Editing Waterlooville (section)

== History ==
{{More citations needed|section|date=September 2024}}
It is reputed that the name derived from a [[pub]] that stood at the centre of the town, then known as Wait Lane End, where the [[stage-coach]] horses waited to change places with the team that pulled the coach up and over [[Portsdown Hill]]. The pub had been named ''Heroes of Waterloo'' because, on its opening day in 1815, soldiers who had just disembarked at Portsmouth, returning from the [[Battle of Waterloo]], decided to stop there and celebrate their victory.<ref name=HeroesofWaterloo/><!-- A good story, but the fact is that most troops would have been transported from Chatham and Deal, which are far closer to Belgium THATS WHY it says "reputed"!!--> According to local legend, many of them settled there.<!-- What is the source of this unsubstantiated legend? Interesting task - off you go--><ref name=HeroesofWaterloo>{{cite web | url=http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/+/http://yourarchives.nationalarchives.gov.uk/index.php?title=The_Heroes_of_Waterloo | title=The Heroes of Waterloo | date=8 February 2012 | access-date=30 September 2016 }}</ref>   The pub was thereafter renamed<ref name=OriginOfName>{{cite web | url=http://archiver.rootsweb.ancestry.com/th/read/ENG-HAM-PORTSMOUTH-GOSPORT/2006-09/1158591525 | title=The Heroes of Waterloo: Origin of Name of Waterlooville |publisher=rootsweb.ancestry.com | date=18 September 2006 | access-date=30 September 2016 | quote=By April 1816 [the pub landlord] was already referring to it as the Heroes of Waterloo. ([Source:] Advert placed in the Hampshire Chronicle).}}</ref> in their honour and the area around the pub became known as Waterloo. In order to differentiate the town from [[Waterloo (disambiguation)|other places with the same name]], it became known as Waterlooville at a later date. The town was known as Waterloo parish at the time of the 1911 Census.<ref name=1911Census>{{cite web | url=http://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/C11306646 | title=Registration District: CATHERINGTON, Place:Waterloo (part) | access-date=25 September 2017 }}</ref>

In June 2015 Waterlooville town celebrated its first 200 years, its origins and history in a festival called Waterlooville 200.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.waterlooville200.org |title=Waterlooville 200 |access-date=4 September 2021 |archive-date=18 November 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181118023816/https://www.waterlooville200.org/ |url-status=dead }}</ref>

The town centre was closed to traffic in 1985 when a bypass was constructed to take traffic away from the main shopping area. The bypass, initially anonymous, was named Maurepas Way sometime after the two towns were twinned in 1995. An underpass was constructed for pedestrians walking up along the Hambledon road. Between 1982 and 1983 the old road was then fully converted to a pedestrian precinct. The precinct had a fountain and raised area at the northern end, near the ''Heroes'' pub; however, regular vandalism of the fountain soon resulted in its removal. In August 2012 the northern part of the precinct received a £700,000 renovation and repaving, increasing the area available to the weekly Friday market.

[[GEC Marconi]] built a site at Waterlooville for their Underwater Systems Division in the early 1980s, for the [[Sting Ray (torpedo)|Stingray]] anti-submarine torpedo. A peace camp was set up near the construction site. After completion of the GEC building, a free music festival was held at Old Park Farm in Waterlooville called Torpedo Town. A second Torpedo Town festival was held in August 1987 at [[Bramdean Common]] near [[Winchester]].

Near the town centre is St George's Church, rebuilt in 1968–70 around the core of the original (1830) church.  [[Waterlooville Baptist Church]] was built in 1967 in a [[Modernist style]] to replace the original chapel of 1884–85 in the town centre.<ref name="2018Pevsner749">{{cite book|last1=O'Brien|first1=Charles|last2=Bailey|first2=Bruce|last3=Pevsner|first3=Nikolaus|author-link3=Nikolaus Pevsner|last4=Lloyd|first4=David W.|title=Hampshire: South|series=[[The Buildings of England]]|year=2018|publisher=[[Yale University Press]]|location=London|isbn=978-0-300-22503-7|page=749}}</ref> During the 1950s and 1960s the surrounding area saw extensive growth in housing, when large suburban public and private housing estates were constructed. This resulted in the original Victorian church failing to cope with the population growth. Plans for a new church were started and in 1970 the new church was built on the site of the old church. Parts of the old church were retained. In July 2011 the town saw the consecration of its first Roman Catholic Church.