The Folly Inn's history traced from bowling house to pub

You’re a little bit gone at the knees.

Hurry up there, alright?

Mind the steps there, good night,

Time gentlemen please.

So, sang a very young Alan Aldridge during the 1930s when his elder brother, landlord Percy or ‘Nobby’ Aldridge, put him up on the bar in order to clear the premises at the end of the evening.

Apart from the landlord, all the rest of the family lived in nearby Wellington Road and used to frequent the Folly in the evening.

Being so young, Alan had to sit outside with a lemonade and a digestive biscuit, until he was called in to sing after which his parents took him home again.

‘Nobby’ Aldridge, so-known because of his large nose – became landlord of The Folly soon after marrying Kathleen Small in 1930 and was a popular Mine Host until the early 1960s.

Some years later, in 1969, when a replacement Folly Inn had been constructed to the west of the earlier one, Alan took this photograph of the old and the new Folly, standing together for a brief period before the old building was demolished.

The old and the new Folly Inn, c.1969. (Image: Alan Aldridge)

The soon-to-be constructed roundabout as part of the new ring road forced the brewers to build anew on ground to the rear of the old inn.

Since then, the new Folly has been greatly extended and its facilities expanded.

Isaac Taylor’s 1759 map of Andover shows ‘Folly’ clearly marked but this is not the inn but the name of the area.

Just discernible are two buildings there, one of which is surely the later inn but the map does not name either.

A lesser-known meaning of the word ‘folly’ is an area of wet or waterlogged land and indeed the land between the bottom of Marlborough Street and the Folly has always been an area of springs, rivers and swampy ground, ideally utilised for the growing of watercress, well within living memory.

Today, it is all roundabouts and ring roads but the erection of private buildings has been avoided, owing to the constant danger of flooding.

A bowling green was laid out on the slightly higher ground behind the old Folly Inn during the 16th century, a site now utilised for the 1969 building.

We all know that Sir Francis Drake was playing bowls at Plymouth when the Spanish Armada was first sighted in 1588 and so the game of bowls goes back a long way.

Understandably, there would be a nearby associated house on the site from a similar date, though it may not have been a licensed one.

One of the earliest directories for England and Wales, compiled over a six-year period from 1792–98, lists all the traders and prominent people of the various towns in the country.

In the list for Andover we can see James Lock of ‘Bowling-green House’, which is no doubt the later Folly Inn but in the absence of any other evidence, there is no particular reason to suppose that Bowling-green House was licensed.

So, when did Bowling-green House, as it is so-named, definitely become an inn?

Unfortunately, directories were not regularly produced and it is another 30 years before another directory ‘snapshot’ of the town was produced, when Pigot’s published two directories, one in 1823 and another in 1828.

Neither of these is so comprehensive as the earlier one and there is no entry for Bowling-green House, nor a likely inn there, although the subsequent directory for 1830 lists the Antelope Inn at the Folly, clearly a new name for Bowling-green House.

This seems to accurately pinpoint the date of an inn but directories can be unreliable, especially as the Folly area was away from the main town, and an omission in a directory is not conclusive proof that it was not there.

Indeed, newspapers do track it back a little further: in January 1824, the Antelope Inn, Andover, was being offered to let "with a bowling green attached for 3 or 7 years. Apply T Figgess, Andover."

Thomas Figgess was evidently the owner and it is almost certain that he had converted the former house into an inn, naming it the Antelope.

In 1828, the inn again required a new tenant, then described as a "small public house with a large bowling green, two skittle alleys, a good garden and a small piece of land, altogether about 2 acres. Apply W Way, present tenant."

There are several reports of mid-19th century date when evening balls were held on the bowling green where up to 300 people might attend.

A major attraction was the high-class suppers provided by the landlord.

Before 1851 it was Joseph H Moore, and afterwards Joseph Harris.

A cricket ground had also been added to the facilities in a nearby meadow.

In 1853, an eccentric ‘pedestrian’ called Shaw undertook to walk 1,000 miles in 1,000 hours around the bowling green of the Antelope Inn.

Free admission was given to the public who wanted to come and watch, though the landlord would doubtless have made his money on the drinks.

Whether Shaw completed his task is not known.

Another use for the bowling green was for the Andover Rifle Volunteers to carry out their regular drills.

In May 1860, the company, numbering 62 men, was practising on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday evenings at 8 o’clock precisely.

Such exploits may not have been too beneficial for the bowling turf.

We can trace a gradual change of name from the Antelope to the Folly Inn from about 1845 to 1860 when both names seem to have been used.

The tithe survey documents of 1848 refer to the Folly Inn, while carpenter John Hidden who erected some posts there in 1847 wrote the Folly Inn in his accounts book.

When work started on plans for the new railway in 1846 it is the Folly Inn that is named as being 200 yards from the proposed station.

And yet, all the newspaper reports of the 1850s refer to the Antelope.

Clearly there was an evolution process rather than a definite date when the new name was assumed.

Owner Thomas Figgess, who lived at Acre House overlooking the Acre, died in 1857 by which time he owned many tenement properties in Andover.

A lease of the Antelope in 1849, shows brewers Poore and Son had leased the inn, but by the terms of the lease undertook to keep up the bowling green.

Poore’s likely remained the lessees or subsequent owners until the sale of the brewery in 1920, a period that saw all the small local breweries succumb to the competition of larger concerns such as Strong & Co of Romsey and the Winchester Brewery Company.

At some time, the bowling green became a tennis court, the change perhaps happening when a bowling club was established in the centre of town at the Recreation Ground, though another earlier one was behind the Masons Arms in Winchester Street.

In 1926, local builders Beale’s were employed by the Winchester Brewery Company to carry out improvements to the Folly Inn and it is the same owners who re-built the Folly in 1969, though they were soon to be taken over by Whitbread’s.

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