CLEARLY in this picture are the remains of snow, though maybe not a recent fall. A feature of the hard winter of 1962-63 was that dense, compacted snow lay around until March/April before finally, spring sunshine melted it away. This photograph may well have been taken during that time.

The site is now occupied by the Chantry Lodge development after being boarded up for many years. Behind the boarding was empty land where these garage premises had been removed, all except Ford Cottage. Its snow-covered roof can be seen here above the Ponting’s of Andover Ltd sign. Deemed of historic architectural importance and unable to be demolished, the 17th century building lay covered in protective sheeting for 30 years or more while debate ensued as to what was to become of it.

There was talk of a new hotel that incorporated the building or a ‘sympathetic’ extension to the Chantry Centre but each new plan came to nothing. Meanwhile, the building suffered the periodic onslaughts of fire, wind and water, as it quietly deteriorated. Finally, it was agreed to remove the cottage beam by beam and brick by brick to its present position at the northern end of the High Street, and it is now sited facing down Chantry Street, rather than being part of the street itself.  

The garage had briefly been Macklin’s during the early 1950s, and had moved from an earlier position in Bridge Street when the Wilts and Dorset bus company bought the site of the garage for use as a bus station in 1948. The two Macklin brothers retired about 1953 and their managing director, Philip Ponting, took over the business and re-named it Ponting’s of Andover Ltd.

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Andover Advertiser: The corner of West Street and Chantry Street, 1963The Ponting family was well-known in the town, and Philip’s father, Wilfred Lawson Ponting, was a baker and confectioner at 20 Winchester Street. The family comprised four girls and four boys, and while the girls were given conventional names, all of the boys were named after prominent Liberal politicians – Philip Harcourt, after Sir William Harcourt, a Liberal chancellor of Gladstone’s day; Richard Cobden after the corn law abolitionist of the 1840s; Lloyd George, after the Welsh firebrand David Lloyd George, who was a Liberal prime minister during the latter half of the First World War; and finally Winston John, after Winston Churchill, who defected from the Conservative party to the Liberals a few years before the younger Ponting’s birth, but who went back again in the 1920s. Two of the boys, Philip Harcourt and Winston John were future mayors of Andover, though both dropped the Liberal part of their names in adulthood.

Ponting’s of Andover Ltd were Ford specialists and outside the garage here we can see it was the period of the Ford Anglia in several versions. Presumably these were all new and second-hand cars for sale, rather than in for MOT/repair. Most of these were recent models in 1963, the Anglia 105E series having been launched in 1959 and the modified 123E Super with a longer engine grille to the front, as well as other improvements, released in 1962. We can also see an early Ford Cortina, again released in 1962, while two older models of vehicle are parked near the showroom, which may also be Ford Anglias but the earlier 1948 version.

The garage survived the wholesale demolitions of its surroundings in the late 1960s and after the death of Philip Ponting in 1978, became Doves Ford, remaining on the same site for some years afterwards, before moving to West Portway.

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