History of Millway Road and a murder case from 1858

Only the toll house at the far end of the road on the left has since been removed.

However, when this photograph was taken there would have been few buildings behind the photographer.

The line of those to the left would have continued to the three detached houses that stand today, just beyond ‘Kelly’s’ footpath, but any buildings to the south of that were for the future, and indeed the houses or ‘villas’ that we do see here had in 1910 been recently built, probably by individual builders or a family firm who would undertake one terrace of four or a pair of semis at a time.

In 1910 the road that stretched all the way from Charlton Road to Rooksbury Mill was called Millway Road.

The road pattern is the same today, but divided into three sections, with Mylen Road north of the railway bridge and Rooksbury Road south of the Salisbury Road junction.

The original track is an old one, which gave access to the important mill, but then it was simply the Millway-drove with hardly a building to be seen along its entire length.

What prompted development was the arrival of the railway from London in 1854 on its route to the West Country.

The area became known as Andover New Town and the original developer was Thomas Alexander Banks, owner of the Rose and Chequers hotel in the High Street, who inherited from his uncle a large swathe of land on the east of the Millway-drove.

The first building was the Railway Tavern and then around 1858, he built a rank of four cottages to the south of the pub, identical to the two ranks seen on the right of this picture.

However, that same year he was accused of murdering William Parsons (as related in a previous article), and Banks and his wife spent three months in Winchester prison, having been committed for trial by the magistrates at Andover.

After an initial reading of the case by the presiding judge before the trial, he threw it out, declaring the evidence too flimsy for there to be any chance of a conviction, and no trial ever took place.

Banks was released and he completed the other two rows of cottages seen here but after that he ran out of steam.

His local reputation inevitably lay in tatters despite his release, and he never recovered his enterprising spirit.

Indeed, he spent the rest of his life trying to recover his good name.

Today, a plaque that reads ‘Andover New Town. Founded by T. A. Banks 31st May 1858’ is inset high on the wall of a Victorian terrace in Weyhill Road.

That site was once an area of green beside the pub and a ceremony to christen the area was held there on that date.

The Andover Advertiser, founded in the same year, reported the proceedings.

When the green was developed, the already-existing commemorative plaque was mounted on the new terrace, but the houses are later than the date.

A recent development to the rear of those houses called Banks Close, takes its name from the plaque but it must be the only road in Andover to be named after an accused murderer, albeit an exonerated one.

Millway Road today