Bourne's lost pubs

THERE WILL BE no more pints pulled at the Royal Oak public house at 74 North Street which has been serving the neighbourhood for the past two centuries, through endless family and national celebrations and several wars.

The Royal Oak is among the oldest of the 36 public houses recorded in Bourne, first mentioned in 1826, but last orders were called when it closed last year and it has been standing empty ever since. Planning permission has now been granted to convert the building into three flats and so it becomes the latest of a number of hostelries that have vanished in past times.

Bourne has never been short of pubs or taverns and in 1857 there were eleven in the town and 14 by the end of the century. Since then, there has been a fluctuating pattern of closures and openings with the most dramatic developments occurring during the final years of the 20th century when the face of the traditional public house began to change, influenced by varying ownership, an increase in opening hours, the ban on smoking in public places, a decline in drinking habits and a demand for food to be served.

In past times, public houses served little else but alcohol and were often blamed for causing many social problems, particularly among poorer families where the husband or breadwinner liked his regular pint. Among the earliest of these was in Spalding Road, one of the town’s oldest stone buildings dating back to the 16th century. It may have been built as a private house but by 1666 had become the New Inn, a use that continued until fifty year ago and is now once again a private residence known as Dawkins House, Grade II listed with many subsequent changes including the replacement of the original thatched roof.

The Light Dragoon also survives in a new form, built in Abbey Road in 1904 although there was a hostelry with the same name on this site as early as 1840. It closed in 1969 because of increasing competition from other licensed premises in the town and the last landlord was a former paratrooper, Frank Allen, who took over in 1959 and ran it for ten years. The property is now used as a betting shop but the monogram of the last brewery which supplied the beer, Mitchell & Butlers, can still be seen in the coloured glass lights over the side door.

Another favourite was the Old Windmill Inn at 39 North Street which closed around 1965, the last tenants being Ron and Elsie Hargreaves who ran it for ten years before the building was incorporated into Wake House next door. In 1835, the pub was being run by a woman, a rare occurrence because mine host in those days was invariably a man. She was Mary Banks who prided herself on selling "foreign spirits" which no doubt referred to the strong rum available at that time.

Nearby at No 35 North Street was the Six Bells which lasted for 150 years until it also closed circa 1960. There were stables at the rear and the business was also licensed to hire horses and traps but the building has now been converted into three shops.

The Butcher’s Arms in Eastgate dated from the early 19th century and was once a popular drinking place for fenland farmers and agricultural workers but it came to an untimely end during the Second World War. In May 1941, it was destroyed by a German bomber which was shot down over the town by a Royal Air Force fighter plane and crashed on the building, killing the landlord and his wife and five other people inside. The debris was later cleared and the hole filled in until after the war when the derelict site was sold for a garage development but that too has disappeared to make way for new houses.

The Crown Hotel in West Street was built in the early 19th century and may have been named to commemorate the accession of Queen Victoria in 1837. But its life as a public house came to an end in 1991 when it was badly damaged by fire and then stood empty and boarded up for three years until developers modernised the site as retail premises which were opened in 1994, the original façade with its crown motif in relief being retained and an arcade of shops added at the rear, thus creating the Crown Walk that we know today.

Many other familiar pub names have disappeared including the Boat Inn and the New Inn in South Fen, the Greyhound Inn and the Three Horseshoes in North Fen, the Elephant and Castle, the Waggon and Horses and the White Horse in North Street, the Horse and Groom in West Street, the King’s Head in Bedehouse Bank, the Old Wharf Inn and the Woolpack in Eastgate and the Railway Tavern in the Austerby.

Apart from public houses, Bourne also had at least 30 beer houses, that is premises which served nothing but ale, often in the front room of a house or cottage which had been converted for the purpose. The sale of all alcohol is now controlled by the licensing justices but in early 19th century England, licenses could be obtained without application to the magistrates. The passing of the Wine and Beerhouse Act in 1869 regulated the sale of beer and owners were taxed on the amount sold and with an increasing levy year after year, the running of a beer house became a less attractive business proposition and so their numbers declined and by the turn of the century they had practically disappeared.

The closure of the Royal Oak reduces the number of public houses (and hotels) in Bourne to twelve, namely the Angel, the Burghley Arms, the Anchor, the Golden Lion, the Marquess of Granby, the Mason’s Arms, Firkin Ale, the Jubilee, the Nag’s Head, the Red Lion, Smith’s of Bourne and the Wishing Well at Dyke which also lies within the parish.

Not all have a secure future. Recent changes in managership have left some vacancies unfilled for several months while at least one other is up for sale, and so more closures may soon become a possibility, thus changing our familiar street scene for many years to come.