hello and welcome back to a brand new year of Flashback Thursday, bringing you some fantastic nostalgia from years gone by.

You can also email me your Basingstoke memories at the email address above.

Twenty years ago in 1998, shop owners in the New Market Square were preparing to close down forever in preparation for building work to commence on Festival Place.

The former home of the ABC/Cannon Cinema in Lower Wote Street had closed some years before, and in its last few years was a YMCA charity shop.

In fact Lower Wote Street itself would cease to exist in this year.

Elsewhere, The Nightjar pub had served its last pint, and Martines Nightclub closed with a typically cheesy goodbye party.

The Festival Place shopping centre officially opened on October 22, 2002, but the bus station, the shops surrounding the Market Square and some of the car park disappeared forever four years earlier in preparation for the building work.

Here is part one of a look back at the lower part of town.