Portal:Hampshire

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The Hampshire Portal

View over Portsmouth from Portsdown Hill
View over Portsmouth from Portsdown Hill

Hampshire (/ˈhæmpʃər/, /-ʃɪər/ ; abbreviated to Hants.) is a ceremonial county in South East England. It is bordered by Berkshire to the north, Surrey and West Sussex to the east, the Isle of Wight across the Solent to the south, Dorset to the west, and Wiltshire to the north-west. The cities of Portsmouth and Southampton are the largest settlements and the county town is the city of Winchester.

The county has an area of 3,769 km2 (1,455 sq mi) and a population of 1,844,245, making it the 5th-most populous in England. The South Hampshire built-up area in the south-east of the county has a population of 855,569 and contains the cities of Southampton (269,781) and Portsmouth (208,100). In the north-east, the Farnborough/Aldershot conurbation extends into Berkshire and Surrey and has a population of 252,937. The next-largest settlements are Basingstoke (113,776), Andover (50,887), and Winchester (45,184). The centre and south-west of the county are rural. For local government purposes Hampshire comprises a non-metropolitan county, with eleven districts, and two unitary authority areas: Portsmouth and Southampton. The county historically contained the towns of Bournemouth and Christchurch, which are now part of Dorset, and the Isle of Wight.

Undulating hills characterise much of the county. A belt of chalk crosses the county from north-west, where it forms the Hampshire Downs, to south-east, where it is part of the South Downs. The county's major rivers rise in these hills; the Loddon and Wey drain north, into the Thames, and the Itchen and Test flow south into Southampton Water, a large estuary. In the south-east are Portsmouth Harbour, Langstone Harbour, and the western edge of Chichester Harbour, three large rias. The south-west contains the New Forest, which includes pasture, heath, and forest and is of the largest expanses of ancient woodland remaining in England.

Settled about 14,000 years ago, Hampshire's recorded history dates to Roman Britain, when its chief town was Venta Belgarum (now Winchester). The county was recorded in Domesday Book as divided into 44 hundreds. From the 12th century, the ports settlements grew due to increasing trade with the European mainland resulting from the wool and cloth, fishing, and shipbuilding industries. This meant by the 16th century, Southampton had become more populous than Winchester. In 20th century conflicts, including World War One and Two, Hampshire played a crucial military role due to its ports. (Full article...)

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Clockwise from top: Town centre viewed from Churchill Way at night, The Anvil theatre, Basingstoke railway station, St Michael's Church, high-rise flats in Crown Heights, and the AA Building (Fanum House)

Basingstoke (/ˈbzɪŋstk/ BAY-zing-stohk) is a town in Hampshire, situated in south-central England across a valley at the source of the River Loddon on the western edge of the North Downs. It is the largest settlement in Hampshire without city status. It is located 30 miles (48 km) north-east of Southampton, 48 miles (77 km) south-west of London, 27 miles (43 km) west of Guildford, 22 miles (35 km) south of Reading and 20 miles (32 km) north-east of the county town and former capital Winchester. According to the 2016 population estimate, the town had a population of 113,776. It is part of the borough of Basingstoke and Deane and part of the parliamentary constituency of Basingstoke.

Basingstoke is an old market town expanded in the mid-1960s, as a result of an agreement between London County Council and Hampshire County Council. It was developed rapidly after the Second World War, along with various other towns in the United Kingdom, in order to accommodate part of the London 'overspill' as perceived under the Greater London Plan in 1944. Basingstoke market was mentioned in the Domesday Book of 1086 and it remained a small market town until the early 1960s. At the start of the Second World War, the population was little more than 13,000. It still has a regular market, but is now larger than Hampshire County Council's definition of a market town.

Basingstoke became an important economic centre during the second half of the 20th century and houses the locations of the UK headquarters of Motorola, The Automobile Association, De La Rue, Sun Life Financial, ST Ericsson, GAME, Barracuda Networks, Eli Lilly and Company, FCB Halesway part of FCB, BNP Paribas Leasing Solutions (the leasing arm of BNP Paribas in the UK) and Sony Professional Solutions. It is also the location of the European headquarters of the TaylorMade Golf Company. Other industries include IT, telecommunications, insurance and electronics. (Full article...)

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Frank Jenner while he was a sailor on HMAS Canberra

Frank Arthur "Bones" Jenner (surname often misspelled Genor; 2 November 1903 – 8 May 1977) was an Australian evangelist. His signature approach to evangelism was to ask people on George Street, Sydney, "If you died within 24 hours, where would you be in eternity? Heaven or hell?" Born and raised in England, he contracted African trypanosomiasis at the age of twelve and suffered from narcolepsy for the rest of his life. After some time, he joined the Royal Navy, but deserted in New York and joined the United States Navy. When he was 24, he deserted again while in Australia. He subsequently worked for the Royal Australian Navy until he bought his way out in 1937.

That year, Jenner encountered a group of men from the Glanton Exclusive Brethren who were engaging in open-air preaching, and he converted to Christianity. For 28 years, from his initial conversion until his debility from Parkinson's disease, Jenner engaged in personal evangelism, probably speaking with more than 100,000 people in total. One person who became a Christian after encountering Jenner's question was Noel Stanton, who went on to found the Jesus Army in 1969.

In 1952, the Reverend Francis Dixon of Lansdowne Baptist Church in Bournemouth, England, began hearing several testimonies from people who became Christians after Jenner accosted them on George Street, Sydney. The following year, Dixon met with Jenner in Australia and told him about the people he had met who had become Christians as a result of Jenner's evangelism, and Jenner, then fifty years old, cried because he had not previously known that even one of the people he had talked to had remained a Christian beyond their initial profession of faith.

Jenner died from colorectal cancer in 1977. While he was alive, very few people knew of him, but after he died, stories of his evangelistic activities circulated widely, and elements of some of these stories contradicted others. In 2000, Raymond Wilson published Jenner of George Street: Sydney's Soul-Winning Sailor in an attempt to tell the story of Jenner's life accurately. Nonetheless, conflicting accounts of Jenner's life have continued to propagate, including an account from Ché Ahn in which Jenner is referred to as "Mr. Genor". (Full article...)

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More articles: Business in Hampshire | Geology of Hampshire | History of Hampshire | Portsmouth | Recreational walks in Hampshire | Southampton | Winchester

Lists: List of churches in Hampshire | List of further education colleges in Hampshire | List of Parliamentary constituencies in Hampshire | List of places in Hampshire

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