BASINGSTOKE
"BASINGSTOKE, a parish, market-town, and municipal borough, in the hundred
of Basingstoke-Infra-Hundred, in the county of Southampton, 19 miles to the
N.E. of Winchester, 46 miles to the S.W. of London by the old road, and 48
by railway. It is a station on the London and South-Western railway, and is
connected with the Great Western railway by a branch line from Reading.
Basingstoke is a very ancient town, being referred to in Domesday Book as a
royal manor, which had never paid tax or been distributed into hides, with
the privilege of a market worth 30s. It is there named Basingtoches. The
conjecture that at an earlier period the town was of inferior rank to
Basing is founded on the addition "stoke" signifying hamlet. It is seated
in a fertile and beautiful country, with fine woods and rich pasture land,
near the source of the river Loddon, which flows by the town, and is called
the Town Brook."
[Description(s) from The National Gazetteer of
Great Britain and Ireland (1868) - Transcribed by Colin Hinson ©2003]
[Last updated: 4th August 2003 - Brian Pears]
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