THE NEW PUBLIC HOUSE and restaurant that has opened in South Road has been called The Sugar Mill as a reminder that sugar beet was once an important crop in the Bourne area. Marston’s, the brewery firm which owns it, say that although there were never any sugar mills, beet was grown here and it therefore seemed an appropriate name to link with the history of the town. 

Sugar beet is a root crop, a cultivated plant that contains a high concentration of sucrose and its value was first recognised in the 16th century although it was another 500 years before the manufacture of a marketable sugar from the white fleshy roots attained commercial importance, the first processing factories being built near Paris by Napoleon Bonaparte in 1811 in an attempt to reduce cane sugar imports from the Caribbean. 

The sugar beet industry developed rapidly in Europe although it was not cultivated on a commercial scale in this country until the early 20th century and soon became a most successful industry. It had been tried in the fenland east of Bourne but the results at that time were not good because it grew too coarse and its cultivation was abandoned until renewed efforts in the mid-1920s heralded a brighter prospect.  

It was then successfully raised and although Britain's ravenous demand for sugar was mostly fulfilled by European beet imports until shortly after 1900, successful sugar beet crops were soon growing around the village of Twenty where output was so prolific that it helped provide the nation's sugar requirements during the First and Second World Wars. 

In 1925, the possibility of opening a factory at Bourne was considered by the Anglo-Scottish Beet Corporation which was then the main processing company in this country. The project was fully supported by Bourne Urban District Council and a sub-committee was appointed to consider the project and to meet Bourne Waterworks Company to ensure that there would be an adequate supply of water for the processing procedures. But no agreement was reached and the factory was eventually built at Spalding in 1926 after the local council guaranteed an adequate supply of water which ironically, emanated from Bourne. 

By the winter of 1927, the Spalding factory was ready to accept sugar beet from Bourne and for the next sixty years crops were lifted every autumn and sent there for processing either by road or by rail, until the freight service ended in June 1964. By this time, the Anglo-Scottish Beet Corporation had become the British Sugar Corporation, the industry having been nationalised in 1936, later to be known as British Sugar. The annual sugar beet campaign, as it was known, continued until the factory was shut in 1989 following a reduction in the company’s allowed sugar quota which eventually resulted in the closure of all but four of their 18 factories in eastern England. 

Sugar beet and its various processes does therefore have an historical link although mangolds, swedes and turnips were far more popular root crops for most farmers during those early years and the best examples were put on show in the town every year but none of these crops have quite the same ring for a pub name as The Sugar Mill. 

The annual root show began at Bourne in 1908 at a yard in Abbey Road and sponsored by Messrs T W Mays and Sons Ltd, chemical manure manufacturers and bone crushers, as they were then described, no doubt as a means of demonstrating how much better crops would be if their fertilisers were used in the growing process. 

Mangolds, or mangels, were grown extensively throughout the fens at that time, the best crops being obtained in the East Fen and in Deeping Fen and they were frequently sent away for use by cow keepers in large towns. By the close of the 19th century, an ordinary crop of mangolds was yielding 20 tons to the acre, a good crop 40 tons and even up to 60 tons had been recorded with attractive sale prices providing a profit that appealed to most growers who owned suitable land. They were also occasionally grown for seed and in 1893, a crop from 26 acres realised £2,000, equal to £80 an acre, a highly lucrative return in those days. Turnips were grown for sheep feeding and frequently allowed to stand for seed which was also sold and sown locally.  

The annual root show was a major event in Bourne with cash prizes, silver cups and golden tankards for the winning growers in all categories. The scope was extended in 1918 when, in addition to the usual awards for mangolds and turnips, special prizes were also given for the best specimens of potatoes grown with the company's manure. 

When the show was held the following year, in October 1919, Thomas Mays, senior partner in the firm (and father of Raymond Mays, the international racing car driver and designer), presented the prizes and during his speech, he gave an insight into his company's policy in holding the annual event. "Our one desire is to provide a good fertilising manure at a reasonable price", he said, "and I think that the samples in this show prove that our product is the best procurable for root crops." 

In 1920, the root show was held in conjunction with Bourne Fair, later moving to the Corn Exchange and by then, sugar beet had become a regular annual entry, both hand and machine lifted, an indication of another productive crop. But by 1965, popularity was beginning to wane and entries falling although the quality of the exhibits remained extremely high, particularly potatoes which the judges described as being "really extraordinary", a sign of things to come. 

The days of the show however were numbered and as the Mays company began to move towards closure, the event was among the first casualties after providing a shop window for locally grown root crops grown for well over sixty years. Sugar beet is now less evident in the Bourne area where cereal and oil seed rape take precedence although potatoes remain a popular main crop.