The result is that most of our old buildings are either Regency or Victorian, built in brick, stone and slate, but are no less interesting for that. Old cottages can still be found in Bourne, usually greatly altered in appearance, such as a row of mud and stud cottages in Spalding Road which are at least 300 years old, originally farm workers' cottages but now converted into two homes.

Stone was the most durable material for house building in times past but is now no longer economical although there is an example of what they looked like in the row of stone cottages on the north side of West Street. But red brick appears to be the dominant building material that identifies Bourne with its immediate past and these were manufactured locally when stone was no longer readily available.

The town's current housing stock is a direct result of the building booms after the First and Second World Wars when hundreds of council and private houses were built. The council houses of past years were originally designed as accommodation for the working classes and have been built by local authorities for more than a hundred years.

In Bourne, large estates such as Harrington Street, Recreation Road and Ancaster Road were built as council housing although many are now privately owned. Government policy in the late 1980s encouraged home ownership, and this enabled thousands of sitting tenants purchase the properties in which they lived at discount prices.

As owner-occupiers, they could then change the appearance of their homes to suit their own tastes and these changes invariably started with a new front door, a feature that today distinguishes the house that is now privately owned from that which is still rented from the local authority.

New building activity during the first half of the 20th century altered the appearance of the town more rapidly than at any other time in its history and in the years between 1914 and 1970, Bourne Urban District Council alone erected 546 houses, bungalows and flats. By 2006, there were still 535 council houses and maisonettes, all administered by South Kesteven District Council which took over from Bourne Urban District Council and an attempt to sell off the properties to a housing association was dropped when 73% of tenants voted against the scheme, thus giving a resounding rejection of the transfer that would have ended a century-old tradition of council house provision for the less well off.

In the past 40 years, the accent has been on private housing with extensive residential development on the west side of the town, stretching out from St Gilbert's Road towards Bourne Woods on either side of the westward curving Beech Avenue, which is just under one mile in length, making it the longest of the recently built new roads with other streets feeding off on both sides.

In recent years there has also been new housing development to the south of the town alongside the A15 where the Elsea Park estate will add a further 2,000 new private homes over the next two decades. In addition, many smaller estates are being developed in various places around the town although the difference today is that the homes being built are purely speculative for private sale and mostly to newcomers moving into the area, thus increasing the size of the town even further.