Changing times are reflected in many places around the country but nowhere more dramatically than in our town centres because it is here at the very heart of our communities that we find reminders of the past and at the same time catch a glimpse of the future.

Bourne began in the earliest times as a small community which sprang up around a crossroads but in the years that have followed these have become two busy trunk roads, the A15 and the A151, which intersect to form the town centre.

The space created was once known as the market place where traders gathered to hawk their wares, selling eggs, butter, cheese and milk, fruit and vegetables, poultry, meat and fish, cloth and basket work, food and goods that had been produced in and around the home or farm and brought in for sale to supplement the family income.

This was also the venue for the annual May statute fairs for the hiring of servants and there was a pump which provided drinking water and a market or butter cross around which people gathered to gossip and to hear proclamations of important local and national events by the town crier. It was a quiet place which reflected the unhurried pace of life in past times but all this changed with the coming of the motor car and from 1900 onwards, the town centre became transformed into what we have today.

Since then, there have been many upheavals in its appearance, mainly to accommodate the increasing traffic flows, and one of the first major changes was in moving the cattle market off the streets. The sale of livestock had become a major feature of life in Bourne with animal pens erected in the town centre on market days (pictured above in 1880) when farmers, butchers and dealers gathered to do business but the arrival of the motor car sounded its death knell and by the end of the 19th century it had been banished to an off street site.

This was followed by the relocation of the Ostler memorial drinking fountain erected to commemorate the life and philanthropy of local landowner John Lely Ostler (1811-1859) which dominated the market place for more than a century until it became a danger to passing traffic and in 1962 the stone structure was dismantled and moved to the town cemetery.

From then on, the increase in traffic has played a major part in the expansion of Bourne and brought it nearer urbanisation. In 1970, a census revealed that in the peak hour between 8 am and 9 am on a Thursday market day, the number of vehicles entering the town by the four main roads was 733 while during the same hour, 642 vehicles left and although we have no official count today, these figures have increased dramatically.

Yet despite this motorised activity, Bourne was still considered to be a rural area and in January 1972, a fox appeared in the market place one morning and was caught in the bus waiting room beneath the Town Hall, a reminder that the countryside was still not far away.

Nevertheless, this once quiet country community was becoming busier and as the weekly street market was then held in the town centre, which was also a stopping place for buses, some regulation was needed and on Monday 11th June 1973, the first traffic lights were installed at a cost of £10,000.

Many people had misgivings over their installation and there were even calls for them to be replaced by a mini roundabout but the lights continued in operation for the next thirty years until a more modern system was installed by Lincolnshire County Council during the summer of 2004. Although this involved many diversions and delays for vehicles and frustration for shoppers, the project was completed on schedule within ten weeks at a cost of £170,000 and the new lights became effective from Monday 28th September.

Traffic signs and the proliferation of single and double yellow lines added to the daily reminder that the car now ruled our roads and so the town centre became a route for through traffic which made it a less amenable place for townspeople to do the shopping and meet friends as it was in past times.

The first attempt to move the regular market off the streets came during the 1970s because of the danger created by stalls erected alongside the pavements in North Street and West Street, so narrowing the space available for passing traffic, although it was to be another sixteen years before this was to become a reality. It also became obvious at this time that buses could not continue to use the market place as their terminus and in 1974 a bus station was opened in North Street followed by the new paved market area behind the Town Hall which opened in December 1990.

Meanwhile, recent years have brought new threats to the town centre, firstly with the spread of the out of town supermarkets that have attracted trade away from the established food outlets, followed by the popularity of Internet trading which has enticed shoppers with lower prices for goods delivered to the door.

The effect on Bourne and other towns has since become evident with businesses closing and retail premises standing empty while streets jammed with traffic and insufficient parking for customers coupled with the rising costs involving wages, electricity and the business rate, have added to the burden of the small shopkeeper with the result that many have given up to be replaced by charity shops, estate agents and fast food outlets.

At the same time, traffic flows have increased annually. A south-west relief road opened in 2005 has helped reduce the number of vehicles using the town centre but hopes for a more important north-south bypass, originally promised by Lincolnshire County Council in 1991, have long been abandoned and it is now unlikely to materialise in the foreseeable future.

This is the Bourne town centre we have today and we can only speculate what the future holds but the cosy picture postcard image we have had in the past of a tranquil and unhurried market town appears to have gone for good.