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    Milestones Museum

    4.3 (4 reviews)
    Closed • 10:00 am - 4:30 pm

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    Basing House Ruins - Basing House - main entrance

    Basing House Ruins

    4.0(1 review)
    2.3 mi

    Once a rival to Hampton Court, in the 16th Century Basing House was one of the grandest houses in…read moreEngland, and hosted all of the Tudor monarchs from Henry VIII to Elizabeth I. Besieged three times in the Civil War, it was stormed by Cromwell and destroyed. The ruins are extensive but fragmentary, and a good imagination is needed to understand the site. Basing started life as a Norman motte-and-bailey castle in the 11th Century, when it was chief of the 55 manors granted to Hugh de Port by William the Conquerer. Unusually the motte was low but over 300ft wide. The estate was passed through inheritance to the Paulet family, and it was Sir William Paulet (1483-1572), 1st Marquess of Winchester, who developed the famous great house. He held a range of high offices during his long career, and amassed a considerable fortune, which he spent on the remodelling and extending the house. He first developed the original castle into a more comfortable residence in the classic Tudor style, using locally made bricks. He built a great gatehouse as the main accommodation, leading to a separate great hall, with other buildings arranged around the inside of the walls. However, this was insufficient to host the monarchs and their large retinues on their Royal progresses, so he built an enormous new palace of some 360 rooms, adjacent to the original castle, to provide additional accommodation. This took the form of a large square stately house, with a central range and two oblong courtyards, again in red brick with classical decoration. The two houses were linked by a short bridge and gateway through the original defences. The Royal visits, however, exhausted the family fortunes. Elizabeth I visited several times; most notably, on one visit she hosted the new French ambassador. She brought a retinue of 1,500 people in her court - and he brought 400. They stayed for two weeks, enjoying banquets, hunts and spectacles. In modern terms, the visit cost millions of pounds. As a result, the 5th Marquess mothballed the new house when he inherited the estate in 1629. His plan was to save enough funds to restore part of the house, but the intervention of the Civil War saw him refortify both houses. A Royalist supporter, the house - on the main road to the south west - was a key strategic location, and it was besieged three times. The final siege began in August 1645; the defenders withstood the Parliamentary forced until October, but the arrival of Cromwell with substantial reinforcements made defeat inevitable: first the new house was overcome, and then the defences of the Old were breached. As well as substantial damage from canon fire, fires were set which destroyed much of both buildings. Cromwell asked parliament to agree that locals be given the right to remove building materials - which led to the dismantling of most of the ruins. The red bricks now form many of the lovely 17th Century cottages in the village. The site today comprises Grange Farm (now the Visitor Centre), where the magnificent Great Barn is the most substantial reminder of Paulet's achievements. A short walk away along a lane, you enter through one of the original gates to the estate, over a bridge over the disused Basingstoke canal, and up towards the motte and bailey. Here you can walk around the scant remains of the old house - primarily basements and cellars, with elements of the main walls. Virtually nothing survives of the new house, but there are interpretation boards at key points, and a viewing platform provides s good perspective over the site. Of interest are the partially restored walled garden, and the 17th Century earthwork defences thrown up during the Civil War: these are rare survivors. There's a small but disappointing museum on the site and an entrance building containing, bizarrely, a model of both houses - in lego. Tickets are bought at the visitor centre at Grange Farm, but car parking is a further five minute walk along the River Loddon near the Barton Mills pub. Walking around the site, and to and from the car park, is around a two miles. Access for those of limited mobility is a challenge. The main site is fairly hilly, mostly grass, and the viewing platform is reached by an outdoor staircase. There are toilets at the Visitor Centre and at the entrance to the main site.

    Photos
    Basing House Ruins - The partially restored formal walled garden.

    The partially restored formal walled garden.

    Basing House Ruins - The Great Barn, completed in 1534.

    The Great Barn, completed in 1534.

    Basing House Ruins - Cannon on the Civil War emplacement

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    Cannon on the Civil War emplacement

    The British Museum - At British Museum

    The British Museum

    4.6(1.3k reviews)
    45.9 mi•Bloomsbury

    Big! Giant! Huge Collection! I think that describes this museum. Be prepared to spend at least half…read moreday here. For fast pace like me, it takes us 3 hours. This museum need reservations ahead of time. It is free to public. The museum is popular, if you try to get in at the day arrive, you have to hope not many reserve the ticket. The museum has a lot room with different regions in the world. Many of the collection even the host country doesn't have it. The Egypt collection includes the many types of mummies. This collection not even the Egypt has it. The entrance basically enter to the round section that connected to the different room. You may need a good leg to walk entire museum. They also have folding chairs that you can use and portable to open at the display.

    It's not every museum that has a line wrapped around the building when it opens on a Monday…read moremorning. But the British Museum is the world's oldest public national museum, has the largest collection of artifacts of any museum in the world, and is the second most visited attraction in all of the United Kingdom. The museum is free to visit, but we reserved a timed entry ticket for when they opened on Monday morning. I suggest you do this, because people who had tickets were walking right through into the museum after a bag check, while people who had not bought tickets ahead of time were having to wait in another line to get in. The museum is so large and has so many artifacts, that it can be a little overwhelming. For that reason, we relied on the list of highlights of the museum to point us to certain artifacts we didn't want to miss: the Rosetta Stone; the colossal bust of Ramesses II (c. 1250 BC); Hoa Hakananai'a (basalt statue from Easter Island); the Ife head (Nigeria, ca. 1300-1400s); the Sutton Hoo ship burial (dating back to 7th century Britain); the Lewish Chessmen (Scottish, ca. 1150-1175); and more. Prepare for crowds and to be a little overwhelmed by people and artifacts and the size of the museum. If you want to see everything, be prepared to spend an entire in the museum. Since it's free, you can do as we did and just spend a couple of hours - that's all we had - and see what you can see (the highlights list helped)! But it's a great museum and easily one of the most important museums in the country.

    Photos
    The British Museum - At British Museum

    At British Museum

    The British Museum - British Museum_Yelp_Sanju-1

    British Museum_Yelp_Sanju-1

    The British Museum - British Museum_Yelp_Sanju-28

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    British Museum_Yelp_Sanju-28

    Milestones Museum - museums - Updated October 2026

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