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the parish in Wiltshire, England

West Overton is a village and civil parish in the English county of Wiltshire, about 3.5 mile (6 km) west of Marlborough. The river Kennet runs immediately north of the village, separating it from the A4 road. The parish includes the village of Lockeridge, also near the river, further east (downstream).

The area has many prehistoric sites, and the Avebury section of the Stonehenge and Avebury World Heritage site extends into the northwest of the parish. Within that area, on the southern slopes of Overton Down, are seven Bronze Age round barrows, forming a cemetery which extends south onto Overton Hill, overlooking the river. In modern archaeology, this it the type site for the Overton Period of 2000–1650 BC. Also on Overton Hill, just over the parish boundary, is The Sanctuary, the site of a Neolithic monument which had two concentric circles of stones and four concentric circles of timber posts, and was linked to the stone circles at Avebury, 2.5km to the northwest, by two lines of stones known as West Kennet Avenue. North of the village, on the slopes of Overton Down, are an oval Iron Age enclosure and three Roman burial mounds, a short length of Roman road and an Anglo Saxon inhumation cemetery. In the far north of the parish are further Bronze Age, Roman and later settlements. In the south, within West Woods, is a Neolithic long barrow. A manor is named as Uferan Tune in a charter dated 939. In 1086, the Domesday survey recorded 13 households at (West) Ovretone, and land held by Wilton Abbey. Another 13 were at Fyfield and two at East Overton, both on land held by St. Swithun's Priory, Winchester; there were smaller settlements at Locherige (Lockeridge) and at Shaw. It is likely that in the 12th and 13th centuries the entire parish lay within Savernake forest. (the name Fyfield and West Overton was used until 2022). The parish falls within the area of the Wiltshire Council unitary authority, which is responsible for all significant local government functions.

There was a church at Overton in the 12th century, and by the next century the churches at Fyfield and Alton Priors were dependent on it. St. Swithun's Priory, Winchester, appropriated Overton church and its chapels in 1291. The parish church of St Michael and All Angels was built in 1877–8, in flint with squared sarsen banding, by C. E. Ponting, architect to the Meux estate. was not completed until 1883. It replaced an earlier church which had become dilapidated, and the nave was built on the same foundations. and reused the chancel arch and three nave windows; oak beams from the nave roof were made into internal doors, a lectern and panels of the pulpit. A fragment of a Norman church survives: the head of a small 12th century window was reset into a wall of the porch. The church had three bells in 1553, one of which is still present. Another dates from 1606; in 1883 one old bell was recast and three made, bringing the peal to six. Ponting also designed the parish war memorial, a tall stone cross dedicated in 1921, which stands opposite the churchyard. The church was recorded as Grade II* listed in 1958. In 1913, Alton Priors was detached from Overton vicarage and attached to the adjacent rectory of Alton Barnes. Today the parish is part of the Upper Kennet Benefice, created in 1978, which covers eight churches in the area.

A National School was built at Lockeridge in 1875 to serve the parishes of West Overton and Fyfield. The building (and extensions) continues in use as Kennet Valley C of E Voluntary Aided Primary School. The parish has a village hall, Kennet Valley Village Hall, near Lockeridge.

Overton manor house, close to the church, is from the 16th and 17th centuries with later improvements; the main wing has a tile hung upper floor under a thatched roof, and at right angles a former barn is in red brick. West Overton House, in the northeast of the village, is a former rectory of the late 18th century with later extensions. Shaw House, which replaced an earlier manor house 400m to the east, Lockeridge House, standing on the other side of the river from Lockeridge village, was built in red brick around 1740 and is Grade II* listed. North of the A4, the parish extends onto the Marlborough Downs. On Overton Down is an earthwork built in 1960 as a long term archaeology experiment. The Piggledene valley, with its sarsen stones, is a biological and geological Site of Special Scientific Interest managed by the National Trust. Overton Hill, with prehistoric features including The Sanctuary, is to the west of the village and partly in Avebury parish. The ancient Ridgeway, now a national trail, begins here and follows the parish boundary northwards. The medieval Wansdyke earthwork crosses the southernmost part of the parish.