LOCATION 
The village of North Baddesley lies in the south of England.
It is located in the beautiful Test Valley, famous for its trout fishing and is approximately 3 miles (4.8 km) south of Romsey between Chilworth and Ampfield and 6 miles (10 km) north of Southampton in the county of Hampshire, England.
This is the road sign that drivers see on entering the village from Rownhams. The village is twinned with the two French villages of Authie and Carpiquet.
The vast majority of people live in a heavily built-up area in the South West corner of the Parish, which acts as a dormitory village for both Romsey and Southampton.
Its roots stretch back to the Domesday Book of 1086.
The old village lies to the North, and the manor house incorporates part of the Preceptory of the Knights Hospitallers, which was the Hampshire headquarters of the Order after 1365. Reminders of this are found in the local place-names of Zionshill and Knightwood.
The shield of the Knights Hospitallers
The Order of St. John (or the Hospitallers), was a religious order founded in Jerusalem by 1099.
The members were devoted to nursing and fighting, first as defenders of the land captured in the Holy Lands by the Crusades and later as sovereign rulers of a series of island states in the Mediterranean - including Malta.
The white cross which adorns the shield is still used today (although the shape is somewhat changed) by the St. John Ambulance. The St. John Ambulance founded in the 1870's is the modern day equivalent of The Order of St. John (or the Hospitallers)
