Tongue End chapel

THE HAMLET OF Tongue End, situated in the open fen three miles south of Bourne, is best described as a short stretch of ribbon development with new houses springing up and creating a modern community that will expand even further with time.

During the 19th century, it was an entirely different place where the description god forsaken had a familiar ring for it was then the loneliest fenland community in the Bourne area, a flat and featureless place with a few houses strung out along one side of the road that runs parallel to the drainage dyke known as the Counter or Slaker Drain, constructed to carry excess water from 2,000 acres of farmland, including the Bourne South Fen, to relieve the River Glen during periods of heavy rain.

A document of 1781 describes the nature of the land at this point where the Bourne Eau flows into the River Glen, and it is this geographical feature that gives rise to its colourful and descriptive name because the piece of land where the two rivers meet is tongue-shaped, hence Tongue End.

There were once three public houses but the Boat Inn has gone and so has the Chequers which was built in the hope of attracting business from a local railway station on the Bourne to Spalding line but the opportunity never materialised and the Counter Drain station was built a mile away instead. The busiest of them all was the Carrington Arms, named after a local landowner, Lord Carrington of Wycombe Abbey in Buckinghamshire, one of the Adventurers who helped finance the drainage of the fens. This inn opened in 1811 and must have been one of the earliest buildings in the village, surviving as a public house until the mid-20th century but is now a private dwelling, still accessed by a concrete bridge over the Counter Drain that runs past the front of the pub and was used by wagons and then lorries to bring in regular supplies of beer from the brewery.

Most of the village inhabitants were farm labourers who left school early, sometimes at the age of 10, for a life on the land, and social conditions were not good. Families lived in very cramped conditions and about 1848, one old house called Eastcote had been divided into five tenements, each with separate tenants. There was no public water supply and they took what they needed by bucket from the Counter Drain although a standpipe was eventually installed outside the Carrington Arms to bring in water from nearby Tongue End Farm. Poorly sited houses, bad living conditions, overcrowding, an unsatisfactory water supply and inadequate sanitation, all contributed to the prevalence of tuberculosis that cost the lives of many children, including three in one family.

The conditions were also a breeding ground for unruly and anti-social behaviour and in the early years of the 19th century, Tongue End became notorious for Sunday afternoon revelry, noted for its prize fights and the drunkenness which ensued. Rival gangs from surrounding villages such as Baston, Langtoft and Thurlby, brought in their own contenders, usually in a muck cart covered over with a horse rug to ensure the utmost surprise and the bouts attracted every ruffian in the neighbourhood who frequently created mayhem with all three pubs doing a roaring trade, and as a result, Tongue End soon had a very bad reputation in the locality and a place to be avoided at weekends by those who wanted a peaceful life.

But events took a very different turn with the building of a chapel of worship, a project inspired by non-conformists from Bourne where evangelism had become popular and in 1855, Walter Crampton, the local rate collector, opened his kitchen as a Sunday School but so many youngsters attended that a permanent hall was suggested and so everyone in the locality began contributing a penny a week to pay for it and enable work to begin. Construction of the chapel was not without its problems because the walls collapsed once they reached roof level and so the builders began again, using supporting arches and deeper foundations, and this time they were successful, opening in July 1865 with a public tea for 2,000 people in two large marquees outside by which time the £420 to pay for the building had been raised with the help of donations from generous farmers. Almost 400 people from Bourne joined the opening celebrations, making the journey to Tongue End aboard seven large corn boats loaned by a local owner and decorated for the occasion.

The chapel had been built on an isolated site between the River Glen and the Counter Drain, the nearest farm being half a mile away and the only houses 500 yards across the flooded washlands which meant that most had to travel up to two miles to worship. Some visiting preachers stood at the door in amazement as the congregation suddenly appeared as if from nowhere and because it was located between two waterways, it was also the only chapel where visiting preachers from town could skate to services in icy conditions down the Bourne Eau and return home safely as they did in the winter of 1891. It was also an evangelical union church, thus drawing on worshippers from the Congregational, Baptist and Methodist traditions, and soon, according to Henry Sneath (1860-1931) in his book Methodist Memories (1930), instead of rowdyism and heavy drinking, “the songs of Zion rose to heaven”.

The establishment of a temperance movement also assisted the cause and Sunday meetings were always crowded for frequent revivalist gatherings including a memorable occasion when the 200-seat chapel was packed to the doors and the aisles crowded to hear Tommy Barker of Newcastle, a famous speaker who toured the country urging drinkers to sign the pledge, and many came forward at the meeting to take this vow of abstinence.

The chapel continued in use until the mid-20th century when the evangelism that had become so popular during Victorian times had largely disappeared and the building has now gone, first dilapidated and then demolished, while Tongue End remains a quiet backwater growing slowly with new housing developments and far more peaceful than its rowdy and intemperate days of past times.