History: The stories behind Basingstoke's road names

For those in the planning, environment and transport department there is the task of providing names for the many roads that are being built, and with some 950 roads already constructed in Basingstoke, the assignment becomes even more difficult.

Many of these roads have been built in the past 40 years, in the form of housing estates, to comply with the expansion scheme to bring London’s overspill into Hampshire’s green and pleasant land.

Each housing estate has basically had a certain theme in its road names. At Kempshott, the roads are named after birds and flowers, at Buckskin the subject is hills and mountains, in Brighton Hill there are famous composers, while at Riverdene the subject is rivers.

But going back in time, when Basingstoke was a small market town, the names of roads related to more local subjects. Wote Street was originally called Ote Street in the 16th century. Its change of name was thought to be from the “wutts” of corn being sold at the Corn Exchange, which was built in Wote Street in 1865, and is now the site of the Haymarket Theatre.

Cross Street is another old name which was once Cow Cross Lane, where the cows were herded from the fields (where Essex Road is now) to the slaughter-house in Wote Street (now the site of Feather’s Lane).

Bunnian Place, near the railway station, was once Bunny’s Bar, named after a one-bar gate that stood between the road and Clifton Terrace. (On the nearby bridge, the railway authorities have spelt the road Bunyan Place – evidently after the author John Bunyan.) Bunny was the nickname of the character who put the gate there.

Bunny’s Bar in 1956 – between Bunnian Place and Clifton Terrace (Image: Contributed)

Two places demolished in the town centre in the 1960s were Bedford Place and Potters Lane. The former was a pathway with houses on both sides which linked Wote Street and Church Street, originally called Little Lane. It was then called Bedford Place after Bedford House in Church Street, where the Russell family once lived, who were related to the Duke of Bedford.

Also linking Wote Street and Church Street was Potters Lane, a road with shops on one side and houses on the other. At the Wote Street end there used to be an old pottery shop, which was demolished to build a public house, The Angel Inn, about the year 1870.

The Angel Inn, circa 1915. (Image: Contributed)

Bedford Place in 1965 (Image: Contributed)

One hundred years later that, too, came down for the new shopping centre, and the name is retained in Potter’s Walk.

Sarum Hill (once called Salisbury Hill) was the road to Old Sarum in Wiltshire, while other roads with direction names are obvious in their origin.

Sarum Hill in Edwardian times. (Image: Contributed)

Flaxfield Road is called Flexfield on old maps, but it is believed to date from the fields nearby having flax growing in them.

Essex Road and the small roads branching off from it date from the 1880s, when a builder from the county of Essex erected rows of houses and called the roads after towns in his homeland.

Basingstoke’s links with the River Loddon are also remembered with Brook Street and Lower Brook Street, although Brook Street was once called Frog Lane.

The Flaxfield Road sub-post office just prior to its closure in December 1967. (Image: Contributed)

Basing Road, which was once linked with Reading Road, was called Water Lane in the 19th century.

The watery connection is also found along Winchester Road, where Foulflood Lane was once named but now has the title Hardy Lane.

Various roads about the town are called after local people and famous characters, such as on the Berg estate (the bungalow estate) where local mayors are remembered, while people of important historical nature, such as James Lancaster and Walter de Merton, have roads named after them.

There are still plenty of names left in the history files of the town to give to any new roads yet to be built, and each has its own story. Those people and places not yet listed on the street plans of Basingstoke should be remembered, for they are the foundation of how this town became what it is today.