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Siege of Basing House

1644 in England17th century in HampshireBasingstokeConflicts in 1644First English Civil War
Massacres during the Wars of the Three KingdomsMilitary history of HampshireSieges of the English Civil WarsUse British English from February 2018
Basing House after the siege
Basing House after the siege

The siege of Basing House near Basingstoke in Hampshire, was a Parliamentarian victory late in the First English Civil War. Whereas the title of the event may suggest a single siege, there were in fact three major engagements. John Paulet, 5th Marquis of Winchester owned the House and as a committed Royalist garrisoned it in support of King Charles I, as it commanded the road from London to the west through Salisbury. The first engagement was in November 1643, when Sir William Waller at the head of an army of about 7,000 attempted to take Basing House by direct assault. After three failed attempts it became obvious to him that his troops lacked the necessary resolve, and with winter fast approaching Waller retreated back to a more friendly location. Early in 1644 the Parliamentarians attempted to arrange a secret surrender of the Basing House with the temporary commander Lord Charles Paulet, but the plot was discovered, Lord Charles was relieved of command and tried for treason, and so the plot failed. Parliamentary forces continued the siege by garrisons on the static approaches to Basing House to stop the Royalists foraging and relief convoys getting through. Then on 4 June 1644, Colonel Richard Norton using Parliamentary troops from the Hampshire garrisons closely invested Basing House and attempted to starve the garrison into submission. This siege was broken on 12 September 1644 when a relief column under the command of Colonel Henry Gage broke through parliamentary lines. Having resupplied the garrison he did not tarry but left the next day and returned to Royalist lines. The Parliamentarians reinvested the place but by the middle of November threatened by a Royalist army and his besieging force decimated by disease Weller ended the investment. Five days later on 20 November Gage arrived with fresh supplies. The final siege took place in October 1645. Oliver Cromwell joined parliamentary forces besieging the House with his own men and a siege train of heavy guns. They quickly breached the defences and on the morning of 14 October 1645 the House was successfully stormed. As the garrison had refused to surrender before the assault—during the two years of the siege, upwards of 2,000 Parliamentarians were slain.—the attackers, who had little sympathy for those they perceived to be Roman Catholics, killed about a quarter of the 400 members of the garrison, including ten priests (six of whom were killed during the assault and four others held to be executed later). During the assault the House caught fire and was badly damaged. What remained was "totally slighted and demolished" by order of Parliament, with the stones of the House offered free to anyone who would cart them away.

Excerpt from the Wikipedia article Siege of Basing House (License: CC BY-SA 3.0, Authors, Images).

Siege of Basing House
Musket Copse, Basingstoke and Deane Old Basing and Lychpit

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N 51.2686 ° E -1.0518 °
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Basing House Ruins

Musket Copse
RG24 7BP Basingstoke and Deane, Old Basing and Lychpit
England, United Kingdom
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Basing House after the siege
Basing House after the siege
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Lychpit

Lychpit is now the name of a modern housing development adjacent to Old Basing near Basingstoke, Hampshire. The modern development started in the early 1980s but the area has an ancient past associated with that of Old Basing. The name derives from a wooded dell that still exists at the western end of Little Basing. Lych or Lich being the Old English name for a corpse, it is assumed that the pit was therefore some kind of mass burial ground, local tradition associating it with the Danish victory over Alfred's Saxons at the Battle of Basing in 871. Another possibility is that it was used to bury casualties of the Battle of Basing House, where Oliver Cromwell's troops laid siege to and eventually sacked this large private house. Several of the local roads bear the names of Cromwell's officers e.g. Norton Ride and Gage Close. Next to the Lychpit is a public house and restaurant making use of an old water mill on the River Loddon, a tributary of the River Thames. The river is well-stocked with trout and visitors to the pub can sometimes see kingfishers that hunt along the river banks, despite the roar of frequent trains overhead on the London line. Daneshill, which comprises rising and still wooded ground overlooking Lychpit has a reasonable example of Lutyens architecture in Daneshill House, formerly home to the Hoare family. Immediately before the first modern houses were built Hampshire County Council which had bought much of the land, commissioned an archaeological survey. The soil was stripped revealing the underlying chalk and with the help of RAF helicopters from nearby RAF Odiham they were able to spot and photograph the staining caused by timber building post holes dating from the Bronze Age. Armed with this invaluable knowledge of where to look the survey revealed several ancient timber building sites, artifacts, and a few skeletons of similar vintage. There are also visible remains of a Park Pale near Pyotts Hill, which surrounded a hunting park in the area during the middle ages. Park Pale is also said to be the line of part of a Roman road connecting the fort at Silchester with Chichester, another important Roman garrison on the South Coast.