ONE OF THE MORE colourful owners in the history of the Angel Hotel was a woman, Annie Townson, who was responsible for popularising this historic hostelry with local people and even making it a focal point of the community. 

She took charge of the old coaching inn quite by chance in the summer of 1902 after the sudden death of her husband when she found herself running the business on her own and in the ensuing years made an undoubted success of it. Such was her reputation that it soon became known as Townson's Angel Hotel, a name that was even painted on the hanging sign outside. 

The Bott family had been associated with the business for almost 100 years, from 1807 until 1899, but when the last of them, Arthur Bott, died, the hotel was taken over by a retired army officer, William Walls Townson. He had been born in Cumberland and qualified as a veterinary surgeon, later serving in that capacity with the army where he attained the rank of major. After retiring he went to live in his home town of Liverpool where he continued in practice as a vet and married his wife in 1880. Then in October 1901, the couple embarked on a new career and bought the Angel Hotel.  

Unfortunately, he passed away suddenly on 20th July 1902, at the age of 57, under sudden and somewhat painful circumstances. He had returned to Liverpool the previous Friday to attend to some business matters when he was taken ill with a serious heart condition and acute bronchitis and did not recover. His body was brought back to Bourne the following Wednesday and the funeral cortege accompanying the coffin proceeded direct from the railway station to the town cemetery where he was buried.  

His wife immediately took over and ran the hotel for the next fourteen years during which time it became a central point for the social life of the town and a meeting place for most of the leading organisations including the Hereward Lodge of Freemasons which had been formed there in 1868.  

Mrs Townson's connection with the lodge was that of landlord and tenant because it was she who fixed the rent for their hire of the room where their meetings were held. It would appear that she was also in the habit of entertaining guests at the hotel by playing the piano although this was not always appreciated because the minutes of the lodge which now form part of their archives reveal that in 1907 she planned to raise the rent to £6 a year. This was agreed by the freemasons but they also stipulated that Mrs Townson give an undertaking that “the nuisance of her piano playing during lodge hours be discontinued”. She must have agreed because they remained there for another three decades. 

The Angel soon established a national reputation for hospitality and a guidebook entry of 1910 described it as a very ancient hostelry and as a hotel for guests it could claim to be the oldest in the town. The entry went on: "It has been added to as occasion has required. In bygone times, it was a famous posting house, and livery stables are now an important part of the hotel business." 

The interior of the hotel at that time had a distinctly Dickensian air with oak furniture and wainscoting throughout the main rooms with oil paintings on the walls, notably works devoted to the countryside including some by the landscape artist John Crome (1768-1821) and the animal painter John Herring (1825-1907). There were fifteen bedrooms at that time, a smoke room, commercial bar, coffee room, private sitting rooms and a large banqueting room which could accommodate 150 diners and could also be used for balls and other big business and social events such as rent audit dinners and meetings of local organisations such as the freemasons.  

"Every attention is paid to the comfort of guests and the cuisine leaves nothing to be desired", said the guide. "At 1.30 pm on Thursdays, a very popular market dinner is served and this hotel is also the headquarters of the Royal Automobile Club, the Motor Union, the Automobile Association and the Cyclists Touring Club. The proprietress is Mrs Townson who has conducted the Angel for the past seven years." 

When Mrs Townson gave up the tenancy in 1916, the hotel was taken over by Frederick Nash (1858-1926), another newcomer to the town who stayed for the next ten years during which time he became a prominent citizen involved with many activities and organisations.

Mrs Townson retired to Amesbury, Wiltshire, where she died on 29th December 1934, aged 86, but had reserved the space alongside her husband in a double grave at the town cemetery where she was buried.  

They left a daughter and two sons, one of them, Harry Walls Townson, whose own daughter Cynthia Mary has provided a Canadian connection with Bourne. She trained as a nurse and while working at Netley military hospital near Southampton during the Second World War of 1939-45, met a Canadian soldier, Archie Butt, and became engaged. He later served in Germany and was involved in the liberation of Holland but after the war had ended, his fiancée took a plane to New York and Minneapolis and then a train to Winnipeg, Manitoba, where they were married at St George’s Church in December 1946. 

Archie died in 2001, aged 81 and Cynthia in 2009, aged 86, the grandmother of six children and great-grandmother of eight. Their daughter, Mrs Judy Labossière, who lives in Winnipeg, is now amassing all of this information while compiling her family tree and the search lead her to Bourne. With the help of Mrs Nelly Jacobs, clerk to the town council, the grave of her great grandparents has now been located in the South Road cemetery, untended and neglected alas, but a reminder of Annie Townson’s life here more than a century ago as a very efficient landlady of the Angel Hotel.