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Trading routes to the south west established in the Iron Age and still used in Mediaeval times passed through the area and a route known to the Romans as Iter XV ran along the edge of Kempshott from Silchester to Winchester. This Roman road still exists as the footpath and bridleway which marks the western boundary of modern Kempshott.

In the Domesday Book Kempshott is called Campesette which probably derived from the Old English ‘Cempa’, a warrior and the West Saxon ‘Sciete’ a corner, a strip of land. So the name could mean ‘Warrior’s Corner’

Until the late nineteenth century Kempshott was the name given to the area near the top of Kempshott Hill. Basingstoke Golf Club now occupies the site of Kempshott Park, a late mediaeval house rebuilt in the late 18^th century in the fashionable Georgian style and rented by The Prince Regent as a hunting lodge.

In the eighteenth and nineteenth century the Kempshott area was part of the agricultural economy of northern Hampshire and originally called Basingstoke Down. This was a large area of common land at the convergence of several ancient tracks and drove roads. Sheep and cheese fairs were held on the Down twice yearly from the fifteenth century: and from the seventeenth century until the Down was enclosed in 1787 it was the site of the Basingstoke Race Course. Modern Kempshott grew from the early twentieth century in the triangle between the Roman road Winchester Road and Pack Lane until it finally joined Basingstoke as the town expanded westwards.