This photograph by Charles Wardell, taken about 1967, captures what many remember as the lost essence of Andover’s upper High Street. From the left (only half in shot) was a butcher, a dairy, a tobacconist, a grocer, a wool shop, a decorators’ merchant, a shoe shop, an outfitter and another grocer.

All these are in a small line of shops - just part of the town’s high street to serve local shoppers. These were the final years before the development of Andover that was to supposedly transform the shopping experience. Because they look so small, it is easy to assume that these were all local, family-run businesses but some of these were national chains with branches all over Britain.

The Maypole Dairy started in Birmingham in 1891 and had grown to 1000 shops by 1926.

It is credited with first introducing margarine as an alternative to butter. The name ‘butterine’ was first chosen but legally stopped by butter producers. Likewise, Home and Colonial grew from a single shop in Edgware Road, London, in 1883, absorbing brands such as Lipton’s and having 3000 branches by 1930.

Both firms were subject to takeovers by larger companies and by this period both Maypole and Home and Colonial were components of the same group. It was all part of a process that accelerated throughout the 1960s and today the rights to both names are owned by Morrisons’ supermarkets.

No doubt these small shops in Andover would have soon closed anyway as the individual brands disappeared.

Baldock’s was a local tobacconist that had already passed out of family ownership before closing in 1974 and demolished, while the Scotch Wool shop had not long replaced Fleming, Reid and Co, hosiers, who had opened at No 75 High Street just before the war. That building and the large one next to it survived town development and are still in situ today.

But perhaps looking back wistfully at the old market town and all the shops it used to support is a rose-tinted indulgence.

Shops would always come and go but competition from bigger brands who could buy and sell things more cheaply and supply larger quantities was a force that had become nationally unstoppable by the 1960s.

Bigger and brighter shops were what was required by such firms, not small outlets such as these, especially when it came to the main staples such as food.

Large supermarkets were about to arrive and indeed, many of those 1960s local families who ran high street businesses in Andover were at the end of their natural careers; ageing remnants of Victorian entrepreneurs who not only themselves were long gone but also their business model.

Moreover, increasing ownership of a motor car allowed people of Andover to go off to the bigger towns of Winchester, Salisbury and Southampton, meaning local shops sustained by local money were already a thing of the past.

By the 1960s, it is undeniable that many of Andover’s small shops were becoming run down.

Town development was coming and multiple demolitions were known to be on the way.

In the end, the original plans for expansion of the High Street were curtailed; however, from 1960 onwards many would have seen no point in improving their premises because the council was about to compulsorily purchase their properties.

For many, it was a sad end, but in many cases, the larger battle was already lost.