No 2 Chantry Street , one of Andover's oldest homes

Both these houses belonged to Magdalen College, Oxford and were sold as a parcel in 1901 to George H Westbury for £750, together with a terrace of three houses in Marlborough Street, just around the corner from No 2.

We know neither when Magdalen College first bought this collection of buildings, nor what it then comprised - possibly a vacant site, some ‘void land’, become so by the fire of 1435, like the land on which The Angel Inn was built in 1445, by Winchester College.

The earlier house of the two is probably the one still extant (16th century) but whether the other houses were built later, on empty sites, or if they replaced older ones on those same sites is difficult to prove. Photographs of the Marlborough Street houses show what appear to be standard 19th-century brick, whereas the building photographed here looks 18th century but most old buildings have been adapted, improved and brought up-to-date over the centuries and so its appearance may belie its true vintage.

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In 1901, No 4 was occupied by Martha Brock and her younger sister Agnes and they kept three boarders. Both sisters were born at Monxton and were part of the family who were saddlers and harness makers in Andover.

Fifty years before, the house was occupied by Miss Lucy Walter, who leased it directly from Magdalen College. She also owned outright some non-residential property adjacent to her residence at No 4, which included stables, a coach house and outbuildings. This lay behind two tenement cottages (6 and 8 Chantry Street), of which she also owned the freehold. These must have been basic in the extreme; at her death, these were occupied by Robert Smith and William Packer who paid 9d per annum rent.

Miss Walter’s lease for No 4 comprised the house and its back garden and was renewed for a further 40 years in 1847 from Magdalen College. When she died in 1853, aged 88, auctioneer Frederick Ellen held two sales of her property. The first was of the contents of the house, containing the usual fare, but also 500 volumes of books, some good ‘Turkey and Brussels carpets’, a few dozen bottles of wine, brewing utensils, a four-wheeled Phaeton carriage and sets of pony harness. It was evidently an important local auction for which a catalogue was produced for sale on the premises.

A few months later, in 1854, her freehold and leasehold property came up for sale which included two other houses, elsewhere in the town. Giles Westbury may have bought the lease of the main house (No 4) at that time but evidently, the adjoining freehold property was not sold in 1854 as he was to buy it later from Miss Walter’s executors in 1866.

Who was Miss Lucy Walter? Her death was widely reported in many of the local provincial newspapers (the Advertiser was yet to start publication) as ‘the only surviving daughter of the late Captain James Faber and Elizabeth, his wife, and granddaughter of the late John Walter Esq, MP of Godalming, Surrey.

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Lucy Walter was born in Andover in 1765 but her father had been born in Godalming and her mother in Salisbury. Her parents were married in Woking and their elder children were born elsewhere, but the family were in Andover by 1765 onwards because of the births and deaths of children there. This fits in quite well as Captain James Walter spent his adult life in military service and retired in 1762. When he died in 1778, he was described as ‘of Andover’ and his widow was buried in St Mary’s churchyard in 1799. It is not a wild flight of fancy to assume, that, having never married, Lucy Walter would have remained in the same house as her parents had occupied, meaning we can trace the occupants of No 4 Chantry Street back to 1765.

But if her grandfather was John Walter, MP for Godalming, here we have an interesting character for further genealogical research. Briefly, he was born sometime in the 1660s and spent his youth at Apes Hill, a sugar plantation near Holetown in Barbados, marrying Lucy Alleyne there in 1697. He was part of the defence force on the island, qualifying as a field officer but only through being a planter who held over 100 acres.

Of his 11 surviving children, all the boys went to Westminster School in England and in 1710, John Walter bought Busbridge Park in Godalming, though still retaining all his interests in Barbados, to where he must have returned at frequent intervals. He was the MP for Godalming in the 1720s and at some point, he purchased 12,000 acres of land in South Carolina. When he died in 1737, he left substantial legacies to his children, including lands, slaves and money. Captain James Walter, even as a younger son, received 2,000 acres in South Carolina and £2,000 to stock the land with slaves and cattle but whether he ever set foot in South Carolina is doubtful.

Coming up to date, the house was demolished in about 1971, after it ceased to be a furniture upholsterer’s. For many years the site was a yard for the Page monumental masons’ business before being developed for new housing, shortly before ‘Pip’ Page sold up about 20 years ago.