Out in the country…

Sue took her sister away for a weekend break to the Basingstoke Country Hotel, there they took advantage of the spa facilities and took walks out in the countryside to local public houses. The hotel was nice enough for them but was quite busy as it was hosting a chess championship.

I picked them both up and we went out to the nearby pretty village of Old Basing where the ruins of the very grand Basing House are. In its time the very grand building rivalled many of the royal palaces.

The end for the building came after it was the location of a major siege during the Civil War and the Royalist defenders were defeated by Cromwell’s forces and the house pulled to the ground. The large barn on the estate though remains and has some dramatic cannon ball damage on the walls.

The site is open to walk around and the large foundations and fortifications give you feeling for the scale of the place and how important a build it must have been

After a bracing walk around the ruins in the cold wintery day we stopped at the nearby Millstone Pub and took advantage of the local Beer and Bangers event by stopping to refuel and warm up.