Marian Pilgrimage - Our Lady of Andover

The Pilgrimage now returns to southern England, and to the county of Hampshire.

The first at action is at Andover. My posts about what is known about this late medieval devotion from previous years are accessible at Marian Pilgrimage - Our Lady of Andover

As I explain in those notes the church visited by the Bohemian embassy in 1466 was demolished in 1840 on the grounds that it was unsafe. As some local historians have pointed out the fact that dynamite was deemed necessary to destroy the old church is, shall we say, suspicious and the suggestion is that the present, very striking early Victorian church, was very much the pet project of the incumbent, a former headmaster of Winchester.

All that survives of the essentially Norman church in the style of its region is a crypt, the old south doorway re-erected as an entry to the churchyard and a few stone fragments. It looks to have been a fine building and its loss is to be deprecated.

Andover Church before 1840

Image: Facebook - Stockbridge and District Social History

Andover Church before demolition 

Image: Hampshire Field Club

May Our Lady of Andover intercede for us and for our intentions 

Jesu mercy, Mary pray