Registered Charity No 1000447
Latest News...…
Membership Information
If a Basingstoke resident why not Join us? - We need your support
Help us by joining the Basingstoke Heritage Society today.
Annual subscription - £5.00 per person, or £6 per household
(Students and under 18’s FREE)
Membership Benefits:
Quarterly Newsletter
Occasional free talks, walks and visits to places of local interest
Opportunity to attend the Society’s monthly Business Meetings & make views known
Opportunity to contribute to submissions on issues of concern
Support the protection of your locality from inappropriate development
Quarterly Newsletter
Occasional free talks, walks and visits to places of local interest
Opportunity to attend the Society’s monthly Business Meetings & make views known
Opportunity to contribute to submissions on issues of concern
Support the protection of your locality from inappropriate development
To download an application form go to the ‘contact us’ page.
Our Aims...…
The Society focuses its attentions on the town centre area of the Borough where residents have no Parish Councillors to represent them. Particular emphasis is on the six conservation areas and any surrounding area likely to impact on the town. Subject to this the Societies objectives are -
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To promote high standards of planning and architecture.
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To inform the public in the geography, history, natural history and architecture in the area.
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To secure the preservation, protection, development and improvement of features of historic or public interest.
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General Data Protection Regulations 2018 – please click here for the BHS Data Privacy Policy
Do get in touch - we like to hear from you.
The Basingstoke Heritage Society works with the following kindred organisations. . Simply click on their name to establish links to their own web sites.
Basingstoke & Deane Borough Council
The Basingstoke Willis Museum
Milestones Museum
The Friends of the Willis Museum
The Basingstoke Archaeological & Historical Society
Destination Basingstoke
The Surrey & Hampshire Canal Society
Civic Voice
The Hampshire Building Preservation Trust
The Viables Community Association
The Brookvale Community Association
The Vyne at Sherborne St John
The Basingstoke War Memorial - Regimental details, grave locations and home addresses of men listed on the town memorial
Basingstoke & Deane Borough Council
The Basingstoke Willis Museum
Milestones Museum
The Friends of the Willis Museum
The Basingstoke Archaeological & Historical Society
Destination Basingstoke
The Surrey & Hampshire Canal Society
Civic Voice
The Hampshire Building Preservation Trust
The Viables Community Association
The Brookvale Community Association
The Vyne at Sherborne St John
The Basingstoke War Memorial -
You can follow and contact us on facebook by following this link.
ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING. The AGM was held in Carnival Hall on 18th March 2025. We had a record number of visitors to the meeting, where the DVD made by the National Film Board of Canada was shown. This film looked at two British new or expanding towns -
AGM Business: Ian Williams was re-
Nicola Williams has resigned from the committee after many years of great work and she will be missed.
St George’s Hanover Square in London is celebrating 300 years of its history.
“ The church was consecrated on 23 March 1725. It was designed by the architect John James, the son of the head of the Holy Ghost School in Basingstoke where a plaque in his honour has been unveiled”.
Conservation volunteers were working in the Holy Ghost Cemetery in November when they uncovered an interesting monument. It was the sculpture of an angel with the drapery of her garment from neck to hem visible. It was part of a splendid monument put up by the Dellafera family to commemorate the tragic death of a child, Ronald Michael Dellafera who had died aged 5, on 20 September 1930. The sculptural group had included a model of the child, with his guardian angel standing over him. The sculpture had been badly damaged during a wave of vandalism which swept through the cemetery on Friday night, 16th April, 1971.his monument was among 170 which had been severely damaged. The plinth, with the angel’s feet still visible, is within the border of a family vault. It would be great to get the angel back onto her plinth.
The Society received an invitation to an iftar meal held by the Dialogue Society in Carnival Hall. The meal is the first after sundown during the Ramadan fast. It was a very interesting and informative occasion with a tasty buffet meal.
New heritage and historic signage will replace the ones put up some years ago in the old town. There were signs in Winchester Street, Market Place, London Street and Market Place and they will all be replaced after just eight years!
We were co
ntacted by John Thompson, who had some glass plate negatives, which had been found in a shed in Bury St Edmunds. Some were marked as Terry Hunt and were mostly photos of Lord Eversley and his family who lived at Heckfield Place (now a hotel). John had come across our Flashback article on Terry Hunt and got in touch. Lord Eversley’s family name was Lefevre and many of the photos were clearly members of the family. There were some that we recognised – one of Vyne Road and one of Terry Hunt himself. If you would like to see more of the photos, then follow the link.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/107618809@N08/with/27465078122
ntacted by John Thompson, who had some glass plate negatives, which had been found in a shed in Bury St Edmunds. Some were marked as Terry Hunt and were mostly photos of Lord Eversley and his family who lived at Heckfield Place (now a hotel). John had come across our Flashback article on Terry Hunt and got in touch. Lord Eversley’s family name was Lefevre and many of the photos were clearly members of the family. There were some that we recognised – one of Vyne Road and one of Terry Hunt himself. If you would like to see more of the photos, then follow the link.https://www.flickr.com/photos/107618809@N08/with/27465078122
On a Jane Austen theme, Squire Lefevre was one of the people mentioned in Mrs Austen’s poem about the failure of the ‘grand’ families to attend a Ball in Basingstoke.
“it would have been a better dance
But for the following circumstance –
The Dorchesters, so high in station,
Dined out that day, by invitation,
At Heckfield Heath with
Squire Lefevre …”
But for the following circumstance –
The Dorchesters, so high in station,
Dined out that day, by invitation,
At Heckfield Heath with
Squire Lefevre …”
We continue to attend the Jane Austen 2025 meetings, but our display will be in Steventon Village Hall and will tell the story of Jane in Basingstoke in her lifetime and some of the changes which followed soon after her death. We will be there on the weekends of 5/6th and 12th/13th of July so visit us there. Debbie will lead a Jane Austen in Basingstoke walk as part of the Basingstoke Festival on Sunday 21st June. The display will move into the Discovery Centre in Festival Place later in July