IT HAS travelled across Hampshire to mark 100 years of the WI.

At the weekend the centenary baton passed through the Test Valley on its journey around the country using different forms of transport.

The baton arrived at West Tytherley by car on Saturday afternoon. Earlier it was at Goodworth Clatford Village where it was met by Test Valley’s mayor Jan Lovell. Margaret Downs and Sue Vickerstaff delivered the baton to the King Edward Hall in Tytherley where it was kept overnight.

On Sunday West Tytherley resident Zoe Stanley picked up the baton and on horseback passed it to Margaret Downs from the Test Valley and Romsey Group of WIs who handed it to borough mayor Jan Lovell and deputy Romsey mayor Dorothy Baverstock.

Houghton WI is the oldest WI in the TV&R Group. Their current longest serving member, Pam White, passed the Baton through the Millennium Stone at West Tytherley Primary School to Catriona Cooper, the youngest founder member of the Sotonettes WI which, at just three year old, is the youngest WI in the HamWIc Group.

After passing it on to members of the HamWic Group of WI’s the baton travelled to Portswood in Southampton, carried by two women on bicycles.

The baton returned to the Advertiser area when it arrived at Copythorne Village Hall in a Rolls-Royce on Tuesday. Following a street party at the hall it was sent on its way to Godshill near Fordingbridge in the New Forest.

The baton spent eight days in Hampshire being passed round 27 groups, each one holding a special event to mark the occasion.

The relay, which started on January 1 in Anglesey, the home of the first WI in Britain, will make its final stop at the Royal Albert Hall in London on June 4.