Reading to Basingstoke

This line passes though a very pretty level country, surrounded by numerous parks, and handsome seats and mansions.

Mortimer (Stratfield) station.

Basingstoke is delightfully situated in a well wooded part of Hampshire, and derives considerable advantage from the junction of several roads which meet together at this town. It has a handsome market-house and sessions court. On an eminence at the northern extremity of the town are the ruins of an elegant chapel, which possessed great architectural beauty, but which has been suffered to fall into ruins.

Basingstoke

Basingstoke is a straggling, ill-built town, situated on the left in the valley. It is, nevertheless, a place of great antiquity, and appears in Domesday Book as a “market town.”