76 Andover – Basingstoke

Journey Overview

The 76 is a fantastic journey that serves the charming town of Andover with its fabulous walking trails, attractive high street, packed with independent boutique shops to big names and nearby narrow walk ways, dating back to Saxon times. The bus trundles through the village of Overton with evidence of habitation as far back as the Stone and Bronze Ages with finds and barrows located nearby. The village is also renowned for banknote manufacture!

The bus then cuts deep through the heart of the amazing Tester Valley and straddles the River Test and picturesque rolling countryside, through Hampshire’s smallest village, the delightful Whitchurch on the southern edge of the North Wessex Downs Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty  – rolling chalk hills, pasture and thick woodland – as well as the site of Watership Down, celebrated in Richard Adam’s iconic book. The bus continues to bustling Basingstoke, a retail haven but not without fascinating exploration, at Millstone’s, which is Hampshire’s Living Museum.

A Fab Day Out!

Maybe you’ve started your day at Andover’s Town Mills, next to the River Anton, which heralds the start of the town trail’s The Andover Time Ring showcases symbolic historical events from Andover’s past along the High Street, marked by 10 mosaic panels. There’s also two poetry tails, where there are poems set in stone, metal plaques and etched glass. Andover is Georgian architecture perfectly blended with modern day and a maze of intriguing, winding Lanes with florists, food, personal grooming and accessories.

Onto the bus and a stop-off at Witchurch is highly recommended and a visit to the Whitchurch Silk Mill. This is a Georgian water mills that still weaves silk fabric using Victorian machinery, including for the famous Burberry brand! For the really adventurous there’s the 24-mile Watership Down trail that can be experienced either in full or bite-sized chunks Watership-Down-Trail-walk-instructions-2.pdf (whitchurch.org.uk) or a 2 mile walk to the Bombay Sapphire gin distillery to uncover the secrets of this global, household name gin.

Enjoy a snack at the trendy Kudos Coffee Shop in Whitchurch before getting back on-board the bus and before long, Basingstoke beckons and the Millstone, Hampshire’s museum of living history. Here folk can be immersed in the past, exploring the museum’s streets, shops and buildings of yesteryear, buying a ration of  sweets from the 1940s sweet shop, enjoying the penny arcade and viewing the unique collection of vintage vehicles.