Basing House

The following is from the Register of Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest. For the most up-to-date Register entry, please visit The National Heritage List for England (NHLE):

The grounds and walled garden of a demolished Tudor house which were laid out in the 17th and 18th centuries as vineyards and pleasure grounds, with the addition of a 20th-century parterre garden.

Location, Area, Boundaries, Landform and Setting

Basing House lies on the south-west edge of Basing, some 2km due east of the centre of Basingstoke. The c 9ha site occupies ground which rises gently south-eastwards from the valley floor of the River Lodden. To the west the site is enclosed by walls and bounded by the former (now dry and partially tree-covered) course of the Basingstoke canal and the adjacent Redbridge Lane, beyond which is the flat valley of the River Lodden with its lightly wooded landscape of meadows and ponds.

To the north are further sections of wall, dating from the C16 to C20, which enclose gardens or form the fronts of dwellings on The Street and Crown Lane (Garrison Gate Cottage, Turret and Mews Cottages, all listed grade II). To the east and south, beyond the boundary hedgerows, lies the open level grassland of Basingstoke Common and, to the east, further housing in Basing.

Entrances and Approaches

The entrance to the site is at the north corner from The Street lane at the Garrison Gate (listed grade II). This single-carriageway arched opening comprises a tall rectangle of red-brick walling, surmounted by stepped brickwork and surmounted by decorative castellations. It is the only surviving Tudor gateway on the site although its castellations were added in 1900 (guide leaflet). From the gateway, a crushed-stone drive leads south to the Keep, crossing en-route the course of the canal on a bridge with a red-brick parapet (1797; listed grade II). In the Tudor period, this entrance led to the stores and stables north of the house which itself may have had its main entrance on the south side (guide leaflet).

Principal Building

The `old' and `new' houses (listed grade II and a scheduled ancient monument) lie to the south and east of the Garrison Gate and survive only as a series of earthworks and excavated built structures. The remains of the `old house' built from 1531, lie in the centre of the site, occupying the entire area within the circle of the steeply banked, grassed earthwork of the ringwork (known as the Citadel) of the C11 and C12 castle. Destroyed in the Civil War in 1645 and demolished subsequently by the first Duke of Bolton in 1690, the surviving remains of the `old house' include the brick bridge spanning the dry moat on the north side and, within the Citadel, open cellars and level areas representing several of its former courtyards including a fan-shaped one with a flint-cobbled surface.

Sections of walls above the grass bank survive from the walkway the first Duke built when using the Citadel as a vineyard. To the east and north-east of the castle bank lies the site of the `new house'. Built some twenty years later and forming a connected whole with the `old house' (Hollar engraving, c 1644), its partial excavation in 1990 revealed the walled basement of the north wing. The `new house' was destroyed and demolished with the `old' in the C17.

Gardens and Pleasure Grounds

The formal gardens lie north-west of the Citadel and comprise a c 150m x 50m rectangular enclosure, truncated at the north end by the Basingstoke canal and surrounded by red-brick walls ranging from 2m to 4m in height and averaging c 1m in thickness (listed grade II). Built into the west corner is an octagonal pigeon-cote tower with a conical tiled roof (listed grade II*); there is a further similar tower with a thatched roof some 100m further north along the wall (listed II). These, converted in the C17 and C18 from Tudor battlemented turrets, and the garden walls, are contemporary with William Paulet's C16 houses, the north-west wall forming part of the curtain wall built in 1531 and originally extending almost a mile in length (guide leaflet).

The south end of the garden is filled with a square, slightly sunken box and gravel parterre, laid out in 1989-90 using designs based on heraldic devices drawn from the Paulet family's arms and decorated tiles found on the site. The parterre is surrounded by a gravelled walk which on the south-east side climbs higher to run along the top of a steep earthwork bank. The toes of the surrounding banks to the parterre are edged with a dwarf wall, reconstructed on Tudor foundations which form the only evidence of garden activity before the C18. Following the Restoration, the walled gardens were used for fruit and vineyards (Morris 1947) and by 1798 the sunken area was recorded as a kitchen garden (Brown survey, 1798).

The garden is overlooked at its south-east corner by a two-storey red-brick dwelling with a tiled roof known as Basing House (listed grade II). Its eastern wing has gothic windows and a porch with decorative bargeboards. Built as a lodge in the mid C18 by the dukes of Bolton, it has been extended in the C19 and C20. Some 35m further south and connected by a line of mature yews stands The Bothey (listed II), a small, rustic red-brick building erected in 1908 for the then Lord Bolton as a museum. Its older foundations may be those of a Tudor banqueting house (guide leaflet). Northwards, in a triangle of land formed by the south-east garden wall and the lodge and Bothey, a few fruit trees in grass stand on the site of an orchard, recorded on Brown's survey (1798). The orchard served as a burial ground for Royalist soldiers.

Park

The site of the two houses is set within largely open grassland which was known as Basing Park from at least 1872 (OS). Immediately surrounding the Citadel is the dry ditch and bank, the latter topped by a clipped hedge, which formed the outer bailey defences to the C11 and C12 castle. A level area within this, to the north of the bridge and entrance to the Citadel, was referred to in the mid C18 as a bowling green (Pococke 1754). To the north of this lies the dry course of the Basingstoke canal. To the south and south-east, the outer Norman bailey bank is surmounted by further earthworks of the Civil War period. The south-west corner of the park has a light tree cover and contains the site of a former car park.

Maps

• Basing Enclosure map, 1797 (Hampshire Record Office)
• William Brown, Survey of Basing, 1798 (Bolton Papers), (Hampshire Record Office)
• OS 6" to 1 mile:
• 1st edition published 1871-2
• 2nd edition published 1896
• 3rd edition published 1910
• 1932 edition
• OS 25" to 1 mile:
• 1st edition published 1872
• 2nd edition published 1897
• 3rd edition published 1913
• 1932 edition

Archival items

• The Bolton Papers are held at the Hampshire Record Office, Winchester.

Description written: April 1999 Amended: July 2001

Register Inspector: VCH

Edited: January 2004, January 2021