Basingstoke's real value as a base is its access to the surrounding Hampshire countryside and to better-known towns within easy reach. Winchester, the medieval capital of England with its great cathedral, is 20 minutes by train. Reading is a similar distance the other way for shopping or a riverside walk along the Thames. London is under an hour for a city day out.
The North Downs Way passes a few miles north and offers long walks across chalk downland. Watership Down, the rabbits' home in Richard Adams's novel, is a short drive south-west and can be walked from Kingsclere.
