Business events in Winchester and the Test Valley

Market towns and a lot of open country

This is the quietest of Hampshire's areas on a map. The Office for National Statistics ranks Winchester district the fifth least densely populated of the South East's 64 council areas and Test Valley the sixth. Between them they hold farmland, downland, woods and river valleys, with the towns set well apart. Test Valley alone has around one person to every football pitch-sized patch of ground. Winchester's district covers 661 square kilometres, the second largest in Hampshire by the city council's count, and Test Valley runs from the edge of Southampton in the south to the Berkshire border in the north, with Wiltshire along its western side.

It is not standing still, though. Test Valley's population rose 12.1% between 2011 and 2021, to 130,500, the fastest growth of any council area in Hampshire, and Winchester's rose 9.4%.

The towns, one by one

Winchester is the city at the eastern edge, with the M3 and fast trains to London Waterloo. Its own page covers its offices, shops and the visitors the cathedral brings.

Andover, in the north of Test Valley, sits on the A303 and the railway to Salisbury and London. Romsey, in the south, is a market town on the Test a few miles from Southampton, and Stockbridge, between the two, is a small town on the A30 where the road crosses the river.

Andover stands on the River Anton, which joins the Test below the town. The Test itself is a chalk stream that rises near Basingstoke and runs south through Stockbridge and Romsey to Southampton Water, and the A3057 follows its valley from Andover to Romsey, so the three towns share a road as well as a river.

East of Winchester the ground rises into the South Downs. The national park authority describes a park of over 1,600 square kilometres running from Winchester to Eastbourne, so this area holds its western tip, and some of the villages round the city sit inside the park.

Coming to an event here

Distances are longer here than in the south of the county, and some of the rooms used for events are outside the town centres. Winchester and Andover are on the main lines and Romsey has its own station; Stockbridge has none. Each venue's page gives the way in, the nearest station and the parking. To the south, Eastleigh and the city of Southampton are part of Southampton and the Solent.