Basingstoke: Hampshire's Expanding Town on the M3
Basingstoke doubled in size between 1961 and 1981 under a London overspill agreement. The old market town was substantially rebuilt with ring roads, office blocks, and housing estates. The process removed much of the historic centre and replaced it with the functional architecture of planned expansion. The Malls shopping centre and Festival Place (opened 2002) constitute the retail core. What remains of Old Basing, a village now absorbed into the eastern suburbs, includes the ruins of Basing House, besieged and destroyed by Oliver Cromwell in 1645 after one of the longest sieges of the English Civil War.
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Basingstoke doubled in size between 1961 and 1981 under a London overspill agreement. The old market town was substantially rebuilt with ring roads, office blocks, and housing estates. The process removed much of the historic centre and replaced it with the functional architecture of planned expansion. The Malls shopping centre and Festival Place (opened 2002) constitute the retail core. What remains of Old Basing, a village now absorbed into the eastern suburbs, includes the ruins of Basing House, besieged and destroyed by Oliver Cromwell in 1645 after one of the longest sieges of the English Civil War.
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