IT MAKES an interesting study to look back and see how the population of Basingstoke has changed throughout the generations.

Although Basingstoke is mentioned in the Domesday Book of 1086 as a ‘weekly market site’, very little is known about the population of that time. Assuming that it was just a village the population would only have been in the hundreds. W G Hoskins in his book Local History in England estimated the number to be approximately 206. In contrast, Basing, which was a larger settlement at that time, was estimated to have a population of 312.

According to the local history book The Making of Basingstoke by Eric Stokes, there was a steady incline over the years as the town grew, as would be expected. In 1548 the estimated population was ‘over 600’, and 20 years later described as ‘under 1,000’. 1603 saw the population having risen between 1,000 and 1,500 but later in 1,622 the James I charter stated that Basingstoke was a ‘large village’. Fifty years from that date the population had risen to around the 2,000 mark.

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By the time of the first national census in 1801, the population of Basingstoke had risen to 2,589 and 30 years later 3,581. Numbers increased by a steady rate until 1878 when there was a spike in the rise believed to be due to the establishment of the wholesale clothing manufacturer Gerrish, Ames and Simpkins in Station Hill.

Likewise, when Thornycroft was recruiting in 1898 following its arrival into the town there was a recognised rise of 200 people over the next four years where the total reached 9,793 at the turn of the century.

By the start of the First World War, the population had increased to 11,540 but surprisingly, considering the loss of men at the Front, the number still increased to 12,723 in the census of 1921. By 1947 a Hants & Berks Gazette report stated that Basingstoke had a population of 40,000 but this was obviously incorrect because the return of 1951, two years after forklift truck manufacturer Lansing Bagnall Ltd settled in Basingstoke, the population was shown to be 16,978.

In 1952 building began at Aldermaston for the foundations of the Atomic Weapons Research Establishment (AWRE), along with four hundred houses in Oakridge for the employees. This increased the population by approximately 1,200 people.

Over the next few years, plans were set in motion for the building of a further 3,500 houses in Basingstoke to allow an influx of people as part of the London Overspill programme, designed to give people accommodation due to substandard housing and the devastation of Inner London during the bombing of the Second World War, resulting in a population of 52,000 by 1971.

In 1976 an agreement was made to build two large housing estates specifically for the next phase of the London Overspill. In due course, these became the estates of Chineham and Brighton Hill increasing the population to a total of 77,837 by 1991.

The 2021 census results showed the population of Basingstoke and Deane was 185,200 people. The population had increased by 17,400 people since 2011.