Andover history: Methodist church that once stood in East Street

All of this view has now gone and the only point of reference is a glimpse of Swan Court to the far right, that just peeps above another doomed East Street house, behind the telegraph pole.

The church itself, built in 1838, was a triumph of determination over intense opposition. Primitive Methodism, an offshoot of Wesleyan Methodism, craved greater religious enthusiasm than that generally practised by the Church of England whose clergy were seen as lax.

Beginning in Staffordshire around 1807, the movement gradually spread southwards, reaching Hampshire by the 1830s.

Missionaries tasked with ‘spreading the word’ were sent out on horseback with nothing more than their voice to recruit and convert towns and villages to the cause.

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Although East Street had long had its Independent chapel and its Quaker meeting house, this was something new; indeed, the town saw three new churches – the Baptists in the High Street, the Wesleyan Methodists in Winchester Street and the Primitive Methodists in East Street - establish themselves in Andover between 1824 and 1838.

Other splinter groups were to follow and East Street itself has often been described as a ‘hotbed’ of religious dissent.

Two hundred years ago, trying to persuade a local populace to alter its religious allegiance was no easy matter.

Although some of the villages to the north of Andover had been successfully ‘missioned’ in 1831 by Thomas Russell, when, two years later, George Wallis and William Wiltshire first came up New Street to try to convert Andover, there was virulent opposition.

As they preached, a crowd gathered, throwing sticks and stones, forcing them to abandon their quest.

However, every week they returned and tried to withstand the increasing onslaught of abuse hurled at them.

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Dirt and eggs were among the missiles being thrown, together with demands that the preachers should be put to death.

Finally, it became so bad that the town constable and beadle grabbed them by the collars and took them away, probably to the town jail for their own protection.

It was certainly a baptism of fire!

History does not record any more about these events but by 1837 an Andover Circuit had been formed, to which the local village groups were aligned.

Rules were decided by a quarterly meeting of the circuit and the pooling of resources enabled many villages to build their own chapels, some of which still stand today, converted to private houses.

When the Andover building was erected at a cost of £490, George Wallis became the first superintendent minister there and he was served by an army of ministers, local preachers, travelling preachers and exhorters who all had to take their place in an ever-changing preaching plan, and woe betide any who did not perform as required.

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The plan ensured a preacher was present in every local community - outside in the absence of a chapel - on any given Sunday.

For church members, the rules were tough and the penalties severe and it is no surprise that the strict Temperance movement (abstinence from alcohol) first sprung from the nonconformist churches.

The horrors suffered during the First World War, together with increasing liberalism, were at odds with the various evangelical movements, and mergers of circuits and the different sects became inevitable.

In Andover, although the church fell victim to the plans for town development, it had already become largely redundant and there was little opposition to its demolition in 1967.