Andover History

Saxon and Medieval Andover

Andover was founded by the Saxons and in the Saxon era it was quite an important place. In 1950 a king founded a royal hunting lodge there and in 962 the king ordered the Witanegemot (a kind of parliament) to meet at Andover.

Furthermore a Viking called Olaf Trygvason became a Christian at Andover. Later was crowned king of Norway and he helped to convert the Norwegian people to Christianity.

In 1086 William the Conqueror ordered his men to write the Domesday Book, which had information about all the villages of Hampshire. At that time Andover had a population of around 500. It might seem small to us but in those days towns and villages were very small. By Norman standards Andover was quite large and important. Furthermore in the following centuries it grew bigger and by the 1300's it may have had a population of around 1,200.

Though it would only seem a village to us Andover was a flourishing market town in the Middle Ages. For one thing it was on the main road from eastern and western England. It was also a busy place with flourishing industries. Andover was known for its leather industry and for parchment making. There was also a lime burning industry. However the biggest industry in Medieval Andover was wool. After it was woven wool was fulled. It was pounded in water and clay to clean the fibres and thicken them. The pounding was done by wooden hammers, which were powered by watermills.

In 1175 the people of Andover were granted a charter. That was a document, which granted them certain rights and privileges. The leading citizens of Andover were allowed to form a government for the town. In 1256 the people of Andover were allowed to have their own court and try people for crimes committed in the town. Andover must have been quite an important place because it sent 2 MPs to parliament in 1295 and again in 1302-1307.

There were weekly markets in Andover and there was also an annual fair. In the Middle Ages fairs were held only once a year for 4 days but they attracted buyers and sellers to Andover from far away.

The church was very important in the Middle Ages and it ran the only hospitals. In Andover there was a hospital dedicated to St John the Baptist, which provided for the sick and also poor travellers. There was also a hostel for lepers in Andover, which was dedicated to St Mary Magdalene. (Leprosy was a dreaded disease in the Middle Ages but many towns had leper hospitals for the unfortunate sufferers).

However all did not go smoothly in the Medieval Andover. In 1141 the town was devastated by fire when civil war raged in England. The fire began during a battle between the two sides at Andover and it quickly spread. In those days houses were made of wood and they had roofs of thatch. They were also crowded together with narrow streets. The fire destroyed Andover but the town was soon rebuilt and flourished again.

However in the 14th century like the rest of England Andover was struck by the Black Death, which killed a large part of the population.

Tudor and Stuart Andover

In the 16th century Andover continued to thrive and by the end of the century there may have been about 2,000 people living in the town. Andover was still known for its leather industry and men worked making such things as gloves, shoes and saddles. Wool was still an important industry and men worked at weaving and fulling cloth.

Furthermore in 1599 Andover's charter was renewed and the town was granted the right to hold 3 annual fairs instead of just one.

However all was not well in Andover. Like all towns at that time it would have been dirty and very unsanitary with many rats. As a result plague struck Andover in 1603-1605, 1625-1626 and again in 1636. Fortunately by the late 17th century plague had disappeared from English towns.

In 1647 another fire occurred and 80 houses in Andover were burned. Yet during the 17th century wooden houses were being replaced by brick and stone and thatched roofs were being replaced by tiles so fire became less of a hazard.

Georgian Andover

If we were to visit Georgian Andover we would see a flourishing little market town several thousand inhabitants. It had a new guildhall from 1725 and from 1785 a recreational walk known as Ladies Walk.

In Andover in the 18th century there would be a huge number of craftsmen, carpenters, coopers, blacksmiths and tailors to name a few but no factories. Furthermore there were many stagecoaches passing through the town each day. (As many as 30). The stagecoaches stopped in Andover and no doubt the passengers spent a great deal of money in the town.

On the other hand by the late 18th century the wool industry in Andover was in decline.

In 1789 some ambitious men built a canal to Southampton. However the Andover canal was a commercial failure and it closed in 1859.

Victorian Andover

In the 19th century Andover grew steadily and by 1861 the population had reached over 5,000. Amenities in the little town improved significantly. A theatre opened in Andover in 1803 and 1815 an body of men was formed to improve the streets. They had legal powers to pave the streets of Andover, to light them and to organise street cleaning. From 1838 Andover was lit by gas, which must have made it much easier and safer to go out at night.

In 1877 Andover gained a fire station and a cottage hospital. In 1885 it gained a swimming pool and in 1887 a recreation ground was opened by Common Acre. In 1897 a public library opened in Andover.

Public health in Andover greatly improved during the 19th century. In 1875 a water company was formed and the people at last gained a piped water supply. Furthermore in 1899-1902 a network of drains and sewers was dug under Andover, which no doubt did much to reduce illness in the town.

On the other hand the industrial revolution largely passed Andover by. In other parts of Britain towns were transformed by the new industries but not Andover. The traditional textiles industry came to an end. On the other hand an iron foundry was opened in 1813 and brewing was important in Andover in the 19th century but it remained a country town.

20th Century Andover

In the early 20th century Andover was still a quiet town. Facilities continued to improve. The first cinema in Andover opened in 1911 and the town gained an electricity supply in 1927. The War Memorial Hospital opened in 1927. In 1936 Andover gained an open-air swimming pool.

However Andover was changed forever in 1960 when the government decided it would be an overspill town for London. At that time the government was moving the population of London to towns some distance away, transforming them. In 1960 Andover was quite small (it only had a population of about 17,000 but the government planned to increase the population to about 47,000 by 1982. About 20,000 of the extra people, nearly half the total population of the town would come from London.

So the transformation of Andover began. By 1964 the first council houses were ready in Floral Way and by 1968 about 4,000 people had moved to Andover from London. The council continued to build new houses and new schools for them and by 1981 the population of Andover had reached 51,000.

Andover town centre was redeveloped in the late 1960s and a new shopping centre called Chantry Way Shopping Precinct was built. It was enlarged in 1989. meanwhile in 1965 a new spine road was built and Andover by pass opened in 1969. On the other hand in 1964 the railway to Southampton was closed.

In the 1960s the council tried to attract new industries to the rapidly growing town. They built the Walworth estate at that time. They also built Portway Industrial Estate. By the late 1960s industries in Andover were booming. They included tea and engineering.

At the end of the 20th centuries service industries began to replace the old manufacturing industries. Among these was tourism and an Iron Age Museum opened in Andover in 1986.