Written records of Andover before Wessex became a kingdom do not exist.  But scraps of tessellated pavement in the vicinity show that it was a locality well known to the Romans, and the Port Way, that great thoroughfare of the Empire, passed within half a mile of the modern railway junction.  In 994, Olaus, King of Norway, is said to have been baptized here, his sponsor being Ethelred the Unready.  The town received its charter from King John and took part in the disagreement between Stephen and Matilda, when it had the misfortune to be burnt.  It saw two of the Stuarts when the evil days for each were reaching their culmination.  Charles I stayed here on his way to the last battle of Newbury, and James II slept at Priory House while retiring from Salisbury to London just before the arrival of William of Orange.  The town returned two members to Parliament before the Reform Act, and afterwards one until 1885.  Half legendary are some of the tales of the hustings at Andover in those days of “free and open” voting, and the old “George” seems to have been a centre of the excitement on election days, where most of the guineas changed hands and where most free drinks were handed to the incorruptibles.  It was here during the candidature of Sir Francis Delaval that his attorney had occasion to send him the following bill—­

“To being thrown out of the window of the George Inn, Andover; to
my leg being broken; to surgeon’s bill, and loss of time and business;
all in the service of Sir Francis Delaval

          
                                                                L500.”

This rough treatment was in consequence of the poor lawyer having, at his patron’s instigation, invited the officers of a regiment quartered in the town, and the mayor and corporation, to a dinner at the “George,” each in the other’s name.  At this same inn Cobbett, in one of his Rural Rides, had an adventure with mine host and pushed his opinions down the throat of the assembled company in his usual manner.  This inn, and the “Angel,” were great places in the posting days, when the Exeter Road was one of the most important arteries in England.  They are among the pleasant survivals of eighteenth-century Andover, for there is nothing that appears on the surface older than that period, except the Norman door of the churchyard—­all that is left of the fine building pulled down in 1840 to make way for the present imitation Early English church—­and a piece of wall on the north side, a remnant of a cell belonging to the Benedictine Abbey of Saumur.  About three miles west of Andover is Weyhill, a village celebrated for its fair and immortalized in The Mayor of Casterbridge.  It at one time claimed to be the largest in England, but in these changed days its rural importance has diminished.  The fair takes place in October and now covers four consecutive days instead of the original six.  The first day is Sheep Fair followed by “Mop” (hiring), Pleasure, and Hop Fairs with horses every day and several side-shows such as “Cheese Fair” and the like.  It has been thought possible that Weyhill is referred to in The Vision of Piers Plowman—­“At Wy and at Wynchestre I went to the Fair.”