THIS postcard of Newbury Street, kindly lent by David Howard, was taken by photographer and shopkeeper Frederick Pearse around 1905.

The two buildings on the right still exist; the farther one is an 18th-century town house, currently the offices of solicitors Parker Bullen, while nearer the camera is a private residence that now incorporates a new building at the back - the union offices of USDAW.

All the iron railings that were present in 1905 (on both sides of the street) were removed for munitions during the Second World War. 

Andover Advertiser: Newbury Street, c1905Newbury Street, c1905 (Image: Frederick Pearse)

The earliest resident at Priory Lodge seems to have been Miss Martha Gale who was the niece of Dr William Stanley Goddard who owned the Georgian house next door.

She lived with him until he died in 1845, when his house was bequeathed as a vicarage for the incumbent of the new church which was not yet completed.

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The earlier vicarage was briefly the ancient Priory itself, located on the other side of the church.

This was demolished by Martha Gale in 1847 so as to provide land for a girls’ industrial school and also to extend the churchyard.

On her uncle’s death, she was the beneficiary of various properties in the immediate area and she effected a series of legal exchanges of land that both provided her with an uninterrupted view of her uncle’s church and also furthered some charitable good works.

Dr Goddard bought much of the land in Newbury Street, as it came up for sale and at his death, Miss Gale moved into Priory Lodge so as to vacate the new vicarage next door.

It seems likely that what we now call Priory Lodge (some distance from the priory itself and never connected with it) was already built to accommodate her.

Miss Gale’s uncle was of course conscious that she would have to move out of the new vicarage when he died and there is some evidence to show that the ground was bought at auction in 1834 when printer Thomas Rawlins’s property was sold in four lots.

As discussed in last week’s column, Lot 1 was a house, premises and offices that stretched from the top of the High Street and around Newbury Street, while Lot 4 was the Andover theatre (also owned by Rawlins) which was adjacent to Lot 1.

READ MORE: History: An 1805 photo and the story of Andover theatre

The measurements quoted suggest that Priory Lodge was built on the site of the theatre.

In its early days Priory Lodge appears not to have been given any name.

Martha Gale’s address is listed as merely ‘Newbury Street’.

After her death in 1863, it may have remained empty for some time until William Henry Parsons - second-generation owner of the department store Parsons and Hart - moved in and called it Newbury Lodge.

He subsequently moved to Cold Harbour House in London Road, and by 1881 Newbury Lodge had become the residence of the Poore family, who changed the name to Priory Lodge.

For some 50 years it remained with the Poores, who comprised variously at different times three unmarried sisters and a widowed brother, until the last died out in 1928.

After that, it was again empty until taken over by the War Department in the late 1930s.

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It was occupied briefly by a succession of owners after the war but by the mid-1950s Cecil Horne, who ran the grocery stores and sub-post office at the end of the High Street, had moved in. Mr Horne was a councillor during the 1960s and held the post of mayor in 1965-66.

Priory Lodge was given Grade II listing building status in 1950 and this was amended in 1983. Today, it looks well-kept and freshly painted, as does Dr Goddard’s old house next door.

If you are interested in local history, why not join Andover History and Archaeology Society? Details can be found at www.andoverlocalhistoryarchaeology.uk