By the Rev. C. Collier, M.A , F.S.A. 



305 



September, 16 Elizabeth, it was agreed that at all times thereafter 

 the sole rent of S. John's House should be paid to the chamber, 

 and that the chamberlains of the same should pay yearly, as well, 

 £10 to the Right Hon. the Earl of Leicester for his life, and 20*. 

 to the Right Worshipful Mr. Richard Inkpenne for his fee. The 

 whole income of the lands of S. John's House has, from 1552, been 

 received by the Corporation. The name of Spital is probably the 

 only vestige of this once important hospital. Tradition says it stood 

 at the bottom of New Street, on the east side of the road going 

 north. The spot was, some few years ago, used as a place for piling 

 fagots. Tytheridge, in his report on the archives, says :. — " A person 

 named Richard Steele, born in J 706, used frequently to say, when 

 in his ninetieth year, that he had often rung the bell in the old 

 Market House, which was built (of timber) previous to the one in 

 1725, and that the bell therein was the identical one that came from 

 the Spital chapel." 



About the trade of Andover we must make some remarks. We 

 have records of the times of Henry II. and John, shewing that the 

 men of Andover were busy as merchants and tradesmen. Merchant 

 guilds were in existence here in the time of Henry II., for in the 

 22nd of his reign Hugh de Gundeville rendered an account of the 

 Farm, of Hants in the Treasury, £16S 10*. 3/1. silver. The men of 

 Andover render an account of ten marks for having the same liberty 

 as the men of Wilton and of Sarum have in their guilds ; and in 

 the 6th year of John (1200) that king granted a charter, in which 

 he says " Know ye we have granted to the men of Andover that 

 they may have a gild of merchants/' This privilege of a guild of 

 merchants was again confirmed in the 12th year of Henry III., and 

 in the 29th of Edward III. These charters prove that there was 

 trade in the town, but what it was and what its extent we have no 

 evidence to shew. Trade fluctuated at Andover, as elsewhere, for 

 we find that in the 2nd of Richard II. the men of the town owed 

 over £80 white money of fee farm of their town. The trade of the 

 tanner was followed here to some extent, for in the maneloquiums of 

 the Corporation we find records stating that the bailiff and forward 

 men gave the membership of trade guilds to those, who, being 



