ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY-FIVE YEARS AGO — 21 SEPTEMBER 1894

HOUSE WARMING

On Wednesday night Mr.H.Edwards entertained to supper at the Southampton Arms the workmen employed by Mr.Bell in the erection of five cottages for him in South Street. Mr.Betteridge provided a capital spread, and at the conclusion Mr.Bell, who presided, submitted the health of their host, who was unable to attend personally, thanking him for his hospitality. The toast was received with enthusiasm, and others of a complimentary nature having been drunk was given up to har [end of sentence illegible].

ONE HUNDRED YEARS AGO — 19 SEPTEMBER 1919

LABOUR’S PARADE

Under the auspices of the Andover and District Trades and Labour Council, which has a growing membership in the town and neighbourhood, a trade union demonstration and parade took place in fine weather on September 7. Starting from the Tavern, Weyhill Road, the procession headed by the nice silk banners, marched through the Avenue, Junction Road, Bridge Street, South Street, Anton Road, Winchester Street, and High Street to the Acre. Music was supplied by the Band of the Swindon N.U.R., and collectors were busy with boxes at all points of vantage, for the Cottage Hospital and the N.U.R. Orphan Fund. A big meeting was held in the Acre, when Councillor G.Butler presided. The addresses of the various speakers dealt with the work of the Orphanage, and of the future policy of trade unionism and current events.

SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS AGO — 22 SEPTEMBER 1944

ADVERTISEMENT — Wake up, Peter … it’s true!

Mummy did manage to get a packet of Quaker Puffed Wheat. So you will have a plateful of crisp, crunchy grains that are so deliciously good for you. And isn’t mummy glad that she won’t have to cook or waste fuel. It’s well worth trying again and again for the giant 6½d.packet of Quaker Puffed Wheat — containing 16 big helpings, ready-to-serve, and only 2 points.

QUAKER PUFFED WHEAT

FIFTY YEARS AGO — 19 SEPTEMBER 1969

ALL THAT REMAINS OF THE OLD “NILE LOOP”

The old “Nile Loop,” the Wherwell to Hurstbourne Priors railway line is now a treacherous jungle of brambles and nettles above Longparish, but its beauty still shines fitfully along the few miles from Fullerton; sporadic patches of flowers each with its attendant host of butterflies remind the walker of an England that he thought only existed in books.

Yet the line, that skirts Harewood Forest and provides sudden views of the serpentine upper reaches of The River Test, has a story worth recounting, even though it is largely scorned by local and railway historians.

Who better to ask than the drivers Dick Pemble for instance, retired now, he lives in Weyhill road, Andover, or his mate Dick Hawkins, of Charlton Road?

The two men and their wives have a special consideration for each other. Their roots stretch back into the happy days before the nationalisation of the railways.

Mr.Pemble first rode the line as fireman during the First World War.

The line was opened on 1 June, 1885, “expedite the journey between London and Bournemouth,” but the original intentions of the London and South Western company, who built her came to a sticky end in the swampland at Redbridge.

The purpose of the line next evolved as a passenger and goods connection between its London to Exeter terminus, at Whitchurch, and its Andover to Southampton terminus, at Fullerton.

As well as serving the monied inhabitants of the Upper Test, the line was valuable as a relief line for Nine Elms traffic, the London despatch station for Covent Garden market produce and industrial wares from the North of England.

With the advent of the motor car, passenger trade declined.

The two bandbox six-wheeler carriages and the Drury Rail car, six first and thirty third class seats, stopped trundling up the steep gradien from Longparish to Hurstbourne on 5 July, 1931.

The Drury was a failure, anyway. A single car train with a 50 h.p. engine, it had no self starter, and its cooling system was arranged in the slipstream—a convenient invitation for the radiator to blow sky-high in cold weather.

The line came into its own during the two great wars of this century, in the first for transporting passengers and raw materials to Kynochs gunpowder factory at Longparish. There were ten trains a day in the First World War, and Hurstbourne junction was manned 24-hours a day.

It enjoyed some prominence in 1931 with the arrival of Cicely Courtnedge and a film crew who made the silent “Ghost Train.”

Traffic was stepped up to 20 or 30 trains a day during the Second World War to service the huge ammunition dump centred in Harewood Forest.

By the time of its closure on 28 May, 1956 it had dwindled to three trains a week.

The line’s most famous regular passenger?

Undoubtedly Queen Victoria, who has written her appreciation of its scenery as she travelled to Osborne House on the Isle of Wight, and who dictated that Wherwell and Longparish stations be built artistically attractive.

TWENTY-FIVE YEARS AGO — 23 SEPTEMBER 1994

MORE HOUSES FOR ANDOVER?

Land lying between the A303 and Andover town could be developed for future housing say Hampshire planners.

The area is one of seven sites in the county named in a letter to councillors as a possible solution to the shortage of 21st century development sites within the county.

Population projections suggest that an extra 26,000 houses will have to be built on green-field sites within the county between 2001 and 2011.