Basingstoke Races

Jean Dale

Published by Barry Dale and Basingstoke Archaeological & Historical Society

BEFORE I read this slim and succinct book I had no idea that horse racing had ever taken place at Basingstoke.

Yet for at least 170 years at three successive venues around the town – Basingstoke Down (a little to the east of Kempshott Lane), Rooksdown (near the North Hampshire Hospital) and Basingstoke Common (to the east of the town) – frequently, if somewhat intermittently, horseracing was a popular pastime.

The races had begun by 1687 (and possibly a few years earlier than that given that a 1688 advertisement refers to the race as taking place “usually” on the first Tuesday in October).

Though horse racing in England began in the early sixteenth century, it was not until the 1680s that it became a nationwide activity – so Basingstoke was part of this later seventeenth century expansion of “the sport of kings”.

Moreover, the high status of Basingstoke as a horse racing venue is emphasised by the quality of horses competing in the local races, many of which are recorded as racing in better known venues.

Another indication of the high status of horseracing in Basingstoke is the very early and valuable trophy, the Basingstoke Monteith, a fine silver punch bowl won by Edward Chute of the Vyne in 1688, which is now in the Victoria and Albert Museum.

Later, in the eighteenth century, prominent owners who entered their horses at Basingstoke included such aristocrats as Lord Abingdon, the Duke of Bolton and His Royal Highness the Duke of Cumberland.

Even after a 23 year gap in Basingstoke racing between 1788 and 1811 the reinstated races attracted the great and the good. For example, the Royal Cornwall Gazette of September 13, 1823 noted that “the Duke of Wellington and his two sons were on the ground each day, and His Grace officiated as Steward with much good humour and politeness” which as Jean Dale says “must have been a feather in Basingstoke’s cap”.

But the races had a wider social significance beyond the appreciation of horseflesh or the substantial prize money to be won.

In the politically incorrect seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, each day of the races began with cock fighting. By the mid-1730s an “ordinary” (i.e. a fixed meal at a fixed price) was available at some of the local inns and on at least one of the evenings of the race a ball was held.

The races and their linked entertainments must have brought visitors to the town and, if only for a few days a year, stimulated local trade and businesses. And as people would go to the races and balls to be seen as well as to see, the author plausibly argues that even the local clothing trade would have received a boost.

Basingstoke Races is particularly rich in original sources. In fact approximately half of the book consists of some 14 appendices containing facsimiles of original newspaper reports and examples of lists of horses running at Basingstoke.

The “narrative” section of the book is also full of quotations from original sources. The book is further enhanced with a number of maps and black and white illustrations.

There is plenty of primary evidence to support the author’s account and conclusions – and to provide material for possible further research, though Basingstoke Races will surely be the definitive guide to this fascinating and little known aspect of our town’s history for many years to come.

The clarity of its written style is matched by the clarity of visual presentation in an A4 format and, for all its detail, the author is honest about the limitations of the useful but incomplete evidence we have for this sport in Basingstoke.

For example, why racing in the town came to an end sometime around the middle of the nineteenth century is still an unanswered question though the author offers the possibility that as the races at this time were advertised and reported only in the local press, they perhaps ceased “because of lack of interest from major subscribers”.

This fascinating book is an odds-on favourite to be a winner for all those interested in the history of Basingstoke.

Michael Whitty

The book is priced £6.50 and is available at Basingstoke Archaeological & Historical Society meetings, and at the Willis Museum and Milestones Museum. It will soon be available at Waterstones.