This early, undated photograph of Andover was reproduced on a postcard of c.1905, and is in David Howard’s collection.
David tells me that the gas lamp on the corner was installed before 1861 as the Andover Pavement Commissioners reported in May that year about the cost of the gas being used for street lighting.
To the left is the building that would later become Lynn’s ironmongery but was then the premises of the previous ironmonger there, Charles Wood, whose life was cut short by a cart accident on Monxton Bridge in 1881.
It is a fascinating view, which can also be seen in Frank Shaw’s photograph albums.
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These were for many years in Andover library and are now in Hampshire Record Office.
However, Frank Shaw was too young to have been the photographer and none of the others in those albums pre-date 1887.
Both Cyril Berry and Derek Tempero reproduced the view in their respective books on Andover, the former dating it to c1864 and the latter to c1870.
The central building is the London and County Bank, and Derek Tempero names the taller of the two top-hatted men in the doorway as Mr Alfred Foster, the bank manager.
Today, that bank is a branch of NatWest, which acquired the London and County Bank in 1909, and thus, by descent, has had a presence in Andover for well over 150 years.
Can we be any more exact as to when the bank first opened in Andover?
Luckily, I was able to find a small notice in the Andover Advertiser of 9 May 1862 announcing that ‘a branch of the London & County Bank was opened in Andover on Friday at the premises of Mr H Dowling, grocer, at the bottom of the High Street’.
The premises were very ‘un-bank-like’, even for the mid 19th century.
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Both of the bank’s principal rivals – Heath’s in London Street and the Hampshire Bank in the High Street – were located in rather grand buildings, in direct contrast to these evidently low-ceilinged shops which had almost certainly once been a private house.
No surprise therefore that less than two years later, the Andover Advertiser of 12 March 1864 carried the following announcement: ‘Persons desirous of tendering for the erection of new premises for the London & County Bank of Andover Hants, can inspect the plans and specifications at the London & County Bank, Andover or at the offices of the architect, Mr Frederick Chancellor, Pinner Hall, Old Broad Street, London, after the 14th March. Tenders to be delivered to the architect before 12 am on 28th March. The lowest tender will not necessarily be accepted.’
The building that subsequently arose there still exists today and we can be confident that it dates from 1864 when the plans had already been drawn up.
Who took the picture? A likely candidate is the only commercial local photographer at that time, Frederick J J Browne, who advertised from 1859 that he had opened photographic rooms for portraiture.
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His office premises (later numbered as 5 High Street) were just a few steps from where the photographer was standing.
As Browne was a local publisher, printer, bookseller and stationer, that may explain why the photograph was widely circulated.
And Browne may well have supplied a copy to 14-year-old near-neighbour Frank Shaw, who was showing an interest in photography.
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