‘Gosh, Basingstoke used to look interesting. I’ve spent this week poring over photos of old Kempshott for the local history group, but the books we look at feature changes to the town centre quite heavily. I’d seen plenty of nostalgia-inducing shots of the place before Festival Place, and many a shot of the old Market Square, but never the full impact of its clocktower upon the skyline, at Wote Street.

More shocking to me is the sight of Church Street at the top, there. Oh yes, that’s the road which now leads up to the Marks & Spencer Slope, from about where the Anvil Bridge crosses Churchill Way. The Methodist Church which used to stand opposite St. Michael’s was bombed out in WWII, but that entire row made way for our modern day row of uninspiring brown bricks in the Town Development Scheme of the late 1950s. And lo, modern Basingstoke was born.

Oh, incidentally, the photos are from a number of books, available at the Basingstoke Discovery Centre’s local history section. Look for the books by Robert Brown.’