the at now defunct Romsey Club which was based on the cite of the Malthouse Inn in Timsbury, Hampshire, near Southampton on the Central South Coast of England.

Michelmersh is a village and former civil parish, now in the parish of Michelmersh and Timsbury, in the Test Valley district, in the county of Hampshire, England. It is 3 miles (4.8 km) north of Romsey. The Monarch's Way long-distance footpath crosses the parish, passing through the churchyard of the 12th century St Mary's Church. The Georgian former rectory, Michelmersh Court, is Grade II* listed and was for many years the home of Sir David and Lady Carina Frost.The parish is located to the east of the River Test on the northern edge of the Hampshire Basin, with chalk in the north. To the south and east of the village this is overlain by Palaeocene sands and clays of the Lambeth Group. At the southern are younger deposits of Eocene age, sloping from a ridge of the Nursling sands into a valley of London Clay. It has a brick and tile works, and extensive former sand pits on Casbrook Common, now used as a landfill site. The name Michelmersh is derived from the Old English micel + mersc, meaning ' large marsh'.

Michelmersh Court is a former rectory in the village of Michelmersh in Hampshire, southern England. A Grade II* listed building, it is now a private house. Built in the late 18th century, it was altered and extended in the 19th and 20th centuries. It was bought by the broadcaster David Frost in the 1980s. He hosted such people as Margaret Thatcher and former United States President George H. W. Bush at Michelmersh Court.

Awbridge is a small village and civil parish in the Test Valley district of Hampshire, England, about three miles northwest of Romsey, and near the River Test. According to the 2001 census the parish, which includes the villages of Awbridge, Upper Ratley and Lower Ratley, had a population of 695, increasing to 712 at the 2011 Census. It is within walking distance of Kimbridge, Dunbridge and Mottisfont, with Dunbridge providing a railway link to both Salisbury (to the north west) and Southampton (to the south).