Local stories
There is history here. Apparently.
Stories about Basingstoke, forgotten places, local oddities and the bits that are more interesting than they first appear.
The Wote Street Willy
Every town has a landmark it is slightly embarrassed to give directions by. Ours is a three-metre lump of granite on Wote Street, and it has a nickname. This is what it actually is.
Read the story →The Camrose: how Basingstoke lost its football ground
For more than 70 years Basingstoke Town played at the Camrose. In 2019 they had to leave. This is how the town lost its football ground, who fought for it, and what is going to be built there instead.
Read the story →The roundabout question
We have been avoiding this one. Basingstoke's most famous feature is not a building, a person or a football club. It is a traffic arrangement.
Read the story →Loyalty House: the siege of Basing House
For two years, one of the grandest houses in England held out against Parliament on the edge of Basingstoke. It took Oliver Cromwell, a heavy siege train and a 6am assault to finish it.
Read the story →When London came to Basingstoke
After the war, Basingstoke was a market town of about 25,000 people. By 1971 it had passed 52,000, its centre had been rebuilt and a ring road had arrived. This is how that happened, and what survived.
Read the story →Coming up
- What used to be here? — Lost pubs, buildings and bits of town that quietly disappeared.
- Basing View — The office park as architecture, and the hanging gardens of Basingstoke.
- When Basingstoke built lorries — Thornycroft, the town's biggest employer for decades.
Keep exploring
See the places behind the stories
History is slightly easier to appreciate when you can actually stand where it happened.