Andover Guildhall is a municipal building in the High Street,

Andover, Hampshire Andover ( ) is a town in the Test Valley district of Hampshire, England. The town is on the River Anton, a major tributary of the River Test, Test, and lies alongside the major A303 road, A303 trunk road at the eastern end of Salisbury Plain, ...

, England. The guildhall, which was the headquarters of Andover Borough Council, is a Grade II*

listed building In the United Kingdom, a listed building is a structure of particular architectural or historic interest deserving of special protection. Such buildings are placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Hi ...

History

The first guildhall in Andover was built in around 1513 and remodelled in 1574. A new guildhall was erected in 1724, brick-built with a tiled roof, topped by a wooden cupola containing a clock and the market bell. By the early 19th century it had become dilapidated and civic leaders decided to erect a more substantial structure on the same site. The new building was designed in the

neoclassical style Neoclassicism, also spelled Neo-classicism, emerged as a Western cultural movement in the decorative and visual arts, literature, theatre, music, and architecture that drew inspiration from the art and culture of classical antiquity. Neoclassici ...

by John Harris Langdon, built in

ashlar Ashlar () is a cut and dressed rock (geology), stone, worked using a chisel to achieve a specific form, typically rectangular in shape. The term can also refer to a structure built from such stones. Ashlar is the finest stone masonry unit, a ...

stone and was completed in 1825. The design involved a symmetrical main frontage with five bays facing south down the High Street; the central section of three bays, which slightly projected forward and was rusticated, featured three round headed openings on the ground floor and three

sash window A sash window or hung sash window is made of one or more movable panels, or "sashes". The individual sashes are traditionally paned windows, but can now contain an individual sheet (or sheets, in the case of double glazing) of glass. History ...

s on the first floor flanked by

Doric order The Doric order is one of the three orders of ancient Greek and later Roman architecture; the other two canonical orders were the Ionic and the Corinthian. The Doric is most easily recognized by the simple circular capitals at the top of t ...

columns supporting an

entablature An entablature (; nativization of Italian , from "in" and "table") is the superstructure of moldings and bands which lies horizontally above columns, resting on their capitals. Entablatures are major elements of classical architecture, and ...

, a

frieze In classical architecture, the frieze is the wide central section of an entablature and may be plain in the Ionic order, Ionic or Corinthian order, Corinthian orders, or decorated with bas-reliefs. Patera (architecture), Paterae are also ...

and a large

pediment Pediments are a form of gable in classical architecture, usually of a triangular shape. Pediments are placed above the horizontal structure of the cornice (an elaborated lintel), or entablature if supported by columns.Summerson, 130 In an ...

. The frieze featured circular decorations above the columns and also recorded the date of completion. At roof level, there was originally a central clock tower (containing a clock by George Yonge of the Strand); but this was removed due to structural problems in 1904 (the clock was reinstalled in the centre of the pediment). In November 1830, during the Swing Riots, a group of 300 protesting agricultural labourers set off from the Angel Inn in Andover for Taskers Foundry at

Upper Clatford Upper Clatford is a village and civil parish in Hampshire, England. The village is in the valley of the River Anton, upstream from the point where it joins the River Test at the south. Clatford is to the south from Andover, Hampshire, Andover ...

where they destroyed much of the machinery: the foundry must have recovered because the floor in the guildhall was strengthened with iron columns from the foundry in 1834. The town hall was again at the centre of a riot in 1914, when magistrates imprisoned a teenager, Phyllis Beckenham, and her mother for non-payment of fines after, against the wishes of the court, she had accosted a shopkeeper, the supposed father of her child: a group of some 2,000 protestors, who supported the teenager, ransacked many of the shops in the High Street. During the

First World War World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...

, recruitment rallies took place outside the town hall to attract potential soldiers for

Kitchener's Army The New Army, often referred to as Kitchener's Army or, disparagingly, as Kitchener's Mob, was an (initially) all-volunteer portion of the British Army formed in the United Kingdom from 1914 onwards following the outbreak of hostilities in the F ...

. A war memorial, designed by Captain Herbert Cowley to commemorate the lives of local service personnel who had died in the First World War, was unveiled in front of the guildhall by the

Lord Lieutenant of Hampshire This is a list of people who have served as Lord Lieutenant of Hampshire. Since 1688, all the Lords Lieutenant have also been Custos Rotulorum of Hampshire. From 1889 until 1959, the administrative county was named the County of Southampton. * ...

, Major General J. E. B. Seely, on 5 May 1920. In preparation for an expansion scheme, which did not ultimately proceed, the war memorial was relocated to St Mary's Churchyard in 1956. The guildhall continued to serve as the headquarters of Andover Borough Council for much of the 20th century. In 1947 Andover Borough Council bought a large house called Beech Park on Weyhill Road to serve as its main offices, but continued to hold its meetings at the guildhall. In 1974 Andover Borough Council merged with other nearby authorities to become Test Valley District Council (renamed Test Valley Borough Council in 1976). Test Valley Borough Council has its main offices in a modern building at Beech Park, built in 1990 on the site of the old house. However, full council meetings are not held at Beech Park, but alternately at Andover Guildhall and in

Romsey Romsey ( ) is a town in the Test Valley district of Hampshire, England. The town is situated northwest of Southampton, southwest of Winchester and southeast of Salisbury. It sits on the outskirts of the New Forest, just over northeast of ...

, the other main town in Test Valley. Andover Guildhall is also used for some meetings of Andover Town Council. A petition was launched in around 2014 to move the war memorial back in front of the guildhall where it would be more visible but, after several debates over the issue, the council announced that it had no plans to resturn the memorial to its original position. The ground floor of the town hall was converted for use as a restaurant in 2010 but the main assembly hall on the first floor, known as the Upper Guildhall, remains available for community use.

References

{{reflist Government buildings completed in 1825 City and town halls in Hampshire Andover, Hampshire Grade II* listed buildings in Hampshire