302 



" Andover and its Neighbourhood." 



within the town. The schoolmaster was to be a graduate of Oxford 

 or Cambridge. 



The money was placed in the hands of Bishop Horne, then Bishop 

 of Winchester, to be employed by him as Hanson requested. This 

 money the bishop gave into the hands of a William Blake, and a 

 William Blake, his son, and they, in connection with a Mr. John 

 Blake, gave a bond to the bishop for payment of the £200 and the 

 £16 yearly, at a certain time. This bond could not be found at the 

 death of the bishop. The deed recites that William Blake, being 

 moved in conscience for that the said sum of £200 was given to so 

 good a use and purpose, was contented to enter into another 

 obligation unto Walter Waite, gent., then Bailiff of Andover, in 

 the sum of £400, to make good the loss. Richard Blake gave the 

 site, and the Corporation built the school-house. In the will of 

 Bichard Kemis, dated 1611, September 25th, we find that he left, 

 amongst other charities, £5 to the free school. The school is poorly 

 endowed, but very successful, and such funds as the trustees are 

 possessed of — whether for the use of the school or town — they ad- 

 minister fairly and honourably. 



I cannot mention all the charities of Andover; but that by John 

 Pollen should be noticed. The said John Pollen, who was born in 

 1686, built an almshouse on a piece of the rectory land, and in 

 December, 1702, endowed it with Seymour's or Sotwell's farm. By 

 deed of September 29th, 1716, he gave to Winchester College the 

 middle parsonage garden for five thousand years at a peppercorn 

 rent, in exchange for the site of the almshouse and school-house. 

 The Pollen school endowment was charged on Marsh Court Farm, 

 then in King's Somborne parish. 



Besides the bread gifts of Venables and others, there were certain 

 charities administered by the Chamberlain of Charities, as the Spital 

 Lands for the Spital Houses, and the Common Acre, said erroneously 

 to have been left by Catherine Hanson, in 1570, as a town-playing 

 place. This Common Acre was leased to a William Gold for twenty- 

 one years, in 1560, at a four-shilling rent, he conditioning to keep 

 up a pair of butts and give no hindrance to the people playing on 

 the ground. There are now four almshouses on the ground. The 



