Bourne Eau

THERE IS A widespread belief that the river takes its name from the French word eau meaning water but that is not the case. It actually derives from eä, a pure Old English word that was erroneously given by cartographers on their maps as eau and few examples of this spelling occur in documents before the 18th century.

Although the modern tendency is to go for a French sound when pronouncing eau, this does appear to be a very recent practice. Eä is a local word meaning drain which was used in the past and far more accurate than the French when relating to a Lincolnshire watercourse, hence the Bourne Eau.

The river begins at St Peter's Pool where the water can be seen gushing out at its very source and then flows in two directions, one eastwards towards Baldock's Mill and the second north and then east, skirting the boundary of the Wellhead Gardens before flowing south towards Baldock's Mill where the waters combine and cross underneath South Street and surfacing in Church Walk.

From here, the river is piped underneath the vicarage gardens until it reaches Coggles Causeway where it runs behind the houses on the north side and on reaching the edge of the Abbey Lawn complex, it again goes underground and surfaces in Victoria Place. After crossing the road at the Queen’s Bridge, the Eau runs parallel with Eastgate for its entire length and is joined by the Car Dyke near the Anchor public house before crossing underneath Cherryholt Road at Mays’ Sluice and flowing into the South Fen, joining the River Glen at Tongue End, its entire length being just under 3½ miles.

In centuries past, the Eau was part of a navigable waterway from Bourne to Boston, a distance of 24 miles, and so the town had a direct link with the North Sea for waterborne transport which enabled the movement of coal from the Midlands and Yorkshire which was unloaded and distributed from a wharf in Eastgate while the outward bound shipments included leather and sheepskins from the local tanneries, wool and grain.

Cargo traffic continued until the coming of the railway in 1860 when trade declined and the water slowly fell into disuse, silted up and choked with weeds and today the section from the Queen's Bridge out into the fen remains largely neglected.

For a short spell in Victorian times, the Bourne Eau enjoyed a reputation as a pleasure spot, the banks thronged with visitors out walking on Sunday afternoons in summer and in 1897, decorated gondolas took guests on short trips along the river as part of the celebrations for Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee but today it is rare to see even a rowing boat on the water.

The Bourne Eau today