[Illustration:  HOLY GHOST CHAPEL, BASINGSTOKE.]

The “Stoke Bare-hills” of Thomas Hardy has changed the tenor of its way several times in history.  It started by sending members to Parliament three hundred years before it became a borough in the reign of the first Stuart, when it was already famous as a manufactory of silks and woollens.  A time of inanition followed until the great period of road travel set in, when it became the most important centre between London and Salisbury.  Then with the iron way came another phase that at one time threatened to bring the town into line with Swindon, Crewe and other railway “wens”; but except for some miles of small red-brick villas, packed close together on the bleak wolds that surround the town, it has not greatly suffered and is still essentially agricultural.  Quite lately a new industry has grown up here, the manufacture of farming implements.

Close to the railway station are the ruins of the chapel of the Holy Ghost, founded by Bishop Fox in 1525.  They stand in the ancient cemetery which dates from the time of the Papal Interdict (1208) when, in consequence of King John’s quarrel with the Pope, burial in churchyards was suspended.  Basingstoke Church was built in the early sixteenth century and contains some of the old glass from the Holy Ghost Chapel.

The most interesting place in the vicinity of Basingstoke is Old Basing, two miles to the east, and ever memorable as the scene of the defence of Basing House.  This magnificent mansion had been built by William Paulet, first Marquis of Winchester, on the site of the original Norman castle of Basing.  When the Civil War broke out, the fifth Marquis, John Paulet, decided to defend the house for the King, and gathering his friends and retainers about him, amply provisioning his cellars and “writing ‘Aimez Loyalte’ on every pane of his windows with the diamond of his ring,” he calmly awaited the Roundheads, who were soon in possession of Basingstoke.  Two hundred and fifty Royalist soldiers had already joined the garrison when the actual siege began in July, 1643.  The attackers under Waller numbered seven thousand, but by December, after great losses, they were forced to withdraw.  The following spring another determined effort was made to starve out the garrison, but the arrival of Colonel Gage with reinforcements from Oxford put fresh heart into the “nest of hornets,” and the news that their fortress had been renamed “Basting House” by their admiring friends stiffened their resolve.  During the next few months, however, religious differences within led to a weakening of the heroic defence and to the beginning of the end, and after two thousand lives had already been lost, Basing House fell to the redoubtable Cromwell in person on October 14, 1645, about one hundred of the defenders being killed in the final assault and some three hundred prisoners taken.

Of this historic site there remain but a few walls and the Gate-house.  The area covered by the entrenchments was about fourteen acres and the garden must have been a place of beauty before the litter of the siege marred the trim walks and parterres.  The country people were bidden help themselves when the victors departed with their prisoners, and the work of ruin was quickly complete.