The name came from the Celtic river 'Anne' which meant 'Ash tree stream' which today is known as Pillhill  brook which is a tributary of the River Avon on the southern edge of Andover. It is a pretty village with its church dedicated to St Mary the Virgin a gift of Thomas Pitt the grandfather of the great statesman and prime minister William Pitt. The village on the Pill was one of many estates in 1716 of Thomas Pitt, who was the grandfather of William Pitt, the Earl of Chatham and former governor of Madras in India, where he purchased a diamond for £20,000 and then sold a bit later for £135,000 this Diamond is now one of the national treasures of France. It was Thomas Pitt who rebuilt the church at Abbots Ann.

The first settlements known to be here were about 50BC when Atrebates demolished the forest and started to cultivate the land. During the Roman occupation of Britain Abbotts Ann prospered and at the end of Dunkirk Lane there is the remains of a Roman Villa. Prior to the Normans this land was given to the Abbey at Hyde and became known as Ann Abbatis which meant the 'estate on the River Anne belonging to the Abbott'. Little Ann was given to the Abbey at Wherwell and after the dissolution the estates were passed back into spiritual hands.

St Mary's Church		Part of the war memorial (photo kindly contributed by Moya Page)
The Virgins Crowns

One of the treasures of this church are the rows of white paper garlands that hang high on the nave wall, some have white paper gloves with them, these garlands represent a maiden who had led a life of innocence and died before she ever became a bride, or it may be a man who died prematurely. These garlands some of which date back to the middle of the 18th century are extremely rare, the youngest here is a boy of 15 who died in the last year of the Great War and of a woman who died in 1921.

They were part of an ancient custom which was once a common event in the countryside and in the village of Selborne Gilbert White while still a young boy witnessed it but said that it was even then beginning to go into decline and Abbots Ann was the only place he knew that this was still practiced.

The first iron plough was developed here by Robert Tasker who settled here in 1806 and took over the Blacksmith's business and it was he with the aid of his brother that developed it and it became so popular that he set up at the Waterloo Iron Works in Anna Valley to cope with the demand and he built the first school which is still here in 1831. The school was the first to take children of all denominations in the whole of England. Tasker went on to become one of the leading companies with his trailer business.

The countryside surrounding the village

Abbotts Ann lies in the valley of the Pillhill Brook,  on each side of which the ground rises over chalk hills and downland onto a plateau with minor valleys. The surrounding land is mostly arable and is used mainly to grow cereal crops in rotation with others such as oil seed rape.

Pillhill Brook is renowned for watercress beds and a trout farm, and is an important tributary of the rivers Anton and Test, and are part of the chalk stream system of Hampshire.

South of Pilhill Brook lies farmland which is owned by the Abbotts Ann Estate. The area is a mixture of arable land and a patchwork of woodland and coppices, some of which are managed.
The northern slope of the valley screens the village from the A303 trunk road and the built-up area of Andover lies just beyond the ridge.

The village boundary mainly comprises mature trees and hedgerows, which make it appear compact, despite its development in a linear fashion. Near to the village there is a Victorian viaduct that still carries the main railway line from London to Salisbury and the South West.
 

Today there is little employment in the village, even though land around it is still farmed in the same way it has been for over two thousand years, which allows Abbotts Ann to retain the peaceful setting that is typical of the farming villages of England.

HISTORY OF ST MARYS CHURCH
THE VIRGIN CROWNS OF ABBOTTS ANN
ABBOTTS ANN MAGAZINE parish website

IMAGES OF ABBOTS ANN

The main street through Abbots Ann, the Post Office is the white building on the right hand photograph
The war memorial Photo courtesy Moya Page Lincolnshire   Nurse Rodbard outside No.64 Abbots Ann circa 1890
A Little Park settlement house in the 1930s and a similar house today
Little Park which lies north of the parish is situated on a ridge forming the northern slop of the Pillhill Brook valley and is prime agricultural land  It features several ancient hedgerows and a small area of woodland as well as supporting a wide range of flora and fauna including rare arable weeds and an above average number of farmland birds.