ANDOVER

The history of one small (okay, smallish) Hampshire town.

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c. 1200 BC: The Iberians (Bronze Age Man) arrive from Europe. These settlers bring with them a new metal, a copper-iron alloy called bronze. It makes better weapons for killing more enemies quicker. Which they do.

c. 600 BC: First Celts arrive. The discovery of how to work iron enabled the Celts to improve weapons one stage further, and they swiftly overran most of Europe from their Swiss homelands. They establish a settlement at Danebury. The Iberians get crushed by the Celts everywhere except… Iberia!

c. 100-50 BC: A Celtic tribe called the Belgae (from modern Belgium) turns up. They occupy south Hampshire, Wiltshire and north Somerset. Their capital is at Oram’s Arbour, just west of modern Winchester.

c. 45 AD: After the Roman invasion in 43, a Roman road is built from Londinium (London) via Calleva Atrebatum (Silchester) and Old Sarum (near Salisbury) to Isca Dumnoniorum (Exeter). Later, a minor road is built from the new Roman city of Venta Belgarum (Winchester) to Cunetio (Mildenhall). A small Roman town grows up at the crossroads called LEUCOMAGVS (now East Anton). Yet although the Belgae Celtic settlement of An dwr (‘the place of spring water or dew’) lies barely a mile from the new town, the Celts opt not to move and take advantage of ‘wonderful’ Roman culture.

100 AD: Danebury falls into disuse, as under Roman rule there is less need for forts like it.

410: Romans leave the area. Leucomagus abandoned, Danebury re-occupied. Celts take over again… but not for long!

c. 530: The Gewissian Kingdom under the Jutish King Cerdic is advancing up the Test Valley in an attempt to encircle Winchester. After the fall of Danebury, the Celts abandon Andewer and fall back on large earthworks north-east (the Devil’s Dyke) and north-west (Ludgershall and Sidbury Hill) of the village. Andewer becomes the Gewissian town of Andeferas, and passes into ownership of the royal family.

686: The Gewissian kingdom, now includes Dorset, Wiltshire and Devonshire, and is renamed Wessex. It continues to grow.

871: Following the West Saxon defeat by the Vikings at Basing, their retreating army is chased past Andeferas. Luckily the Vikings don‘t stop to burn the town. They are later defeated by King Alfred the Great.

927: Wessex completes the Great Reconquest, and becomes a united England.

950: King Edred of England builds a hunting-lodge in Harewood Forest, which was then part of the much-larger Savernake Forest.

962: The English parliament meets at Andeferas for the first and only time. King Edgar pays an untimely visit to nearby Wilton Nunnery, and takes a fancy to a nun there, one Wulfthryth. He steals her away and makes her his wife - on approval, of course. She escapes the following year, thanks mainly to the king fancying someone else - the wife of his foster-brother and top lord who, after her husband goes into a forest with the king for a brief chat, finds herself a widow and a queen in quick succession.

1011: King Æthelred (II) the Unready signs the Treaty of Andeferas with one of the Viking invaders, Thurkell. Thurkell and one of his army leaders Ibba are given land in the area at Thurkell’s Town (Thruxton) and Ibba’s Thorpe (Ibthorpe, near Hurstbourne Tarrant).

1066: The Norman Conquest. Forest laws are tightened up, and punishments for taking anything out of royal forests like Harewood are having body parts cut off. Your hand, if you’re lucky.

1086: The Domesday Book records the town as Andovere; it is owned by the royal family and has six mills. Population about 500.

1141: The Empress Matilda’s army is crushed at the Rout of Winchester, and she retreats north-westwards. Wherwell Abbey is destroyed, and most of Andovere burnt in a (probably deliberate) fire as King Stephen‘s troops chase hers through the town.

1175: A rapid recovery enables Andovere to get its first Royal Charter from King Henry II. It is officially a town, and can now manage some of its own affairs.

1217: The English barons get young Henry III to sign the Magna Carta (charter guaranteeing their rights) - and they sneakily tack an extra bit on. This Forest Charter makes the rules governing Harewood Forest less ferocious.

1295: The Model Parliament includes two members from Andovere. The town remains entitled to two MPs for the next five centuries, but only rarely sends them as it finds it too expensive.

1300: The population has reached 1,200. Wool, iron, parchment (paper) and salt-making are major industries in the town.

1348: The Black Death hits the south of England, wiping out between one-third and one-half of the population.

1435: Oops! Another major fire.

1500: Population passes 2,000.

1610: A Stuart map shows Andover and the villages of Charlton, Clanfield (Clanville), Entham (Enham-Alamein), Hurstborn tarr (Hurstbourne Tarrant), Gallare (Gavelacre, now just one house near Barnsbury), Penton, Platford (Clatford), Abbotsham (Abbots Ann), Munkeston (Monxton), Weyhill, Truxton (Thruxton) and Whorwell (Wherwell). As well as being a charter town, Andover is also in charge of a Hundred, an ancient division of a county responsible for raising 100 men for war. The Andover Hundred stretches from the town as far as Groteley (Grateley), Apllesha (Appleshaw) and Tidworth.

1642: A group of English emigrants start the town of Andover (Massachusetts, current population 30,000). Back home, the English Civil War starts. The town's MP Sir William Waller will play a major part in holding parliament's position in the south and south-west, and preventing King Charles I's western forces from joining up with the Oxford army for a march on London.

1644: 18th October. The war is going badly for King Charles. Royalist troops drive the Parliamentarians out of Andover on this day, but then go on to the inconclusive second battle of Newbury. This was Charles’ last chance for victory.

1647: First English Civil War ends. Andover has yet another fire.

1648: Second English Civil War ends in another defeat for Charles, who loses his head when parliament cuts it off in 1649.

1725: An improvement in road-building makes stage-coaches (and highway robbery) more popular. Andover, on a main road to the west, grows as a result. People can now get to London and back in under one day! The town gets up to 30 coaches a day. The Guildhall is rebuilt.

1789: A canal is built to Southampton. Roads are all very well for horses and carriages, but water travel is still best for goods.

1803: Andover gets its first theatre.

1830: The Captain Swing Riots, a rebellion of countrymen against modern machinery, hits the town. Several locals are hung as a result.

1831: Gas street-lighting arrives.

1832: The Great Reform Act means now one in seven adult men can vote (no women, of course!). Andover keeps both its MPs - for now. But nearby Old Sarum, Ludgershall, Stockbridge and Whitchurch each lose both of their MPs.

1836: Andover Workhouse opened. It will endure ten difficult years before a parliamentary inquiry exposes its owners’ cruelty and inhumanity, and the people in charge are sacked.

1840: Andover Road train station opened. The people of Andover can now catch trains to London that take barely an hour - up to ten times quicker than the coach! - provided they first go ten miles to the station, which is near the village of Micheldever. And of course ten miles home again afterwards. Fortunately the London & South Western Railway provides carriages between station and town.

1854: Direct railway to London opens, with Andover as the temporary terminus.

1856: Railway built west to Salisbury, extending to Yeovil (1860) and Exeter (1870).

1859: Canal closes. It can‘t compete with the railways.

1861: Population now over 5,000.

1865: Test Valley railway to Stockbridge, Mottisfont, Romsey and Southampton built. Because it carries a lot of fresh sea produce, it becomes known as the Sprat and Winkle Line’. This includes a station at Andover Town (now under Morrison's). Today's Andover Station is renamed Andover Junction.

1877: First fire station opened.

1881: Andover to Cheltenham line (the Midland & South Western Junction Railway) opened, via Ludgershall, Collingbourne, Marlborough, Swindon, Cricklade, Cirencester and (appropriately) Andoversford Junction, plus a branch from Ludgershall to Tidworth. Andover gets through trains from Southampton to the Midlands.

1897: Public library opens.

1911: First cinema.

1927: First electricity supply in homes.

1961: Population 17,000. Andover is designated an ‘overspill town’ for London, where the last war has left many either homeless or living in temporary accommodation. M&SWJR line to Cheltenham closes just in time for the expansion (?); the line to Tidworth via Ludgershall remains in use for the army bases there.

1964: ‘Sprat & Winkle’ railway closed, and direct access to Southampton and the south coast lost. Western Avenue is later built over the old track-bed through the town; it can still be walked on from the end of Anton Mill Road.

1969: By-pass opened.

1982: Population 31,000. It has gone up in the last 20 years by almost as much as the town’s first 2000 years!

2002: Population 40,000.

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