Talk:Basingstoke/Archive 1

Basingstoke
Is there a reference for basingstoke becoming a sister city with LA? Neither of the following two sources confirm this to be true, David D. (Talk) 23:04, 18 April 2006 (UTC)
 * Basingstoke categorically is not twinned with LA. Vandals from varying IP's seem to be enjoying adding that fact to this article, however &mdash; I have reverted it several times in the past. └ UkPaolo/talk┐ 07:21, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

Exactly how boring is Basingstoke? How would it rate on a scale of (say) 1 to 10 where 1 is the most boring place ever, and 10 would be a city of street football, free beer, pole dancing at every street corner, and The Who, The Stones, and Oasis vying for stage time in the open-air amphitheatre? Is Basingstoke more boring, or less boring, than Chesterfield? Thidwick 14:33, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

I cant help but to find your question slightly irrelavent but as a teenager who is forced to visit it frequently i would give it a 2, 3 if you're really pushing it! Doobuzz 22:56, 3 November 2006 (UTC)


 * I actually live there and I would say it depends. Despite its reputation it actually does have some history, and some of the estates aren't that bad (of course there are problem areas). Not a very interesting place, but not the worst. Anywikiuser (talk) 17:21, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

Town planning
I was in Basingstoke for the first time today. It's tricky finding your way from the train station to the town centre (or "central area"). Why don't they just rename the whole thing, The Mall? Anyway, a section on town planning is a good idea - I thought design that favours the car went out in the '80s.--Shtove 18:38, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

The shopping centre was conceived as a single design in 1962 but later revised and built in two entirely seperate stages. The first, Phase 1, was built between 1967 and 1971 and is the part which has subsequently been modified and improved to become Festival Place, the second part Phase Two was built between 1978 and 1981 and is the area now known as The Walks. The reason they haven't renamed the whole thing 'The Mall', is that both are entirely seperate entities leased from the council and under entirely seperate management. It might not look like two separate shopping centres, but that's in fact what it is.Mighty Antar 23:37, 18 November 2006 (UTC)


 * 'The Walks' is now known as Festival Place. The Walks was the first phase and it was rennovated in the late '80s, then rebuilt around 2000/2002. The Malls came in the early '80s. The new town development happened in the '60s. There are some estates such as Popley and South Ham which date from this time, while the more upmarket places like Chineham and Kempshott came in the '70s. Anywikiuser (talk) 17:26, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

Ruth Ellis
Seeing as there doesnt appear to be any refrance on the Ruth Ellis page about her ever having any association with basingstoke ever i have removed her from the list. Doobuzz 22:54, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

Not sure why the above reference isn't there, other than it isn't really relevant to her crime or her punishment, but Ruth Ellis certainly did live in Basingstoke with her parents between 1933 and 1941 and attended Fairfields School. Her father worked at Park Prewett Hospital. This can be checked at The Willis Museum in Basingstoke or on the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. I have therefore reinstated her to the list as perhaps Basingstoke most infamous resident. Mighty Antar 23:53, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

"It remained a Market Town until"
Whatever has changed about Basingstoke in terms of it's size and appearance, surely it can still be said to be a Market Town as long as Markets are held every Wednesday and Saturday in the Market Place and protected by act of Parliament? Either the definition of Market Town is incorrect or the above statement is. Mighty Antar 20:17, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

Only fools and horses
Rodneys time at basingstoke school of arts was written by an ex Art student at Bcot (then in brookvale school )who went to work in the OFAH production. The teacher "mr stevens" who expelled Rodney him was based on an actual teacher (Brian Stevens) there from the 1970 to the present with whom the student had had a good relationship.

References to Basingstoke
This section was well on its way to becoming a 'Basingstoke Triva' or 'Basingtoke in popular culture' section. Either of which is undesirable from the Wikipedia perspective ref WP:TRIVIA, WP:HTRIVIA and "In popular culture" articles.

With this in mind, I have deleted references where the use of 'Basingstoke' appeared to be of no more significance than that it is a large town in England that most people will have heard of.

I would respectfully suggest that for the present, no more items are added to the above section and also that any new references anyone thinks worthy of inclusion are submitted to the talk page for discussion beforehand so that perhaps they can be integrated into other sections. Of course if someone wants to start a new page 'Cultural depictions of Basingstoke' then that would be another way forward Mighty Antar 01:03, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Education
I've removed the uncited statement "It is one of the largest towns in the UK not to have its own university" added 13 July 2006 by 84.64.207.227. It may well be true, but the only statistical list I could find [] does not include Basingstoke and I could not obtain this information through the Reference Sources that are quoted on that site Mighty Antar 13:17, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

Sections
I've added some sections which may ultimately prove superfluous in order rearrange some of the existing material to better meet the requirements outlined at WikiProject UK geography/How to write about settlements Mighty Antar 01:48, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

GAC review
I've placed the review on hold as these need fixing:
 * Wikilinks should only be made if they are relevant to the context. Common words such as "drug", "insurance", "electronics", "humorous", "newspapers", "coach" and "economic" do not need wikilinking.
 * "Mile" and "km" only need to be linked once.
 * Only full dates, or dates with a day and a month, should be linked. Centuries and decades don't need linking.
 * Imperial measurements should be accompanied by the metric equivalent in brackets, and vice versa.
 * Left-aligned images should not be placed at the start of sections.
 * Read Manual of Style regarding dash usage.
 * The only text that should be in bold are the headings and the first "Basingstoke".
 * "Physical geography/Geology" - "Geology" shouldn't have a capital.
 * "Basingstoke had an estimated population of 80,477 in 2006 and is part of the borough of Basingstoke and Deane and part of the parliamentary constituency of Basingstoke." - avoid using "and" twice in a sentence.
 * "Basingstoke is a major road junction" - needs rewording as Basingstoke is a town, not a junction.
 * "Position: grid reference SU637523" - blend this into the "Basingstoke is located at 51°16′0″N, 01°05′15″W" sentence.
 * "is a Conservative-led council, having 31 Conservative, 15 Liberal Democrat, 11 Labour and three Independent councillors." - a date needs to be included as this will eventually change.
 * "Two-Tier Local Government" - I don't think these need capitals.
 * "which was previously a separate village and parish and which extends beyond what might be considered the town’s ‘natural’ western extremity and the ward boundaries within the parliamentary constituency are not currently coterminous with the parish boundaries." - too many "and"s.
 * "Loam and alluvium recent" - what is "recent"?
 * "To the north of this line, encompassing the areas of Chineham and Pyotts Hill is London clay." - comma needed after "Hill".
 * Text needs to introduce the climate table, and the table's source needs fixing.
 * Removed temporarily, the table needs major work.


 * "Further to the east another Roman road ran" - comma needed after "east".
 * "western settlement of Basa's people" - is any more detail available on the Basa's people?
 * "later Wallis & Steevens[15] began producing" - comma needed after "Steevens".
 * "household names nationally. Thomas Burberry in " - replace the fullstop with a colon.
 * "Ordinary citizens were said to be shocked.[16] by" - remove the fullstop.
 * "Violent clashes became a regular occurrence" - this sounds as though Salvation Army members were involved in fights. Is this right?
 * The Thomas Hardy quotation needs to be shortened.
 * is not a reliable source.
 * "a humorous, but completely unscientific guide" - remove the redundant word, "completely".
 * "Have you seen The Office?" Carl Barât's response to Rolling Stone magazine's request for a description of Basingstoke." - needs rewording and is too short to be its own paragraph.
 * Rename the "Facilities" heading to "Culture" and create a "Popular culture" subsection. Move the Thomas Hardy, Green Wing, Carl Barât, Get Real and Blessed sentences to this new section.
 * "In 2004, the Basingstoke Gazette launched the "A Place to be Proud of" campaign to raise the community awareness in the town." - this is too short to be one paragraph.
 * "The Walks Shopping Centre and the New Market Square" - these don't need to be italicised.
 * "The Malls and the Top of Town" - these don't need to be italicised.
 * External links only belong in the External links section.
 * "Haymarket Theatre. in the former Corn exchange" - remove the fullstop.
 * "The town has 4 nightclubs, 2 in the town itself" - numbers under ten are usually spelled out.
 * "a modern concert hall: The Anvil," - the colon should be a comma.
 * "Outside of the town centre there is a" - comma needed after "centre". Remove "of".
 * "Basingstoke Town Football Club who currently play in the Nationwide Conference South." - date needed.
 * "74.33% felt they were in good health" - sentences shouldn't start with numerals.
 * "Cricket legends such as" - avoid using peacock terms such as "legends".
 * The teams in the Sports and Leisure section don't need to be italicised.
 * Image captions shouldn't end with a full stop if the caption doesn't form a complete sentence.
 * These need citations:
 * *"Mrs Maria Miller, who was elected in the 2005 general election."
 * *"is a Conservative-led council, having 31 Conservative, 15 Liberal Democrat, 11 Labour and three Independent councillors."
 * *"Basingstoke consequently became Hampshire's largest town."
 * *"Worting, which was previously a separate village and parish"
 * *"which extends beyond what might be considered the town’s ‘natural’ western extremity".
 * *"Basingstoke is situated on a bed of cretaceous upper chalk with small areas of clayey and loamy soil, inset with combined clay and flint patches.".
 * *"Many of these new estates are designed as almost self-contained communities".
 * *"Popley, Hatch Warren and Beggarwood are seeing rapid growth in housing".
 * *"Thomas Burberry in 1856 and Alfred Milward in 1857.".
 * *"which could be found on almost every high street until the 1980s.".
 * *"formerly Ster Century until their takeover in 2005".
 * "The town's nightlife is split fairly evenly between the new Festival Square, and the traditional hostelries at the Top of Town"
 * Removed "split evenly" from sentence


 * "The Anvil, which is renowned for its acoustics."
 * Removed, this phrase is used in Anvil publicity, but there doesn't appear to be an independent source


 * *"It was also where legendary commentator and playwright John Arlott watched his first match.".
 * *"Cricket legends such as Shane Warne and Sachin Tendulkar as well as Ashes winners Michael Vaughan, Steve Harmison and Matthew Hoggard have graced the ground.".
 * "The borough is also a centre of the horse racing industry, with two racing stables and several studs."
 * Removed, this reference relates more to the borough than the town.

Let me know when these are fixed. Epbr123 23:35, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
 * *"the BBC, Independent National and Now Reading multiplexes can be received in the town".
 * *"the outskirts can receive London and South Hampshire stations as well.".
 * *"The 1998 film Get Real is set in Basingstoke and, although not referenced, Channel 4's hit comedy Green Wing filmed scenes at Basingstoke Hospital."
 * Items struck through as they are being attended to. Mighty Antar 00:21, 26 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Pass. Well done. Epbr123 20:46, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

Not a new town
I've reworded the original text, which read as if the market (rather than the town) was often mistaken for a new town. Also separated out bit about the age of the market. All the new towns that I know (1st wave English ones) were based on existing old towns, often market towns (an obvious example is Basingstoke's near neighbour of Bracknell), so this is not really relevant to being mistaken for a new town. Pterre (talk) 14:07, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

Images added to commons
Just added an image of and the  to the commons. They're available under free use, if you feel they're of use to you. Let me know if you'd like images of anything else in the town and I'll see what I can do. Many thanks, Gazimoff Write Read 19:31, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

More References to Basingstoke
I know that you were loth to accept any more of these, but may I propose to which I think are of importance.

In Shakespeare's Henry IV part 2, Act 2 Scene 1, a messenger arrives...

Ch. Just. Where lay the king last night? Gow. At Basingstoke, my lord. Fal. I hope, my lord, all’s well: what is the news, my lord?

Surely, there could be no more important reference in literature than one from Shakespeare.

Secondly, though I don't have specific references or quotations to hand, when I read PG Wodehouse's The mating season some time ago, I remember frequent reference to one of the characters connection with the town.

--86.163.214.164 (talk) 09:21, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

Just a suggestion but a good one
I -- Calu2000   (Talk)  01:04, 2 January 2013 (UTC) would like to propose starting a wiki project Basingstoke where everything in Basingstoke (of any relevance is logged). This would be good because there are plenty of things that need writing about in Basingstoke and as Basingstoke already has a widely developed area in Wikipedia it would be good to link them to help wikipedias reader navigate.thanks 01:04, 2 January 2013 (UTC)


 * Have you looked at the categories for Basingstoke Category:Basingstoke and Basingstoke & Deane Category:Basingstoke and Deane? You'll probably find them all in there already. Mighty Antar (talk) 01:55, 2 January 2013 (UTC)

Merge school
I have just added a merge-school template to Winklebury Infant School as there is nothing notable about the article. WP:SCHOOLOUTCOMES suggests this as the most appropriate action to take.Atlas-maker (talk) 19:24, 14 October 2013 (UTC)