Andover (Hampshire)
 
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Location of Andover |
Andover is a city in the southern English county of Hampshire . It is located on the River Anton , around 30 km west of Basingstoke , 30 km northwest of Winchester and 40 km north of Southampton . Andover has a population of about 52,000 and is the administrative seat of the Test Valley District . Andover is in partnership with the German city of Goch and the French city of Redon .
history
Andover was first mentioned in 950, when King Eadred had a royal hunting lodge built here. A Viking king was baptized in Andover in 994, either Olav I. Tryggvason from Norway or Olof Skötkonung from Sweden . The baptism was part of an agreement with the English king Æthelred , with which the Vikings stopped their looting.
In 1086, Andover had 107 male residents and a total population of around 500, according to the Domesday Book . Andover was about four times the size of an ordinary village and had six mills. In 1175 Richard the Lionheart granted the place certain rights and a traders' guild was formed to take over the administration. Johann Ohneland gave merchants the right to collect royal taxes in Andover in 1201. 1256 granted Heinrich III. Andover the lower jurisdiction . Andover first sent an MP to the English Parliament in 1295 . In the years 1141 and 1435, major fires devastated the place.
Andover was the seat of various church institutions. Next to St. Mary's Church there was a priory and a hospital dedicated to John the Baptist and a leprosy hospital dedicated to Mary Magdalene . Henry VIII had the priory and hospital closed in 1538 during the Reformation . In 1599 Elizabeth I increased the number of fairs from one to three.
During the 18th century, Andover became an important stopover on the stagecoach route from Exeter via Salisbury to London . In 1789 a canal to Southampton was opened, but it was not a commercial success and was closed again in 1859. On July 3, 1854, the first train ran on the railway line from London via Andover to Salisbury.
economy
The city's largest employer is the Ministry of Defense. RAF Andover Air Force Base opened south of Andover during World War I and developed into a training center for the Royal Air Force's ground crew . During the Second World War this was the headquarters of the repair command. From January 1945 the first British helicopter unit was stationed in Andover. Since the RAF was withdrawn from Andover, the airfield is no longer in operation, instead numerous British Army facilities have been concentrated here. By 2009 the former air force base was converted into the army headquarters.
R.Twining & Co. Limited operates a plant for tea blends in town.
Web links
- The city's website (English)
Coordinates: 51 ° 13 ′ N , 1 ° 29 ′ W