Viewing 34 posts - 41 through 74 (of 74 total)
  • Tell me about Basingstoke … or thereabouts?
  • binners
    Full Member

    Binners, you don’t have to identify yourself with the town in which you live. You can, if you want, but it’s not a requirement.

    Indeed. But identify with it or not, you still have to spend the majority of your waking hours, and build your life there. And far from building a life there, I wouldn’t even build a nuclear waste storage facility in Basingstoke

    Its just one of those places Molls. Its all-encompasing beige, vanilla, banality starts to gnaw away at the very fabric of your soul. Whenever I went down there, from the moment I arrived, I’d be counting down the minutes until I could head back north.

    And I think our ideas of what constitutes ‘great riding’ differ quite significantly fella. You’ve been out riding with us up here on our local trails. You’re not seriously holding that up as a comparison, are you?. 😀

    molgrips
    Free Member

    I know, I have been there. I had a job there, it lasted three days 🙂

    You’ve been out riding with us up here on our local trails. You’re not seriously holding that up as a comparison, are you?

    I certainly am. Have you been riding in Surrey?

    mrblobby
    Free Member

    Its a huge yawning non-entity of a place. A barren, featureless (unless you count roundabouts as features), chain-bar-and-restaurant-infested, cultural wasteland.

    Describes most of the bigger towns in the Thames Valley. Actually describes most towns in the UK these days. And the ones it doesn’t are slowly being transformed into something that conforms.

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    Its no different to most towns in the south east – vast urban sprawl consisting of identikit housing estates.

    Its the future you know.

    I’d consider moving to Basingstoke just so I could be sure of never meeting anyone as unremittingly awful as Binners.

    cinnamon_girl
    Full Member

    binners sweetie, I’m going to have to disagree with you. When places such as Basingstoke, Woking, Swindon etc. were built, the adhered to model was one that encompassed a practical road system with a labyrinth of pedestrian footpaths and cycleways as well as plenty of greenery, parks and open space for the inhabitants to enjoy.

    Now I’m an old girl and remember driving around Basingstoke gawping at the modernist and futuristic buildings that had been constructed. You see, it was all terribly new and exciting!

    By the same token, I can wander around older towns and be horrified at their twee-ness and ghastly brickwork, rickety pavements that you could break your cankle on etc. 😉

    An open invitation to you binners – whilst I have no connections to Basingstoke, I would be honoured to show you around the trails not far from there. Yes, there are woods, nice views, little bits of singletrack etc. and can guarantee that you would be surprised! Whaddya say? 😀

    slimjim78
    Free Member

    I’d consider moving to Basingstoke just so I could be sure of never meeting anyone as unremittingly awful as Binners.

    I visited a giant ASDA in Basingstoke.

    I surived, just. But my DNA sequence was irrepairably damaged.

    Its that bad.

    mrblobby
    Free Member

    I was just in a morrisons at Basingstoke. Northerners would feel right at home.

    binners
    Full Member

    somewhatslightlydazed – my life, I’m sure, will be so much emptier without you. Enjoy Basingstoke 😀

    Oh you’re right BTW. I’ve worked in Woking as well. Thats hellish too. In a breathtakingly tedious way. You could parachute someone into any one of those god-awful places and ask them where they were, and there would be no way of knowing. They’re all exactly the same. in a soul-destroying, spirit-crushing, why-oh-why-oh-why way

    CG – I’d love to be proved wrong. I’ll come and ride anywhere. When I’ve been down there, its just been work. Never had chance to ride, as there didn’t seem anywhere obvious to do so

    I remember the first time I went there, having the following conversation with the lads in the office

    So what are you going to do with yourself tonight?
    Theres a United game on. I’m going to have a wander, find a decent pub, grab something to eat and watch the footy
    There are no decent pubs in Basingstoke
    There must be somewhere passable, just to watch the match?
    No. There really isn’t. Every pub is terrible. The town centre is bloody awful

    I went for a wander that evening. They were right 😀

    Alex
    Full Member

    There used to be a pub in town called the nightjar. Universally known as the knife jar 🙂 The pub in Winklebury was great. Most weekends there would be free entertainment while a couple of drunk locals smashed each other up with the pubs pool queues.

    We used to go straight from work on the train to London, have a top night out, get the milk train back to BS about 5am in the morning, quick shower, back to work. Happy days 🙂

    molgrips
    Free Member

    Binners, if you make it down South for riding I’ll join you. I think you will be surprised – I was!

    slimjim78
    Free Member

    Now I’m an old girl and remember driving around Basingstoke gawping at the modernist and futuristic buildings that had been constructed. You see, it was all terribly new and exciting!

    I completely agree with this CG. In fact, whenever I see 50’s / 60’s architects plans or ‘vision’ for a new concrete city , invariably they do seem exciting, feature packed, new.

    Yet 30/40/50 years later the subsequent sprawl and degredation of the area, decor, advertising boards, boy racers – and lack of actual people using the green pathways / parks etc tends to always leave these same places looking – like Basingstoke.

    I for one like a concrete building, when done right.

    binners
    Full Member

    Cool! Well lets get something sorted when we’re all back above water then eh? Thanks for the invite.

    I shall come down with an open mind (well as open as possible for a chippy northerner), and I’d be quite happy to be proved wrong. Its always good to ride somewhere new 😀

    CaptainFlashheart
    Free Member

    Meanwhile, back on topic for the OP;

    My pick would be one of the villages to the west if you can. You really don’t feel that close to the ‘Stoke, or to London for that matter, even though it’s only an hour by train. If you’re commuting in to the ‘Stoke by train, be wary that there are only a couple of trains an hour on the Exeter-London line, think there may be more on the Micheldever line. M3 and A303 are both easily accessible, and with the A34 you get a fast route towards the M4 and Wales. (You can take it further North, but you’d only run in to chippy Northerners with their flat caps, whippets and rubbish beer, so don’t)

    Most of the villages are really thriving, with all sorts of stuff going on (I do at times feel as if I’m living in a Midsomer village, though! Am sure someone at the cricket/archery/running/photography/cycling etc club is going to get murdered in some inventively rural way!)

    There’s some lovely local beer, from the likes of Flack Manor or Andwell. Some great food, check out Tunworth cheese or Laverstoke Organics (mmmmm, buffalo!) for example.

    cinnamon_girl
    Full Member

    Come on binners, you can do better than that! Go binners go. 😀

    CaptainFlashheart
    Free Member

    Oh, and did I mention the gin distillery?

    😀

    cinnamon_girl
    Full Member

    Sorry, just a thought … isn’t Warrington a ‘new town’? What’s that like then?

    D28boy
    Free Member

    Binners ..I’ll say it. You and you’re chums are a bunch of pillocks. If you read what the op asked it was concerning getting a JOB in Basingstoke and what was on offer in the near surrounds (about 15 miles as I recall) and the likelyhood of finding a small quiet town/village with a pub. The answer to that is it’s absolutely fine…maybe it’s not Surrey but’s fine…End of

    jambalaya
    Free Member

    Paul Weller comes from Woking, for that reason alone the place is redeemed.

    @molgrips If I’m not mistaken @binners has ridden Surrey Hills a bit although I don’t know what trails/areas, as we know the better stuff is thankfully reasonably well hidden.

    OP if the job is good take it, to be honest I don’t think anyone would move to Basingstoke itself as a lifestyle choice. The villages around are nice, riding is good within 60 mins, close to airports and coast, decent train service into London, lots to do/see around.

    tomd
    Free Member

    And I think our ideas of what constitutes ‘great riding’ differ quite significantly fella. You’ve been out riding with us up here on our local trails. You’re not seriously holding that up as a comparison, are you?.

    Basingstoke actually has got good riding that can be done from the town centre, anything from a couple of hours or a full day ride. I guess you were too busy wandering round the town centre being outraged by its blandness to explore it. I don’t know what your local trails are like, they must be amazing though.

    molgrips
    Free Member

    I shall come down with an open mind (well as open as possible for a chippy northerner), and I’d be quite happy to be proved wrong. Its always good to ride somewhere new

    I’ll try and join you but of course away days are hard to arrange these days. If you want to try some Welsh riding that could also be arranged 🙂

    binners
    Full Member

    CG – its because I’m from a new town originally that I despise them with a passion I normally only reserve for Tory cabinet members. Warrington is unremittingly awful. An utterly horrendous place populated by Corsa-driving, rugby-watching borderline psychopaths called Bazza or Tommo, and peroxide, perms-tanned, barely-dressed orange umpa-lumpas called Sharone, who live in mile after mile of featureless cell-like houses, and go into the town centre in the evening to drink vile, lurid coloured drinks, copulate on the bins behind night clubs, and have fights outside kebab houses in the early hours of the morning

    Everyone with half a brain will have cleared off to Manchester or Liverpool as soon as they hit adulthood, leaving a rump of people either too stupid, or terminally unimaginative to do anything else. 20 miles either way on the M62 and you may as well be on a different planet

    I don’t know what your local trails are like, they must be amazing though.

    They’re alright, I suppose….

    [video]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4KEqItT8-7s[/video]

    That was the evening we had the pleasure of Molly’s company 😀

    molgrips
    Free Member

    I don’t know what your local trails are like, they must be amazing though.

    I’ve ridden some of his, they are good – but I have to say there are plenty of other places equally as good. The good thing about the UK is that the different landscapes provide very different trails, and they are close enough for us to sample lots of different styles. I would not want to confine myself to any one are in particular 🙂

    molgrips
    Free Member

    I don’t think I’ve seen that vid before binners..? I didn’t know anyone had a camera.. I think you can see me in it for a few seconds.

    slimjim78
    Free Member

    copulate on the bins behind night clubs

    Namesakes then?

    Paul Weller comes from Woking, for that reason alone the place is redeemed

    Gary Numan – Slough, Jimmy Page – Heston : not enough to save these god forsaken places, so I certainly cant give you Weller.

    Binners ..I’ll say it. You and you’re chums are a bunch of pillocks. If you read what the op asked it was concerning getting a JOB in Basingstoke and what was on offer in the near surrounds (about 15 miles as I recall) and the likelyhood of finding a small quiet town/village with a pub. The answer to that is it’s absolutely fine…maybe it’s not Surrey but’s fine…End of

    Posh Pillocks? Ill settle for that. However, please define ‘fine’

    riding is good within 60 mins, close to airports and coast, decent train service into London,

    I hate this argument. It describes pretty much anywhere South of Birmingham.

    binners
    Full Member

    … and of course we don’t have airports or trains or coasts up in’t north. Or running or water or electrickery 😆

    Behold the very pinnacle of cosmopolitan sophistication. The Northern Riviera 😀

    thisisnotaspoon
    Free Member

    secret is living out in one of the villages

    Plenty of nice villages around the city

    My pick would be one of the villages to the west if you can

    Most of the villages are really thriving

    I think this sums up nicely, even the people sticking up for it are basicly saying any hamlet within a 10 mile radius is better.

    I say 10 miles, because much further and you hit Bracknell, which is like Basingstoke, but smaller.

    towzer
    Full Member

    I work in Basingstoke and I prefer it to Reading (smaller, more defined centre, to me feels less pushy etc), a plus point (IMHO) is that from the train station you can pretty much offroad to Hannington mast NW and also to Dummer (SWish at start of some decentish (*well imo) trails and the local guide impressed me on it’s cyclability.

    Used to live in Burghfield Common to the North, (*not entirely recommended, pleasant enough, but no defined centre, linear, no decent pubs, rail station etc etc), Mortimer is a bit better (2 decent pubs, small cafe, small shops, Indian near station, but again linear, very limited facilities and station is about a mile away), Bramley has a station and a nice cafe (next to station) don’t know what pubs etc are like. Sherfield on Loddon used to have a couple of nice pubs – probably still does.

    ? Kingsclere – not sure what it’s like – couple of pubs etc ….
    If (things haven’t changed for a while, well a long while) and you want a MEGA brekkie – pub at Ecchinswell

    Just FYI – gf and I decided not do a one horse town – as horses have been closing or bistrofied recently where we are

    daftvader
    Free Member

    Dummer, oakley, overton, witchurch, cliddesden, farliegh wallop, and pretty much any of the other surrounding villages. all have nice pubs, village life and are quiet, all have some good riding very close and are no more than half hour from basingstoke. Dont bother with tadley or bramley tho. I’d even say have a look at old basing, chineham, hatch warren in basingstoke too. Dispite what some others have said its not that bad, there has been alot of new development. The town centre has been revamped (it looks like any other town center) and its 5 minutes from open countryside which cant be bad. I’ve been here for 10 years and quite like it. But then I moved from rural essex so……

    Russell96
    Full Member

    I worked down that way 1994-2000 first of all living in Hatch Warren which is exactly as prior posters have said, then I moved out to Monk Sherborne a few miles outside of Basingstoke and again like previous posts a lot lot nicer.

    shotsaway
    Free Member

    I moved to Basingstoke in 1998 and admittedly it was a pretty grim place. I’ve now been here for 16 years and I’ve seen significant change since then. The town centre was totally redeveloped in 2002 and the old concrete town has been replaced by the standard UK spec identikit town centre. There are still some grim parts but overall the place is better. I’ve lived in Lychpit, Hatch Warren and now Beggarwood. My kids were born here and go to school here. As others have mentioned the villages all around are great and most of them are linked by a bridleway network. This very bridleway network introduced me to mountain biking the year I moved here. You can cycle for hours and you will only see the odd cyclist, horse rider or rambler. The bridleways are not technical but the network is vast. You can ride from Cliddesden, Farleigh Wallop Ellisfield, The Candovers down to Alresford or Micheldever or go North up through North Waltham to Oakley and Kingsclere. I’ve ridden 1000’s of miles over the years. The villages are more expensive but I’d recommend Hatch Warren, Kempshott, Lychpit, Old Basing or Chineham as the estates to consider. In my opinion I’d avoid parts of Brighton Hill, Popley, Buckskin, Winklebury. These areas probably have a higher number of benefit salaries. It really is no different to most other towns, and I certainly didn’t like Basingstoke until I moved here. And finally everybody moans about the roundabouts but the ring road network is pretty good.

    tinribz
    Free Member

    Spent a couple of years just outside a long time ago. Recognise all the villages mentioned, and their Inns. There is a ring community round it that just pretends it doesn’t exist, seemed to work for them. Used to travel to Winchester a lot, I can’t even remember what Basingstoke center looked like now.

    mefty
    Free Member

    NorthWest Hampshire is wonderful, ok the towns, which soaked up the London overspill (Andover, Basingstoke etc) and were changed massively for the worse, they are vibrant economically. So facilities are improving and money is being spent. Basingstoke does not have a lot of soul, but the countryside around it is lovely and it has incredible communications by road and rail and you are starting to get closer to a proper rural life.

    cb
    Full Member

    I was born in Basingstoke and spent 18 years there. Believe me, it is an oasis now in comparison to the concrete desert that I grew up in. Having travelled a bit, including living in Stevenage for a few years – Basingstoke ain’t that bad!

    If the job pays OK you won’t be short of great rural options for housing – Rotherwick, Hartney Witney etc

    Kojaklollipop
    Free Member

    Thanks for all the replies 😀 I lived in, well just outside of, Slough for a few years, at the time it was the only place I could afford, I never ventured into the town centre but just had it as somewhere to sleep so I’m guessing basingstoke would be on par with that. The job is in Basingstoke, it’s not great pay but it’s more than I get now and I’m doing agency work so it could end tomorrow, but there’s very little in the way of work in my area at the moment, haven’t found anything that’s relevant to my skills and interests for a couple of years. So, the idea was to move somewhere near and drive/cycle to work. But looking at prices of housing it’s a little bit more than where I am now, so I’m in two minds. We’re also considering moving further afield, Devon, Somerset, Dorset, depends on finding work but houseing costs seem to be better in those areas. So, need to weigh up the pros and cons, if i get an interview I’ll go and have a look around and then think about it.

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