Conservation area

THE OLDER parts of Bourne are officially protected within a Conservation Area which was drawn up in 1977 to preserve historic buildings and open spaces and prevent them from unwanted development and neglect. This means that no alterations can be carried out without specific approval.

The central point is the market place or town centre together with much of North Street, West Street and South Street, the Wellhead Gardens and St Peter's Pool, Church Lane, the Abbey Church and its precincts and the Abbey Lawn. At the time this area was defined, 75 buildings in the parish of Bourne were identified as being of historical and architectural interest. This is known as listing, a system followed by the Department of Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) on the advice of English Heritage which gives the building either a Grade I or Grade II status according to importance but only the Abbey Church is in the top category.

The cemetery chapel

The Ostler memorial

Fifty-one of the buildings were within the Conservation Area but two have since been demolished. The other 24 were outside the designated area, in Eastgate, Cawthorpe and Dyke, which are within the parish, but four of these have also been pulled down. An additional building, the cemetery chapel in South Road, was given Grade II listing in April 2007 to protect it from demolition by the town council and the following July, the Ostler memorial in the town cemetery was similarly graded.

Listed buildings in Bourne are found in the most unlikely places, a newspaper shop in North Street, a fish and chip shop in West Street, an iron bridge in Church Walk and even a stretch of wall in South Street, part of the Red Hall gatehouse, all of which are similarly protected as Grade II.

The listed cast iron bridge in Church Walk