Hampshire Hampshire Hampshire (, ; abbreviated Hants) is a county on the southern coast of England. The county town of Hampshire is Winchester, the former capital of England. After the metropolitan counties and Greater London, Hampshire is the most populous ceremonial county (1.84 million in 2017) in the United Kingdom. Its two largest settlements, Southampton and Portsmouth, are administered separately as unitary authorities and the rest of the area forms the administrative county, which is governed by Hampshire County Council. First settled about 14,000 years ago, Hampshire's recorded history dates back to Roman times, when its capital was Winchester. When the
Ancaster Roman Town Ancaster Roman Town Ancaster Roman Town was a small town in the Roman province of Britannia. It is sited on the Roman road known as the Ermine Street and is situated in the county of Lincolnshire. Its name in Latin is unknown, although it has traditionally been identified with "Causennis" or Causennæ, a name which occurs as a town on the route of "Iter V" recorded in the Antonine Itinerary. Rivet and Smith questioned this identification in 1979 and suggested that a more likely identification would be either the Roman settlement at Salters ford, near Grantham in Lincolnshire, or at