History: 300 years of Foresters Arms, Andover's iconic pub

On the left is the Temperance Hall built in 1868 and a little further up hangs the sign of tailor Samuel Baverstock at Douglas House.

The imposing building to the right (Elliott House), with its little shop at the far end, extended to the corner of Winchester Street and was demolished a century ago, possibly because it became a traffic hazard on a blind and increasingly busy corner.

Next to it can be seen the Forester’s Arms, named after the large Forester’s Hall built next to it in 1878, a popular friendly society of its day that helped to protect its paid-up members who fell on hard times. Before the hall was built, the inn was called the Rising Sun, a name given to it during the 1830s. Prior to that it was known as the Lower Angel, one of the smaller coaching inns on the main route from Exeter to London.

At the back was stabling for 25 horses, together with a servant’s room and loft, with water being supplied by a spring well and a pump in the yard.

The new edition of Pevsner describes the inn as being brick-built, 18th century or earlier and ‘nicely irregular’.

The earliest local directory of 1784 names its then inn-holder as Thomas Robinson but its exact age is uncertain; the absence of any timber-framing in its construction suggests a date later than 1700 but it is no doubt the oldest building in present-day London Street, which itself has known two former names – Kings Head Street in the early 19th century and the earlier Wood Street, presumably because it led either to Harewood forest or a closer wooded area.

In coaching days, the inn was a regular stopping point, not so much for the more established coaches that stopped at the larger inns and may also have carried mail, but the essential waggons and ‘caravans’ – carriers who took freight and also a passenger or two to a specified destination.

The inns were a convenient place to change horses and take refreshment.

In 1784, the Oxford caravan from Salisbury on a circuitous route called at the Lower Angel every Tuesday morning at 11 am and returned on Friday at the same time.

A few years later, Pittard’s waggon stopped there on its way to London every Friday and returned the following day.

In 1828, Marshall’s light caravan for Newbury and Reading stopped there every Friday morning.

In the first half of the 19th century, the Lower Angel was an outlet for Heath’s brewery which was only next door. It must have been the Heaths who changed the name to the Rising Sun, probably to avoid confusion with the (Upper) Angel at the top of the High Street.

When Heath’s brewery was sold up in 1847, the inn was sold for £590, perhaps to John Medhurst who was a subsequent London Street brewer. But by 1870 the inn was owned by Clark’s brewery in Union Street.

By the 1920s, all the local breweries had gone and the Forester’s Arms has seen several different owners since then.

Foresters Arms now

One noticeable difference between the 1908 photograph and the view today is the row of three dormer windows which fit in so well as to seem an original feature. Evidently, they are a well-judged 20th century addition.