A genuinely local guide
Basingstoke, properly explored.
Walks, quiet corners, good independents, local oddities and the useful things the big travel sites tend not to tell you.
Photo: Mr Ignavy · CC BY-SA 2.0
Start here
One guide. The bits actually worth your time.
New to Basingstoke, visiting for the day, or just wondering what you've somehow missed? Start with our local guide to the places we'd actually recommend.
Worth knowing about
Start here.
A few places worth knowing before we inevitably become distracted by another roundabout.
The Anvil
Basingstoke's proper concert hall: live music, comedy, orchestras and touring shows in one of the town's genuinely good cultural venues.
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Willis Museum & Sainsbury Gallery
A free museum and gallery in Basingstoke's historic Market Place, covering local history alongside a changing programme of exhibitions.
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Eastrop Park
A central green space with lakes, riverside paths and easy access from the town centre.
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Milestones Museum
An immersive indoor museum of Hampshire life, with recreated streets, vintage vehicles, shops and plenty of local-history nostalgia.
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Basing House
One of the area’s major historic sites and a useful reminder that Basingstoke existed before retail parks.
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Festival Place
Basingstoke's main shopping and leisure centre. Not exactly a hidden gem, but pretending locals don't use it would be ridiculous.
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What are you after?
Our Mission
Basingstoke has a reputation.
Some of it is deserved. There is, however, quite a lot more here than roundabouts, Festival Place and explaining to people where Junction 6 is.
Basingstoke Local is an independent guide to the places genuinely worth knowing about, written from a local point of view rather than copied from a tourism brochure.