Basingstoke, United Kingdom

During the Civil War, and the siege of Basing House between 1643 and 1645, the town played host to large numbers of Parliamentarians. During this time, St. Michael's Church was damaged whilst being used as an explosive store and lead was stripped from the roof of the Chapel of the Holy Ghost, Basingstoke leading to its eventual ruin. It had been incorporated in 1524, but was effectively out of use after the Civil War. The 17th century saw serious damage to much of the town and its churches, because of the great fires of 1601 and 1656. Oliver Cromwell is thought to have stayed here towards the end of the siege of Basing House, and wrote a letter to the Speaker of the House of Commons addressed from Basingstoke.

The cloth industry appears to have been important in the development of the town until the 17th century, along with malting. Brewing became important during the 18th and 19th centuries, and the oldest and most successful brewery was May's Brewery, established by Thomas and William May in 1750 in Brook Street.

The London and South Western Railway arrived in 1839 from London and, within a year, it was extended to Winchester and Southampton. In 1848, a rival company, sponsored by the Great Western Railway built a branch from Reading. In 1854, a line was built to Salisbury by the London and South Western. In the 19th century, Basingstoke began to move into industrial manufacture; Wallis and Haslam (later Wallis & Steevens) began producing agricultural equipment including threshing machines in the 1850s, moving into the production of stationary steam engines in the 1860s and then traction engines in the 1870s.

Two traders who opened their first shops within a year of each other in the town, went on to become household names nationally: Thomas Burberry in 1856 and Alfred Milward in 1857. Burberry became famous after he invented Gabardine and Milward founded the Milwards chain of shoe shops, which could be found on almost every high street until the 1980s.

John May, a member of the brewery family, was several times mayor of the town. A benefactor to the town, he paid for the building of a drill hall in Sarum Hill for the use of the Hampshire Volunteers (later used as a cinema and then a furniture shop) and a wing for the Cottage Hospital in Hackwood Road. The drill hall was opened in 1885 and also used for concerts and exhibitions. He also bought a piece of open space that was about to be sold for housing and let it at a low rent to the Basingstoke Cricket Club. This cricket ground is still in use and is called May's Bounty.

Ordinary citizens were said to be shocked by the emotive, evangelical tactics of the Salvation Army when they arrived in the town in 1880, but the reaction from those employed by the breweries or within the licensed trade quickly grew more openly hostile. Violent clashes became a regular occurrence. On Sunday 27 March 1881, troops were called upon to break up the conflict after the Mayor had read the Riot Act. The riot and its causes led to questions in Parliament and a period of notoriety for the town. The town was described as "Barbarous Basingstoke" by one London newspaper in 1882 but, by March 1882, the disturbances were dying down.

In 1898, John Isaac Thornycroft began production of steam-powered lorries in the town and Thornycroft's quickly grew to become the town's largest employer.

Basingstoke suffered very little bomb damage during the Second World War. A stick of German bombs did fall in the Church Square area on 16 August 1940. On the same day, bombs destroyed part of a row of houses in Burgess Road; six people were killed in the raid. Overall, 13 civilians died from enemy action during the war in the town. After the war, the town had a population of 25,000.

As part of the London Overspill plan, along with places such as Ashford and Swindon, Basingstoke was rapidly developed in the late 1960s as an expanded town, in similar fashion to Milton Keynes. As the population increased, the town produced more figures of national importance, such as the art critic Waldemar Januszczak and the actress Elizabeth Hurley. Many office blocks and large estates were built, as well as a ring road. The shopping centre was built in phases. The first phase was completed by the 1970s and was later covered in the 1980s, and was known as The Walks. The second phase was completed by the early 1980s, and became The Malls. The third phase was abandoned and the site was later used to build the Anvil concert hall. The central part of the shopping centre was rebuilt in 2002 and reopened as Festival Place. This has brought a dramatic improvement to shoppers' opinions of the town centre.