Hampshire

Stretching from the New Forest's coastal beaches in the south west, to the edge of suburban London in the north east, Hampshire is the largest county in South East England. Known as Jane Austen's County after its most famous daughter, Hampshire has a wealth of attractions to offer the traveller. Visitors may see one of England's greatest cathedrals in Winchester, ascend to the top of the county's tallest landmark in Portsmouth or fish for trout in crystal clear chalk streams.

Hampshire has excellent museums, with a particular focus on military, maritime and aviation history. It is equally possible to visit the former homes of some the county's more celebrated residents, among them Charles Dickens, the Duke of Wellington and Ms Austen herself. If urban Hampshire's port cities and historic market towns don't grab you, then how do you feel about two national parks (the heath and woodland of the New Forest and the rolling chalk hills of the South Downs), hundreds of miles of coastal inlets, islands and estuaries and a rich agricultural heartland dotted with many fine homes and gardens? Come to Hampshire and discover the places where the Titanic weighed anchor on its fateful maiden voyage, where Britain first took to the skies - with an American cowboy in the 'cockpit' - and where, over 1100 years ago, King Alfred the Great founded the nation of England.

Cities, towns and villages

Map of Hampshire

Cities

• Winchester - Hampshire's county town and England's first capital city is best known for its ancient cathedral and medieval city centre
• Southampton - The largest city in Hampshire is also the county's commercial, education and media hub. Good shopping, two universities and the UK's main cruise ship port attract visitors
• Portsmouth - An active naval city since the 1500s, Portsmouth mixes priceless maritime heritage with impressive modern architecture

Towns

• Aldershot - The "Home of the British Army" has two good military museums
• Andover - This pretty coaching town is an excellent base for exploring the Wessex countryside, both in Hampshire and over the border in Wiltshire
• Alresford - Colourful old town at one end of the Mid Hants Steam Railway that is still the hub of England's watercress industry
• Alton - Historic market town at the other end of the Mid Hants Railway
• Basingstoke - 'Soulless' new town it may be, Basingstoke nonetheless offers the some of the best shopping and entertainment in Hampshire as well as an unusual living history museum
• Eastleigh - Benny Hill once lived here and the Spitfire first flew here, but Eastleigh has little to offer the traveller beyond cheap accommodation and excellent transport connections
• Fareham - Coastal town home to the Roman and Medieval Portchester Castle and several imposing fortresses from the Napoleonic Wars
• Farnborough - The "Birthplace of British Aviation" is still home to the biennial International Air Show and a super little aerospace museum
• Gosport - Facing Portsmouth across their shared harbour, Gosport has two naval museums of repute
• Lymington - Beautiful Georgian seaside town in the New Forest
• Odiham - Small rural town with regular markets and pretty countryside ideal for walking
• Romsey - Market town on the edge of the New Forest, home to an abbey and many historic houses.

Villages

There are hundreds of villages in Hampshire - far to many to list here. Below is a selection of those with the most to offer the visitor.

• Bishopstoke - Village with Anglo Saxon roots in the pretty Itchen Valley
• Emsworth - Foodie village with views over Chichester Harbour
• Hamble-le-Rice - Scenic estuary village perfect for bird- and ship-watching
• Hythe - On the western shore of Southampton Water next to the New Forest
• Greywell - Very small village in the Odiham countryside, popular with ramblers
• Lyndhurst - Picturesque village in the middle of the New Forest, which has the reputation for being somewhat of a tourist trap
• Selborne - Settled around a typically English village green, best known for its associations with naturalist Gilbert White
• Stockbridge - Another pretty village base for seeing some of the loveliest countryside in Hampshire
• Wickham - Great country shopping and dining in the Meon Valley

Other destinations

• The New Forest – large hunting forest created in 1079 by William the Conqueror as a hunting forest, that is now a national park. Known for its pristine woodland and large open heaths, the deer and wild boar that the Normans hunted are still on the loose in the park, as are the iconic New Forest ponies.
• The South Downs - Britain's newest national park stretches along the south coast from Hampshire to East Sussex. Hampshire's part is known for Iron Age history and the chalky escarpment around Butser Hill, as well as bucolic countryside and "flint and brick" villages.

Understand

Orientation

Although administratively part of South East England, Hampshire is actually in the dead centre of the south. Clockwise from the west, it is bordered by the counties of Dorset, Wiltshire, Berkshire, Surrey and West Sussex. To the south is the Solent, a narrow channel of sea separating mainland Hampshire from the Isle of Wight, and the English Channel. Hampshire's coast is characterised by many natural harbours and inlets, which boost the 60 mile coast "as the crow flies" into a true length of around 250 miles.

Hampshire combines scattered population centres with a typical English rural landscape. The bulk of the population lives in the South Hampshire conurbation - Southampton, Portsmouth and their respective suburbs, connected to Winchester by a corridor of urbanisation. Outside this area, the largest centres of population are Basingstoke and, in the north east corner, the Blackwater Valley towns (Farnborough and Aldershot) which signal the start of London's commuter suburbs. A fair chunk of the South Downs National Park lies within south eastern portion of the county. Almost all of the south western corner is within the New Forest, another national park. The north and north west of the county are largely rural and retain many similarities with neighbouring Westcountry counties.

The Population of Hampshire was ranked in 2011 at 1,763,000, making it the fifth most populous English county. The entire county is within commuting distance of London and the population is on the whole prosperous. People from Hampshire are known as Hampshire Hogs, due to the county's long association with both boar-hunting and pig-farming (indeed the American breed of pig known as the "Hampshire" from the is thought to have its origins in the county). Famous Hampshire Hogs include English monarchs Alfred the Great, Henry III and Matilda, novelists Jane Austen and Charles Dickens, engineer Isambard Kingdom Brunel and, more recently, actors Colin Firth and Martin Freeman.

History

Hampshire has a crucial place in both English and British history. Home to the Belgiae Celts prior to 55 AD, Hampshire later saw Roman civilisation at Rockbourne and Silchester (the city of Calleva Atrebatum). Later, the area formed part of the Anglo Saxon kingdom of Wessex, and it was from here that King Alfred of Wessex successfully repelled the Danes and united all the Saxon states into the first unified Kingdom of England. Alfred, who remains the only English monarch to be given the title of "the Great" post-mortem, was celebrated for his reform of the English justice system and the improvement of his subjects' quality of life and literacy. He made Winchester the new nation's capital, a status retained until the Normal Conquest when William the Conqueror made the already much larger London his new capital.

Under the Normans, much of Hampshire became royal hunting ground, the most famous domain of which was the New Forest, planted on the orders of William himself. Many of Hampshire's castles date from this period of the Middle Ages, although Henry VIII continued to build new fortresses along the Solent. Both Southampton and Portsmouth became important harbours during this period, the former for commercial traffic and the latter as a naval dockyard. Among the famous vessels to sail from Southampton were the Mayflower and the Titanic (which was largely staffed by more than 500 citizens of Southampton, most of whom perished on board) and from Portsmouth the Mary Rose and HMS Victory. Many of the earliest European settlers of the United States originated from Hampshire.

The Military connection continued through the 19th and 20th centuries, when large Army garrisons were established around Aldershot and aviation pioneers moved in to Farnborough, where the first powered flight in British skies took place in 1908, flown by American Wild West showman Samuel Franklin Cody. Among other aeronautic developments to take place in the county, Hampshire hosted the development of the Spitfire fighter plane, the first jet aircraft and much of the engineering work required to bring the supersonic liner Concorde into existence.

Talk

The variety of English spoken in Hampshire is similar to the rest of the South East, and is relatively close to the "accentless" standard Received Pronunciation (RP). In the far south and west of the county, many people speak in an accent that has a Westcountry twang to it - the original Hampshire accent before RP's dominance - and some older residents even speak in dialect, though this is becoming increasingly uncommon as that generation dies off.

The area around Aldershot and Farnborough is home to thousands of Nepali speakers, perhaps the greatest number outside the Himalayas.

Get in

More detailed information can be read at South East England#Get in

By road

The main road routes from London are the A3 (which heads to Portsmouth, bypassing the towns Liss, Liphook and Petersfield) and the M3 Motorway (which runs to Southampton, via Farnborough, Basingstoke and Winchester). The M27 'South Coast Motorway' runs from the New Forest to Portsmouth, via Southampton. The A33, A34 and A36 offer connections from the north and A35 and A303 from the west. The A31 is a feeder road of the A3, allowing faster journey times to Winchester from Surrey, Sussex and Kent.

By plane

Hampshire has its very own international aiport, at Southampton. The county is also well serviced London's international and domestic airports.

By train

Eurostar run trains from France and Belgium to London. Onward journey times (by tube and rail) to Hampshire take between one and three hours.

Rail services to and from the rest of the UK are good. Trains from London Waterloo and west along the coast are operated by South West Trains and from London Victoria and east along the coast by Southern Railway, with those from the North and Midlands run by Cross Country.

By boat

Portsmouth, as a major international ferry port, receives ferries from the Channel Islands, Cherbourg, Caen, Le Havre and St. Malo in France and Santander in Spain).

See

• Many sites in Hampshire are associated with the English writer Jane Austen who lived in the county most of her life.

Do

• Paulton's Park - popular family theme park with over 40 rides, as well as a small zoo, gardens and 'park within a park' Pepper Pig World

Eat

Breamore house tea barn [1] is a cafe in the heart of the Hampshire country side. It is situated in the grounds of Breamore House [2], a manor house dating back to the 16th century.

Sleep

• Esseborne Manor, Hurstbourne Tarrant, Andover, Hampshire, SP11 0ER, ☏ +44 1264 736444. Located between Andover and Newbury, once referred to as being 'invitingly snug', this family-run Victorian country house hotel is small, unpretentious, yet stylish. 

Go next

West Sussex and East Sussex. Or visit the Isle of Wight via ferry from Portsmouth.