Basingstoke: Tracing the history of Winklebury from sixth century BC

We know that the large encampment at ‘Winklow Bury’ often called the “Bury Ring” has four periods of occupation between the sixth and first centuries BC and that makes it quite a complicated archaeological site.

The choice for a hillfort at Winklebury was its good defensive position – 2,600 years it consisted of a flat-bottomed ditch, with the chalk piled high and a palisade or fence on the top.

It is 19 acres, one-third of which was excavated when the decision was taken to build Fort Hill school inside the ring in 1977.

Winklebury Hill Fort from above (Image: Google Earth)

The school is now gone, and its place will be taken by homes.   

Archaeological evidence of post-holes shows evidence of square structures, probably for food storage or grain, held off the ground on staddle stones. Archaeology says that the site was abandoned for about 200 years, then re-occupied with a deeper ditch and a higher rampart, with a slope of some 40 feet from top to bottom of the ditch.

The Romans arrived in Britain in 43 AD and eventually, Silchester (a settlement occupied by the Atrebates, a Belgic Iron Age tribe), became the principal town of the area with a forum, basilica, arena, baths and workshops.

The ditch at the Winklebury Iron Age Hill Fort (Image: .)

Roman roads lead to and from Silchester in all directions, notably for Basingstoke the Roman Road which led to Winchester.

In 1964 a two-ton Roman stone coffin was found – you can see it and its occupant in the Willis Museum.

We know that he was in middle age, suffered from arthritis and was presumably wealthy.

In the coffin was a mid-second century coin with the Empress Faustina on it.

She was the wife of Emperor Antoninus Pius and she died in AD 141 so that gives a solid clue to the date of the burial.

Roman burial now in the Willis Museum (Image: .)

Other Roman finds close to the town include Romano-British finds at Newtown (May Street and Brook Street) in the 1880s during housebuilding there.

Roof tiles, nails, paving, ridge tiles, flue bricks Samian and other pottery suggest that a villa was once there. Not a grand villa necessarily but a modest home.

Roman Samian ware in The Willis Museum (Image: .)

Other finds were the remains of a hypocaust (under-floor central heating, Roman-style) near Oakridge Road.

These could not be fully investigated because of building pressures, but again suggest a villa.

Winklebury derives from a Saxon name for the site, with some odd variants over the centuries such as ‘Wyltenyssebury’; ‘Wynnyshbery’ and ‘le Wynlysbery’.

Over the centuries the land was farmed and ploughed.

Loom weight found in Hampshire (Image: .)

In 1901 plots of land in and around Bury Road were put on the market as suitable for poultry farming or market gardening – of 2-10 acres up to 12-20 acres so the area became populated by chicken farms.

The poultry farm workers lived in disused railway carriages converted into dwellings.

By 1924 a company called Small Owners Ltd purchased part of the Winklebury Farm Estate for onward sale to smallholders, an attractive option for WW1 veterans.

Winklebury Hill House or Bury House or just Winklebury House  (also a farm)  was the home in the 1920s of Admiral Sir Rudolf Bentinck and his wife Mabel née Fetherstonhaugh.

He had been at the battle of Jutland and was mentioned in Admiral Jellicoe’s despatch of 1 June 1916.

The ‘Clarke’ Estate was built in the late 1950s and was then reached from the Kingsclere Road. 

Aerial photo of Winklebury in archive (Image: .)

On October 31st, 1961, the agreement was signed to take 11,500 London families under the ‘overspill’ scheme and Basingstoke became an expanded town.

The population would increase by 36,800 – it had previously been around 25,000.

Winklebury’s new life had begun with new homes described approvingly  by Pevsner:   “Winklebury I, 1964-1966, an excellent housing area of single aspect brick terraces of LCC Haverhill type with a HCC ‘Scola’ School’.

For more information check out Beneath Basingstoke - a DVD produced by the Basingstoke Archaeological and Historical Association about the various digs in Basingstoke which were carried out as the bulldozers moved in. Find this in the Discovery Centre or Willis Museum, where early archaeological finds are held.