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Saturday 2nd July 2005
The Civic Society which runs the Heritage Centre at
Baldock’s Mill in South Street strives to make the displays interesting but
because funds are limited there is a great dependence on voluntary effort. The
main attraction is the Memorial Room devoted to the life of one of our famous
sons, Raymond Mays (1899-1980), who made his name on the international racing
circuits as a driver and designer during the middle years of the 20th century.
But Bourne has produced many other subjects who deserve a place in this modest
hall of fame and Charles Worth is high on the list. At the moment, his
illustrious career as a fashion designer is marked in the Heritage Centre only
by a small display of photographs and documents but chairman Mrs Brenda Jones is
anxious to increase its scope with examples of the magnificent costumes he
created at his Paris salon where he dressed the world’s richest and most famous
women.
The story of Charles Frederick Worth (1825-1895) is one of unbounded success in
his chosen field with a cult status similar to that enjoyed today by Chanel,
Prada or Gucci. He was the son of local solicitor William Worth and was born at
the family home at Wake House in North Street, leaving school at the age of 11
and then travelling to France while still a lad. Yet by 1855 he was
demonstrating his work at the Paris exhibition and three years later opened his
salon in the Rue de la Paix which was to become world famous, creating exquisite
hour-glass gowns for distinguished clients such as Princess Alexandra, wife of
the future Edward VII, Princess Metternich, wife of the Austrian Ambassador to
Paris, the Empress Eugénie, wife of Napoleon III, the English actress Sarah
Bernhardt, and the nobility and royalty of Russia, Austria, Italy and Spain.
The salon also became an important call for wealthy American women doing the
grand tour and even Queen Victoria is reputed to have bought one of his
creations. The exotic ladies of the night also insisted on wearing underwear by
Worth and one of his greatest advertisements was the famous courtesan Cora
Pearl. This lady was actually English and had started life as Emma Crouch and
numerous photographs exist of her wearing the fullest, widest and most fussy of
his crinolines imaginable.
Charles Worth left an elegant legacy to world fashion. Seventy of his creations
survive but they are scattered around a dozen museums in America and Europe. One
fine example can be seen at Deene Park near Corby in Northamptonshire, which is
open to the public at various times throughout the year, although the biggest
collection is in the United States, notably at the Brooklyn Museum in New York.
The perfect solution would be for the Civic Society to purchase one of his
dresses but these are virtually unobtainable and when they do come on the market
they fetch phenomenal prices but many photographs of his work exist. What is
needed is a seamstress of some skill who would be prepared to copy one, perhaps
two of the designs, from photographs and they could then be displayed on
tailor’s dummies as the main feature of the Charles Worth section. Such work
would be a challenge but they would add depth to the display and provide an
added interest for lady visitors who may not share the enthusiasm of the men for
motor racing.
If anyone out there would like to help, then please send me an email and I will
pass it on to Mrs Jones who will be in touch. The task would be daunting but
rewarding because whoever volunteered for the work would not only be following
in the footsteps of the master but also re-creating his designs for everyone to
enjoy in the future.
Although Charles Worth left Bourne to seek his fortune in Europe, he
always remembered his roots. The books written about him do not deal with this
aspect of his life in great detail and it has been generally believed that he
never again returned to his home town. But my research has proved otherwise.
He maintained his friendship with a number of people in Bourne, among them
Robert Mason Mills, founder of the aerated water business, Henry Bott, landlord
of the Angel Hotel, and John Bellairs Roberts, a chemist and druggist of North
Street. Worth found great pleasure in meeting with them and reminiscing about
his boyhood and his days attending the Old Grammar School, then known as King
Charles I's Grammar School, during the headship of Walter Scott. He also made
other visits with his two sons, staying with Mr Stephen Andrews, a solicitor who
subsequently bought Wake House in North Street and took over the legal practice.
One of the most interesting stories concerning Worth originated during one of
these visits at a time when his creations had become internationally known but
he was always on the lookout for new ideas and a tale of this constant
observance was remembered by one of the town's family doctors, John Galletly
(1899-1993), who had been told it by one of his patients earlier in the century.
One day, a lady who prided herself on dressing fashionably, was waiting for a
train on the platform of Bourne railway station when she became agitated by the
conduct of a man who appeared to be keeping her under close scrutiny. Unable to
bear such unwanted attention any longer, she sought out the stationmaster and
complained that the stranger was rudely walking round her and staring intently
at her dress. The stationmaster smiled and replied: "Madam, you should feel
honoured because that man is the great Worth himself."
Wake House dates back to the early 19th century and was built on the site of the
old Waggon and Horses hostelry that was pulled down to make way for it. His
father, William Worth lived there and ran his business from the premises
but a dissolute lifestyle and various ill-advised financial speculations cost
him the ownership.
In recent years, the property has been used as the local offices of South
Kesteven District Council but stood empty from 1996 until 1999 when a voluntary
organisation, the Bourne Arts and Community Trust, was granted a lease and it is
now used as an arts, crafts and community centre. For some years, there was a
small metal plate commemorating the birth of Charles Worth in 1825 fixed to the
outside wall of Wake House by the council but this was removed during
restoration work and never replaced until December 2002 when the vacant space
was filled by a prestigious blue plaque installed by English Heritage marking
its connections with the famous Paris designer who is described as the "Father
of Haute Couture".
What the local newspapers are saying: The continued closure of the south
west relief road, completed four weeks ago yet still sealed off to traffic
because of a squabble between the developers, Allison Homes, and the highways
authority, Lincolnshire County Council, is now the subject of ridicule by the
media and even attracted the attention of BBC TV with an item on East
Midlands Today (June 29th). This is to be expected because ineptitude at
high level, whoever is to blame, is always news while the public suffers the
consequences with fortitude. It is unfortunate for the image of Bourne because
modern technology has flashed this story around the world and it does little for
the reputation of Spalding-based house builders Allison Homes while local
government in the shape of Lincolnshire County Council is seen to be totally
ineffectual. Who is in charge of the clattering train?
Although the delay in opening this road continues to be a talking point in the
town, it appears to have slipped from the headlines of our two main local
newspapers this week except for a letter in the Stamford Mercury which
encapsulates public opinion (July 1st). Mr B Hart of Pinewood Close, Bourne, has
obviously kept a diary of what the newspaper calls “the sorry saga of our wait
for a bypass” because he quotes dates and events of the development between 2002
and the present day including the various announcements that were made about its
opening, all of which have proved to be false. “At last the relief road is
completed”, writes Mr Hart in his entry for June 2005, “but there is no relief
because the road stays shut. We the public are amazed that it has been completed
and even more amazed at the fact that a local house builder is able to keep it
closed at will. So many questions need answering that a public inquiry into this
three year fiasco is now overdue.”
The Local reports on an incident involving an unexploded bomb that turned
up in a bag of linen delivered from a house clearance to Richardson’s Auction
Rooms in Spalding Road (July 1st). An examination identified it as a hand
grenade, thought to be primed and ready to be detonated if the safety pin was
removed, a coincidental occurrence in the year that we celebrate the 60th
anniversary of the ending of the Second World War, and so the building was
evacuated, a safety precaution that reminded me of those dark days between 1939
and 1945 when every suspicious item found in a public place was treated as an
unexploded bomb. The police and a bomb disposal team from Lincoln arrived and
cordoned off the auction rooms and then safely removed the grenade although it
was later discovered that it was not dangerous after all. “People tend to keep
these kind of things as ornaments”, explained Inspector Dick Holmes afterwards,
“but they can cause a lot of damage and the building might have been blown up
with horrific consequences but everyone remained calm, we followed the correct
procedures and no one was hurt.”
The incident was not however an unusual occurrence for the saleroom owner, Chris
Richardson, who told the Stamford Mercury: “In the past we have found
mortars, grenades and even an old Martini Henry rifle. It always causes a bit of
a kerfuffle but we are quite used to dealing with this sort of thing.”
The spelling of Haconby appears in a headline in The Local as
Hacconby and although some villagers insist on this form, it is incorrect (July
1st). The name Haconby, spelled with one "c", was officially adopted in 1960
after many years of confusion. The Ordnance Survey were busy preparing new maps
for the area and on discovering the variation in spelling between Haconby and
Hacconby in previous publications, decided to seek the opinion of the local
authorities. South Kesteven District Council met at Bourne on Thursday November
17th to discuss the issue but it was soon revealed that there was also a third
spelling in use in some places: Hackonby.
During the discussion, the clerk, Mr J Goulder, produced a letter from the Vicar
of Morton with Hacconby, the Rev E G Close, who had carried out extensive
research into the problem. "There seems to be plenty of precedent for retaining
the spelling most commonly used today, namely Hacconby", he wrote and he then
went on to quote four instances from literary and other sources in which
Hacconby was used: The King's England - Lincolnshire (1949); Lincolnshire (Cox
1916), Diocesan Calendar, and his own letters of institution as vicar under the
Seal of Lincoln in 1953. He said that the Church Commissioners also used
Hacconby.
Fifteen other cases of Hacconby from documents, letters and the like were also
mentioned by Mr Close against only five that favoured Haconby. The spelling was
also evident in the marriage, burial and baptism registers for the parish as
early as 1755 and in the Hacconby Highway Book containing payments by the
Overseers of the Poor and which began in 1807 although there was a short period
when Hackonby had been used. A similar variation could be noted in the parish
church which had Hacconby on the chalice of 1832 and Hackonby on the paten of
1834.
A letter was also received from Mr J Goodman who signed himself as Clerk to
Haconby Parish Council and which said: "My council has instructed me to write
that the name of this village should be Haconby" but Mr Goodman had typed his
address as "The Manor, Hacconby." Councillor H W Wyer said that he knew of only
one person in the village who spelled it Hacconby while Councillor C F Bates
thought it should be Hacconby by derivation although if the parish council
thought differently, he would abandon his original view.
When the issue was put to a ballot, three councillors favoured Haconby but the
votes for Hacconby were so numerous that they were not counted. In the event,
the final decision was taken by Kesteven County Council who chose Haconby, the
spelling that is in use today, although examples of Hacconby still survive on
old road signs and several tombstones in the churchyard.
Thought for the week: We live under a government of men and morning
newspapers. – Wendell Phillips, United States reformer (1811-84).
Saturday 9th July 2005
Anyone with a water butt in the garden that is replenished from the roofs
of the shed or garage when it rains will know if we have had too much or too
little wet weather. My own has never been empty this year and although my garden
is a very modest one, I have watered my plants from it continually without
having to resort to the tap.
Yet our water authorities are already crying wolf, seeking restrictions on
supplies to customers in the coming months and this area of Lincolnshire has not
been excluded. Firstly they wish to ban the use of hosepipes and secondly the
installation of meters is seen as a priority for those properties still subject
to the old system of billing.
Both enforcements have merit. There was a time when garden sprinklers could only
be used legally by those who had bought the appropriate licence for around £30
a year but today you need to have a meter installed which will ensure that you
pay for what you use and as a sprinkler consumes rather a lot, home owners will
soon cut back because meters act as a constant reminder of an ever mounting bill
when water is being wasted or even used in a profligate manner. But in the
meantime, those who settle their accounts annually for an unmeasured supply are
entitled to just that and if restrictions are to be imposed then they should be
given a rebate because they will be paying for something they are not getting.
As in the past, this will not happen. Furthermore, the installation of meters at
all properties within a water authority’s area will inevitably lead to higher
prices. The device is designed to persuade home owners reduce water usage which
will therefore cut their bills yet the water authorities need not only their
current level of income but increases in the order of 5-10% each year to meet
staff salary improvements and capital expenditure. If income drops therefore,
the price of metered water supplies will inevitably rise.
It is this latter area of capital expenditure that gives cause for concern
because it has been neglected in past years, especially since the water
authorities were privatised in 1989 when greater consideration was given to
dividends paid to shareholders rather than the improvement of the
infrastructure. I have been covering the activities of water authorities for
over half a century and the same problem of 1955 persists in 2005, that of
leaking pipes, and it is indeed a poor industry that does not make provision for
a rainy day and that is exactly what has happened. In the Daily Mail on
June 30th, Geoffrey Lean reported that in 2003-04, the water companies lost 802
million gallons a day through leakage, the greatest amount for six years, and
that means that on average an incredible 34 gallons of water seeped away each
day for each and every home in the country.
Many of the water authorities are still dependent on ancient mains that leak
like sieves and badly need replacement but it is easier to blame looming
shortages on low levels in rivers and reservoirs, drought conditions and their
own customers for using too much rather than sanction specific projects
involving high spending over and above the usual routine maintenance.
There is a two-fold solution to the current situation. Repair the leaking pipes
and build sea water desalination plants, a geographically sensible answer for
Anglian Water which administers a large slice of Eastern England bordering the
North Sea. The oil rich states of the Middle East do not have water shortages,
despite the searing temperatures, and their golf courses are always green, due
mainly to water provided by massive desalination plants, projects often designed
and supervised by British engineers. This would solve all of our problems but
first, the leaking pipes must be sealed to halt this horrendous wastage and to
stop the water authorities from continually blaming their customers for the
resulting shortages.
What the local newspapers are saying: The continuing saga over the south
west relief road for Bourne, completed five weeks ago yet still not being used,
is highlighted by the Stamford Mercury with a plea by councillors to end
the farce and open the new carriageway to traffic (July 8th). The road has been
built by the developers Allison Homes as part of the planning gain for the
2,000-home Elsea Park estate but they are refusing to hand it over until
agreement is reached with Lincolnshire County Council, the highways authority,
over the cost of a new primary school that they have also promised to provide.
Talks have dragged on for several weeks while the road remains sealed off by
barriers and bollards and Councillor Philip Dilks (Deeping St James) told the
newspaper: “This is creating unwanted flak for the decision makers at County
Hall. The council has become a laughing stock for having a brand new bypass that
motorists are being forced to bypass. We need to urgently to knock heads
together, solve the problem and get this road open so that it can start taking
some of the traffic congestion out of Bourne town centre.”
The county council does seem to be the architect of its own misfortune because
the Mercury also reveals that the developers were given a veto on the
opening of the road and this has encouraged them to hold the authority to ransom
until discussions on another matter, namely the primary school, are
satisfactorily resolved. The ridiculous nature of the current stalemate is
effectively described by Paul Andrews, county education spokesman, who said:
“The developers have linked the issue of the school with the opening of the road
which was never the case. These were two separate agreements. There is a
document that could be signed immediately to get the road open but it remains on
the table until this situation is sorted out.”
If this is correct, then why is the road still closed? Perhaps one of the 42
lawyers the county council employs could be briefed about the case and point out
to Allison Homes the error of its ways to ensure that it is opened without
further delay.
The 1.3-acre site in Manning Road, Bourne, currently occupied by Johnson
Brothers, the agricultural engineering company, has been earmarked for a new
sheltered housing complex of 45 apartments for old people, mainly over 75 years
old, and so meet an increased need for this type of accommodation in line with
government guidelines. The plans are revealed in a front-page story in The
Local which says that the proposed three-storey complex will have live-in
care staff, a restaurant and formal gardens (July 8th). The plans have already
been submitted to South Kesteven District Council for approval and a public
meeting that will enable local people find out more is to be held at the Corn
Exchange on Friday 22nd July. The long-established firm of Johnson Brothers
currently use the site for storing tractors and selling agricultural machinery
but have decided to relocate because of security fears after the theft of
valuable equipment in recent years. The housing scheme is the first of its kind
to come before the council and principal planning officer Mark Shipman
explained: “It is a brand new concept, not quite a hospital but staff will be
able to care for people with all levels of illness.” The developers say that
residents will be able to lease the apartments but there would also be an
allocation set aside for council tenants.
Bees love borage and if you walk into a field of it at this time of the
year you will find them at their busiest. Borage (Borago officinalis) is
a herb with brilliant blue, star-like flowers and greyish-green leaves and may
be seen growing wild during the summer months on banks and in hedges but it is
also cultivated as a commercial crop in some isolated places in South
Lincolnshire.
Borage is a hardy annual plant that originated in Aleppo, Syria, but has since
become naturalised in most parts of Europe and frequently found in this country,
often on rubbish heaps and near dwellings and so may be regarded as a garden
escape because it was for many years grown for the kitchen, both for its uses as
a herb and for the sake of its flowers which can be candied to decorate
confectionery, as well as yielding excellent honey.
In addition, the young leaves have a faint cucumber flavour and make an
interesting addition to salads or they can be infused to make a refreshing and
restorative summer drink when compounded with lemon and sugar in wine or water.
In the 19th century, it was always an ingredient in cool tankards of wine and
cider and is still used to add flavour to a claret cup.
The name may be derived from the Latin burra, meaning a shaggy garment,
on account of the rough hairy leaves of the plant. John Gerard, the famous 16th
century herbalist, wrote of borage: “Those of our time do use the flour in
salads, to exhilarate and make the mind glad. There be also many things made of
these used everywhere for the comfort of the heart, for the driving away of
sorrow and increasing joy. The leaves and flowers of borage put into wine make
men and women glad and merry and drive away all sadness, dullness and
melancholy. Syrup made of the flowers comforts the heart and quiets the frenetic
and lunatic person. The leaves eaten raw engender good blood, especially in
those that have been lately sick.”
The diarist John Evelyn also had a few words to say about the comforting
properties of the herb. Writing at the close of the 17th century, he said:
“Sprigs of borage are of known virtue to revive the hypochondriac and cheer the
hard student” while other claims for its rejuvenating properties suggested that
it was successful in treating putrid and pestilential fevers, snake bites,
jaundice, consumption, fainting, itching, ringworm, inflammation of the eyes,
sore throat and rheumatism and useful as a demulcent, diuretic and emollient and
as a poultice for inflammatory swellings. Borage was much used in France for
fevers and pulmonary complaints and by virtue of its saline constituents in the
stem and leaves, promoted the activity of the kidneys and treated chronic
catarrhs.
Today, most of these uses have disappeared and apart from appearing in some
domestic herb gardens, borage is grown for the production of honey. A few days
ago, I found a specially planted crop at Wilsthope, four miles south of Bourne,
where a local bee keeper had moved ten of his portable hives, each containing
flourishing colonies of several thousand bees, to the field's edge to take
advantage of the sudden abundance of nectar created by the flowers and will no
doubt soon be reaping the benefit with many jars of much sought after
Lincolnshire borage honey whose producers still claim some of the therapeutic
benefits of yesteryear.
The 60th anniversary of VE and VJ days which marked the ending of the
Second World War of 1939-45 will be remembered with a short outdoor service at
the Memorial Gardens in South Street, Bourne on Sunday afternoon. The date
chosen is midway between VE Day (Victory in Europe on 8th May 1945) and VJ Day
(Victory in Japan on 15th August 1945).
The stone cenotaph is rarely used, usually only on Remembrance Sunday in
November, and last year this moving ceremony was marred by the lack of
maintenance. Weeds were sprouting between the paving slabs and there was rubbish
on the steps and it was evident that no work had been done to prepare for the
event even though it was a civic occasion with important guests from the
locality.
It would have seemed reasonable to expect that those who are supposed to care
for this monument, erected by public subscription in 1956, would take the
trouble to maintain it with tender loving care in memory of those who made the
sacrifice but that was not the case. Not a brush or a trowel had been used to
clean it up or remove the weeds. Nettles, groundsel and grass had pushed their
way through the cracks and crevices and scraps of litter added to the general
appearance of untidiness.
The War Memorial Gardens are in the care of Bourne United Charities. It is their
responsibility to maintain this green and pleasant place, a task financed by the
generous proceeds it receives from the legacies of past benefactors (gross
income in 2003 was £298,826). There have been criticisms in the past that this
work is not being done as it should and parts of the Wellhead Gardens, St
Peter’s Pool and the banks of the Bourne Eau that runs through the park, are in
urgent need of attention.
But the immediate concern is the neglect of the War Memorial on those days that
it gets a high profile from our civic leaders and visiting dignitaries. Bourne
deserves better and we look to the trustees of BUC to ensure that it does not
happen again on Sunday.
Message from abroad: Feeling increasingly ill, I sought a doctor and
easily got an appointment within a few hours. The practice was a single general
practitioner, operating out of her own house. A fine double-fronted building in
a leafy tree-lined street, with a small extension containing a waiting room for
about six people, a consulting room and a laboratory. She advised an X-ray and
within minutes a sitting-ambulance was at the door to take me to a small clinic
in an adjacent street where I was exposed and given the print to return to the
doctor. On examining it, I was given a prescription and advised to refrain from
work. The whole experience, from arriving at the surgery to leaving the pharmacy
with my packet of tablets, took just under two hours. And the total cost was
less than 50 euros [£33]. I felt that not only was I being treated as a human
being but also as though I was re-living my own youth because this was the way
things were done in the United Kingdom 50 years ago. What have we lost in our
centralised, managed, patient mangle of an NHS? – contribution to the Bourne
Forum from local resident Bob Harvey while working at Hengelo, Twente, in the
Netherlands, Saturday 2nd July 2005.
Thought for the week: It is not enough to succeed. Others must fail.
–
Gore Vidal, American novelist and political commentator, (1925-).
Saturday 16th July 2005
Social historians tread a fine line between fact and
fiction, preferring documentary evidence rather than the oral tradition, the
human memory being fallible and usually wrong. It is therefore better to rely on
the written word whenever it is available.
Past accounts of Bourne’s history contain a reference to the visit of John
Wesley, the great evangelist, during the late 18th century. He had been banned
from the pulpits of Britain and eventually travelled 250,000 miles, preaching
40,000 sermons on a spiritual odyssey, mostly outdoors to small gatherings. His
supposed visit to Bourne is recorded by the local historian J D Birkbeck during
an account of the growth of Methodism in the town that appears in his studious
work A History of Bourne (1970) but the reference is a brief one and almost
non-committal because it says: “There is a tradition that John Wesley himself
visited Bourne in 1782 and that he found some of his followers already active in
the town but this is difficult to substantiate.”
I have recently discovered a more significant account of Wesley’s visit in a
rare book called Methodist Memories, published privately around 1930 by H A
Sneath who spent many years researching the origins of Methodism in the
locality. This slim and modest volume has been out of print for decades although
a copy came up for sale at the auction rooms in Bourne last year with a reserve
of £70, an indication that it is still sought after and quite valuable.
The story of Wesley’s visit is told with verve and imagination under the title
“The Solitary Horseman”, recounting how the preacher was returning to London
from a conference at York when he turned off the Great North Road at
Colsterworth and headed for Bourne after learning that Methodism had recently
been established in the town. Sneath goes on:
The solitary horseman paused and drew rein
as he emerged through Bourne Wood and, casting his eyes eastwards, he saw the
towers of Peterborough Cathedral and the remainder of Crowland's lordly abbey
while in the north east he beheld the [Boston] Stump where only a week ago on
his journey to Lincoln he had met with a goodly company of those whose heart God
had touched, and from his lips there broke the prayer contained in the hymn "Begone
unbelief, my Saviour is near."
Slowly proceeding into the honourable and ancient town of Bourne, he made his
way to a quiet hostelry in West Street, the Golden Lion, kept by one John Bray.
This good man stared in astonishment as the solitary horseman dismounted and
unpacked his saddlebags. First came out his Greek testament, lined and scored in
a thousand places; then the bible his mother gave him when he went up to Oxford,
bound in brown leather and showing signs of continued and constant use, for he
read them as he rode. He bade the ostler tend well his chestnut mare and
proceeded to his room. As he sat down to meat, he had three books in front of
him, for he had realised the worth and value of his bible, and to those who had
joined his society he continually urged that they should make the bible their
own, and his constant cry to his young people was: "Make the bible yours before
you are twenty."
After partaking of a frugal meal, he sallied forth into the town to make a few
judicious enquiries about his people called Methodists. He learned that there
was a disposition on the part of the inhabitants to hear the word and that James
Redshaw, a saddler, and George Hardwick, a cordwainer, and Thomas Pilkington, a
builder, had joined together to rent a small room in North Street in which the
Gospel of the Kingdom of God could be preached. In the Market Place, he erected
his banner and preached to a crowd of curious people from John 3,16. telling
them that if they would be saved they must repent and believe in the Gospel. He
announced that a prayer meeting would be held at 5 o'clock the following morning
and afterwards he would meet Brother Bellamy's class for tickets.
As the news spread that the solitary horseman had arrived, there gathered at
that prayer meeting friends from Dyke, Toft and Thurlby, all eager to see and
hear the wonderful man. As he enquired, he found that some had already received
the call to preach and were found Sabbath by Sabbath filling the pulpits (and
there were pulpits in those days, like the one at Duke) and telling the joyful
news.
But the solitary horseman has to get on with his work and journey, so at 8 am
the following day we see him bidding his little flock farewell, and before he
leaves the district he distributes amongst them copies of the bible and the WM
Magazine and again urging them to be not only hearers but doers of the Word, he
commends them and theirs to God and goes on his way rejoicing, to Market Deeping
and Peterborough and then on to London to meet his preachers in the City Road
Chapel.
This is a most detailed and convincing account and one that
appears to have been the result of thorough research but there is many a
doubting Thomas, not least from among the Methodist congregation, who have
dismissed it as a work of fiction and one has suggested that before he died in
1931 at the age of 71, Sneath admitted making the whole thing up. On hearing
this, my first reaction was to inquire about the documentary evidence or even
personal testimony for such a deathbed confession but I gather that none is
forthcoming.
Henry A Sneath was a wealthy farmer and corn merchant of Bowthorpe Park,
Manthorpe, near Bourne, a pillar of the church and community and a man of
honesty and integrity. He was also an amateur historian whose work was published
in local newspapers, particularly the Lincolnshire Free Press and it was a
series of articles from that newspaper on Methodism in Bourne and the
surrounding villages that form the basis of the book in which his postscript is
the epitome of sincerity: “With the editor’s assistance, these articles are now
found in a more permanent form and published for the benefit of the [Methodist]
Circuit it has been my honour and privilege to serve for so many years.”
Religion is riddled with tales that have no basis in fact, starting with Christ
himself, but these do not sound like the words of a man who fabricated his
research and so we must judge the book on its merits. If we discount the
veracity of one article then we must treat the whole as suspect yet this volume
stands as one of the most detailed and informative accounts of the growth of
Methodism in the Bourne area ever written, a paean to the faith in the South
Lincolnshire countryside. Copies survive and extracts have been reproduced
elsewhere and so, rightly or wrongly, Sneath’s work will remain as fact long
after those who denied it have passed on. After all, much that is written about
Hereward the Wake and especially about his supposed connections with Bourne has
never been substantiated yet is still accepted as fact because we prefer to
believe it. Such stories become a tradition, an accepted belief, but in the
final analysis, we must make our own choice.
What the local newspapers are saying: The saga of the unopened south west
relief road rumbles on with no sign of a settlement in the squabble between the
developers, house builders Allison Homes, and Lincolnshire County Council, the
highways authority. An indication of just how ineffective our local councillors
can be is reported by the Stamford Mercury which says that negotiations
between the two sides continue but the road remains closed for yet another week
(July 15th). The report then quotes county councillor William Webb (Holbeach
Rural) who also holds the highways portfolio on the authority. He told the
newspaper that discussions had been taking place behind closed doors and added:
“I know nothing about this situation and cannot add anything to the debate.”
Councillor Webb is one of 77 elected members on the county council, among them
our own representatives, Ian Croft (Bourne Castle) and Mark Horn (Bourne Abbey),
who also remain silent on the issue, as do the 56 members of South Kesteven
District Council (six of them from Bourne, including the chairman and the
leader) which originally negotiated the Section 106 agreement, the legal
contract formalising the responsibilities of the developers for the building of
the road, a planning gain in return for permission to build the controversial 2,000 home Elsea Park
estate. It is at times like this that we need our councillors to speak out, to
demonstrate to the electorate that they have not been abandoned and that
something is being done on their behalf in an attempt to resolve this ridiculous
impasse. Instead, their silence speaks volumes
about the inadequacies of our local authorities and those who serve on them.
A new development is on the way for Bourne Grammar School which, according to
The Local, is bidding for specialist teaching status in the performing arts,
such as music, drama and English, by the year 2007 (July 15th). This would make
it eligible for up to £650,000 in additional resources but first the school must
raise £50,000 to support the application. A local company, Delaine Buses, has
already pledged £5,000 to launch the fund to finance an arts centre which would
also be used by other schools and further support to raise the remaining amount
is being sought from other businesses and parents in time for the bid to be
submitted in October next year. “The performing arts are strong subjects at the
school yet drama currently has no specialist teaching place”, explained head
teacher Jonathan Maddox. “The generous contribution from Delaine Buses has got
us off to a magnificent start.”
This is the time of year that villages and hamlets throughout the country are
holding their summer fairs, feasts and fetes and organisers who have been
toiling for months to provide suitable attractions, pray for fine weather. There
are few communities around the Bourne area without the inevitable notice at the
roadside announcing their particular event, often with the proviso "In barn if
wet" but for once, that is unlikely to happen this weekend because the met men
have forecast that the weather will be sunny and pleasant. A list of the many
village functions can be found in the excellent feature "What's on listings"
carried by The Local (July 15th) and detailing something for everyone's
taste from open gardens and strawberry teas to galas and fun runs. There is
therefore no excuse to be at a loose end with nothing to do. Just check out the
list and turn up to an event that appeals and you may be assured of a warm
welcome for this is England at its very best.
During my researches into the history of Bourne, I found a reference to a
putting green on the Abbey Lawn. It is no longer there but I was reminded that
such a facility was once a feature of most public parks and seaside front
entertainments.
The green usually consisted of nine miniature holes and the game was played with
smaller versions of the clubs you see on the real golf courses
today. There were variations of the game, such as clock golf, but all could be
played by the visitor as a diversion at weekends or during holidays and I know
that they still exist in some parts of the country.
The Abbey Lawn putting green was busy in 1965 when it was a great attraction in
the summer months when visitors could spend an enjoyable hour or so for 3d. a
round. Three pence in those days, when there were 240 pence to the pound, would
be about 20p at today's values and so you can imagine that it was a very popular
pastime, especially for courting couples on hot and sunny Sunday afternoons when
the ice cream man was waiting nearby with his Stop-me-and-buy-one pedal cart, a
scene redolent of another more leisurely age.
If the people of Bourne were asked today if they wanted a return of the putting
green, there might well be a vote in favour from the old generation but I feel
sure that the youngsters would prefer a skateboard park.
Message from abroad: Just want to say that this is a great site. Along
with family history, I am now in the process of learning about creating web
sites and this is one of the best I have seen in terms of easy to use, content
and visual appeal. – entry in our guest book from Lynda Mee, Milton, Ontario,
Canada, Tuesday 12th July 2005.
Thought for the week: History is more or less bunk. It’s tradition. We
don’t want tradition. We want to live in the present and the only history that
is worth a tinker’s damn is the history we make today.
– Henry Ford, U S car
manufacturer who founded the Ford Motor Company and introduced assembly line
production (1863-1947).
Saturday 23rd July 2005
The possibility that John Wesley, the great evangelist,
visited Bourne, has provoked a discussion in the Forum on the reliability of our
history, especially that which is not supported by documentary evidence. The
description of Wesley’s arrival, recounted in my Diary last week, was drawn from
an old book, Methodist Memories, written around 1930 by H A Sneath, a pillar of
the church and community and a man of honesty and integrity, yet he has been
accused in some quarters of fabricating the tale.
Henry Ford, the American motor car pioneer whom I quoted in my Diary for his
famous remark about history being bunk, probably got it right. He was not, as
some people have suggested, attacking our heritage but whether all of that which
we are told in history is accurate and the answer of course is that it is not.
Many of our books on the subject are incorrect while newspaper clippings
carrying erroneous reports are quoted repeatedly by the BBC and elsewhere, so
perpetuating mistakes that filter through into the subconscious and eventually
take on the aura of truth and this is the bunk to which Ford was referring.
There are many people in the town who still believe that the Gunpowder Plot was
hatched at the Red Hall but that is not the case. The hall was not built until
1605, the year the dastardly plan was discovered and the perpetrators sentenced.
Sir Everard Digby, who was one of the main conspirators, never lived there as
has been assumed since, but at Stoke Dry, near Uppingham, Rutland, and was one
of the great landowners in the East Midlands. The Digby family who eventually
owned the hall did not arrive until a century later and were not related. Yet
this story has persisted and I have recently been stopped in the street while
taking photographs by a long-time Bourne resident who insisted that it was true
because it had been told to him by his mother who in turn had been taught it at
school and references still appear in official guides because the authors take
little or no trouble to research their work and merely copy from old accounts.
But whether John Wesley did or did not visit Bourne has become a matter of
personal conviction because there is no evidence to support either theory. His
arrival as the solitary horseman, riding down West Street and preaching in the
market place, survives in print and as it has also been repeated so many times,
it will not go away. It is also such a colourful and imaginative account that we
want it to be true and so it will be in the future because there is no way of
proving otherwise.
Similarly, I have discovered another story of a famous person visiting Bourne,
this time concerning Oliver Cromwell (1599-1658), Puritan leader of the
Parliamentary side during the English civil war. He was a small landowner who
entered Parliament in 1629 and became active in the events leading to the
conflict, raising cavalry forces which aided the victories at Edgehill in 1642
and Marston Moor in 1644 and organising the New Model Army, the Ironsides, which
he led to victory at Naseby in 1645. He declared Britain a republic from 1653,
established religious tolerance and raised Britain’s prestige in Europe on the
basis of an alliance with France against Spain.
Past historians of Bourne have suggested that it was his troops who destroyed
the castle, the artillery of the Parliamentary army firing at it from the rising
ground to the west, leaving only the mounds and hillocks that can be found in
the Wellhead Gardens today while the resulting stone and rubble was used to
build the Shippon Barn, its ancient pedigree evident from the arrow slits that
can still be seen in the walls. All of this can be found in historical accounts
yet there is no firm evidence that a castle ever existed in Bourne.
I have also recently discovered another suggestion, made by the Stamford Mercury
on Friday 31st July 1953, that Cromwell had worshipped at the Baptist Church in
West Street. The report says that the present building was erected in 1835 and
adds:
But there was a previous building on the
site, erected circa 1645 during the period of Puritan ascendancy in the year
that Cromwell began his military career by flashing the swords of his newly
formed army in his Lincolnshire campaign. This was prior to his victory at
Marston Moor and there may be historical warrant for the tradition that he
captured Bourne Castle, then garrisoned by Royalist troops. It is not therefore
improbable that Cromwell and his Ironsides may have joined with their Bourne
brethren in worship at the new meeting house in West Street.
Indeed, this is now accepted as fact because the belief among
church members is that many of these soldiers were Baptists and other
non-conformists who attended meetings in the houses and barns of those with a
similar faith living in the locality. Bourne Baptists therefore accept
Cromwell’s visit and the date of 1645 as their founding year and celebrate
accordingly, as they did in November 1995 when they marked their 350th
anniversary.
These tales of famous visits may or may not be true and indeed, tourist trails
and metal plaques paying homage to the great and the good have been established
elsewhere in England on far flimsier evidence, but there are sufficient
documentary references to persuade us to remember them and so perhaps we should
add their names to those already perpetuated in Bourne alongside our most famous
character, Hereward the Wake, the Saxon hero whose stirring reputation has very
little foundation and depends entirely on colourful fictional accounts. If we
take Hereward to our hearts, then we should also accept the fleeting presence of
Wesley and Cromwell. The alternative is, as Henry Ford suggests, to treat it all
as bunk.
What the local newspapers are saying: The anger in the town over the
continued closure of the new south west relief road, completed almost two months
ago, is now evident in our two main local newspapers which are in a campaigning
mood, both carrying urgent pleas on their front pages to the developers, Allison
Homes, and the highways authority, Lincolnshire County Council, to shelve their
differences in the cause of the public good and open the carriageway
immediately. “Enough is enough”, writes editor Lisa Bruen in The Local.
“That is the message from the people of Bourne whose new relief road lies
dormant while traffic plagues the town” (July 22nd).
The newspaper also reports condemnation of the situation from members attending
Bourne Town Council’s monthly meeting on Tuesday when the mayor, Councillor Judy
Smith told colleagues: “We have been treated shabbily and I am disgusted. The
road is a total waste of money if it is not being used.” Councillor Shirley
Cliffe added her voice to the criticism. “This is absolutely ridiculous”, she
said. “We are the laughing stock of South Lincolnshire.” But, adds the
newspaper, “Allison Homes still refuse to comment on the situation.”
There is similar outrage in the Stamford Mercury which carries a front
page editorial under the headline “Open our road” (July 22nd). “It is the £5
million road to nowhere”, says the report. “The long-awaited relief road is
finished but much to the frustration of residents, they can’t yet get on it.”
The newspaper then makes a bid for sanity to prevail. “We are calling on council
officials and Allison Homes to sort out this mess and get this much-needed road
open now.”
Both newspapers are urging readers to complain directly to the Chief Executive
of Lincolnshire County Council and the Mercury also prints a form making it
easier for them to do so. But at the moment, the prognosis is not good because
Brian Thompson, divisional highways manager for the county council, told The
Local: “Opening the road is a high priority for the council but not at any
cost. The legal agreement must be right and will now be redrafted. Then,
hopefully, the road can be opened within the next few months.”
In other words, the town continues to suffer from a bureaucratic wrangle not of
its making and one that brings no credit to Lincolnshire County Council nor
enhances the image of Allison Homes at a time when the company is building and
selling new houses on its prestigious Elsea Park estate. Whatever the rights and
wrongs of the case, the company is directly to blame for the current impasse
because it is in their power to declare the road open or keep it closed for
their own ends. A goodwill gesture from them even at this late stage would
retrieve their reputation as a company that cares for the community.
One of the great things about living in a small town is the voluntary
effort of those belonging to the various organisations which provide a selfless
service for the community and we are the richer for it.
High on the list of those who give their time and effort, and often money, is
the Rotary Club of Bourne and barely a week goes by without news of their latest
endeavours. Their recent efforts have included raising money for local projects,
such as the Butterfield Centre, the day care meeting place for the elderly, to
planting flowers and trees along the town's roadside verges, a project often
vandalised but usually soon repaired by a willing band of helpers who refuse to
bow to the yobs who live in our midst.
The name Rotary was derived from the early practice of rotating club meetings to
different members’ offices and their motto is "Service above self". The first
Rotary emblem was a simple wagon wheel representing civilisation and movement.
In 1923, the present gear wheel with 24 cogs and six spokes was adopted and in
1929, royal blue and gold were chosen as the official colours.
The movement had its beginnings with the formation of the Rotary Club of
Chicago, Illinois, USA, on 23rd February 1905 by a lawyer, Paul P Harris, and
three friends, a merchant, a coal dealer, and a mining engineer. Harris wanted
to promote fellowship among its members and as word spread, other businessmen
were invited to join. By the end of 1905, the club had 30 members and three
years later, a second club was formed in San Francisco, California.
Rotary International today is the world’s largest service organisation for
business and professional people, with some 1.2 million members operating in 163
countries worldwide. In Great Britain and Ireland there are over 59,000
Rotarians in 1,816 clubs, helping those in need and working towards world
understanding and peace. It is a fulfilling role, and Rotarians can become
involved as much or as little as their time will allow.
Rotary clubs meet on a regular basis, which enables members build firm
friendships and to volunteer their efforts to improve the quality of life in
their own communities and beyond. The world’s clubs meet weekly and are
non-political, non-religious, and open to all cultures, races and creeds. Club
membership, by invitation, represents a cross-section of local business and
professional leaders.
Rotarians initiate community projects that address many of today’s most critical
issues. Clubs are autonomous and determine service projects based upon local
needs, their main objective being service to the community and throughout the
world.
The Rotary Club of Bourne was chartered in 1967 as Club No 1059. There are
38 members at present and five honorary members, meeting every Tuesday at 1 pm,
normally at the Angel Hotel but currently at the Wishing Well at Dyke while the
hotel is being modernised, and if there is a fifth Tuesday they have an evening meeting.
Rotary was 100 years old last year and to mark the centenary, members helped
raise funds to equip and support the new youth centre which opened in Bourne
last summer as part of its policy of encouraging youth activities.
One of the club's most significant contributions in Bourne has been to create an
awareness of what is being done for the town and 25 years ago they inaugurated a
silver rose bowl award to be presented annually to individuals or organisations
who have made a significant contribution to the local community or environment
during the previous twelve months. Nominations for the honour are made by
members before being chosen and approved by the club.
The presentation is made at a lunch and the recipients to date have been varied,
ranging from a lady street cleaner to the Lincolnshire Trust for Nature
Conservation. There have been only two occasions when members decided that there
was not sufficient merit for an award, in 1995 and 1999. This year, it has gone
to Westfield Primary School for its impressive revamped environmental area where
new plants and hedges have enhanced the existing trees with a pond as the main
feature. The area was designed to stimulate the interest of pupils in
environmental issues and to provide what is in fact an outdoor classroom. The
Rotarians were impressed by this and rightly so and as a result the silver rose
bowl will be on display at the school for the coming year in recognition of
their effort the second time the school has won the award.
Thought for the week: People must help one another; it is
nature’s law. – Jean de la Fontaine, French poet (1621-95).
Saturday 30th July 2005
The recent dry spell may have revealed more information
about whether a castle or fortified manor house once existed on the site of the
Wellhead Gardens in South Street, Bourne.
A combination of close mowing and a lack of rain has produced a large number of
circular patches of bare earth on the park land where the grass has died through
lack of moisture, clearly showing the outline of a large building or buildings
that once stood on the spot. A second set of identical marks has appeared to the
west and these may indicate another important structure.
There was a similar occurrence during drought conditions in August 1990 but the
present manifestation is far more detailed and has been welcomed as an
indication of the exact location of Bourne Castle that has mystified historians
for centuries. In the middle of it all stands a silver birch, planted 30 years
ago but still stunted in growth because it has never reached the maturity of
other trees planted in the vicinity at the same time, perhaps indicating low
soil levels on top of stone or some other material that has caused the grass to
die off in patches while the surrounding area remains green.
Bourne Castle is reputed to have been the seat of Saxon lords, Morcar, Oslac,
Leofric and Hereward, but other sources suggest that it was built at a later
date by Baldwin Fitzgilbert although there is little evidence of this and he is
more celebrated for founding the Abbey Church in 1138. The castle is represented
on the town’s coat of arms and is reputed to have survived until the 17th
century when it was destroyed by Cromwell’s Parliamentary army in 1645, his
artillery firing at it from the rising ground to the west, leaving only the
mounds and hillocks that can still be seen in the Wellhead Gardens.
Proof of such a building is sketchy but what emerges from the available written
evidence is not so much a castle as a settlement which would most certainly be
the case because people tended to live near the source of their fresh water,
such as that supplied by St Peter’s Pool, one of the oldest artesian wells in
the country that has figured prominently in the development of the town.
It is a romantic idea to believe that the signs revealed by the dry weather
could be evidence of the castle but it is part of Bourne’s history and that is
how the discoveries will most probably be regarded.
Cyril Holdcroft, who lives nearby in South Street, is in no doubt about their
provenance and is optimistic that they are evidence of the existence of a
castle. “The patches indicate where the towers were situated and this is
exciting because until now it was not known exactly where it was located,” he
said.
Mr Holdcroft, aged 84, a retired cabin services director with British Airways
who has lived in Bourne since 1939, is convinced that a detailed aerial survey
followed by an archaeological dig would produce firm evidence of the stone walls
of the castle, parts of it, perhaps the top sections of the battlements, so
close to the surface that the grass dried up and died during long spells without
rain.
This theory may be fanciful because it is doubtful if a castle with high
walls would sink so low into the earth and even if it did, the patches would be
square rather than round and so a more rational theory would be that they are
post holes from the dwellings and barns of the community that once lived here,
and so the dry patches would be caused by timber below the surface rather than
stone.
The last excavations took place in 1861 and the
subsequent report speculated that there was a castle on the site with two
circular towers with walls three feet thick, forming a gatehouse to an inner
courtyard while other discoveries suggested a drawbridge and a wide moat. It is
reputed that stones from the building, including some containing crossbow arrow
slits that formed part of the castle walls, were salvaged and can still be seen
in what is now the Shippon Barn standing close to the main footpath through the
gardens.
The existence of Bourne Castle is deeply embedded in the perception of the
people who cling to their traditions, and that is as it should be, but the
latest discoveries, although remarkable, do not carry the subject further and
until fresh and firm evidence is forthcoming, we cannot say with any conviction
that it was ever a reality.
Council tenants in the Sedgefield constituency of County Durham (current
Member of Parliament T Blair) have voted against transferring their homes to a
registered social landlord. This will be of interest to all involved in the
transaction currently being contemplated by South Kesteven District Council,
particularly the occupants of their 6,500 houses, flats and maisonettes, 535 of
them in Bourne.
Sedgefield Borough Council was planning a similar scheme for its 9,000
properties to raise almost £130 million but only 42% of tenants supported the
proposal while 58% voted against. The turnout was 73% and was seen as a
resounding vote against the “privatisation” of council housing which was deeply
unpopular among tenants.
The result was accepted without question by the council and leader Bob Fleming
described it as a vote of confidence in its housing services. “We respect the
choice the tenants have made”, he said.
SKDC hopes to raise £36 million with its sell off but the indications are that
the voting will be loaded in their favour with tenants being asked to fill in a
questionnaire saying whether they want to keep their present landlord or not and
each abstention counting as a tick in the box of approval. This is an unjust
method that would not be acceptable if challenged and it is to be hoped that the
council adopts a fairer system before the voting eventually goes ahead.
The result then would most certainly be a foregone conclusion for what is good
enough for the Prime Minister’s constituents will also be good enough for the
council tenants of South Kesteven.
What the local newspapers are saying: The continued closure of Bourne’s
£5 million south west relief road, now in its ninth week, continues to command
column inches in both of our local newspapers and their reports indicate that
the blame lies firmly with the developers, Allison Homes. Martin Hill, leader of
Lincolnshire County Council, the highways authority, writing a letter to the
Stamford Mercury, is unequivocal in his condemnation of the situation (July
29th) because he says: “It is very frustrating from our position, having made
money available with the district council to enable the road to be built early,
seeing barriers put up to prevent its use. Unfortunately, we have no powers to
force the road to be opened until the developers choose to hand the road over
and until then it remains their property.”
Yet the road, built by Allison Homes as part of the planning gain for their new
2,000-home Elsea Park estate, remains sealed off by bollards, barriers and other
obstructions such as huge sections of concrete piping. But direct action is now
a distinct possibility, according to The Local which quotes former mayor,
Councillor Shirley Cliffe, as saying: “I think it is time to get the people out
on the streets to demonstrate. It has gone beyond a joke” (July 29th). Fellow
councillor Guy Cudmore, the deputy mayor, has obviously been thinking along
similar lines because he told the newspaper: “Were it not for the fact that the
obstacles on the road are too heavy, I would have thought that someone would
have moved them by now.”
Similar suggestions have been made by contributors to the Bourne Forum and there
were indications that some physical action might have been taken last weekend
but nothing happened although the mood of the people is now changing because
The Local adds: “Public protests have been called for in the fight for
access to the new road. Officials have said that the opening is still months
away but patience is wearing thin.".
Meanwhile, Allison Homes refuse to explain to the local newspapers why this much
needed road remains closed. Their continued silence on the issue is seen by many
as a failure to acknowledge their public responsibilities and is doing little
for their image in a district where they have become the leading builders of new
homes. Even at this late stage, there is still time to demonstrate their duty to
the community by opening the road and settling their differences with the county
council afterwards.
The price of old postcards has now reached ridiculous levels, as was
demonstrated at the collectors’ fair held at the Bourne Leisure Centre on
Saturday. Lots of dealers, plenty of visitors, but no bargains except for those
with bottomless pockets because the phenomenal cost was out of the range of most
people.
As a local historian, my interest is Bourne but there are few pictures of the
town in past times that I do not have and I was quite surprised to discover that
you would need to pay £20-£30 for a view of the North Street or West Street from
the turn of the century. The cost of railway and motor-car pictures, or shots of
rivers and watermills, was much higher and for those views considered to be
rare, the category depending entirely on the whim of the dealer, you would need
to take out a mortgage.
I have some knowledge on the subject having been both a deltiologist, or
collector of postcards, and a broadcaster, writer and researcher on the subject,
contributing frequently to the Postcard Collectors’ Gazette which is the bible
of the trade. But all of that was many years ago and visiting the fair on
Saturday I was dismayed to find that the soaring cost of old postcards is now
likely to stifle collecting as a hobby in the future.
Picture postcards became popular in Britain in 1894 when Parliament approved the
halfpenny postage for them and in the twenty years that followed, particularly
during the Edwardian era, they enjoyed a phenomenal popularity and by 1914 it
was estimated that a staggering 880 million had been handled by the GPO in that
year alone. They were published on a variety of topics ranging from the saucy
seaside jokes to those depicting disasters and tragedies, commemorating events
or, more popularly, depicting local views and those that survive provide a
fascinating field for the collector and the student of social history.
The postcards at the fair were all highly priced and reflect their specialist
rarity rather than intrinsic value because it is hard to believe that a small
piece of card sold for a penny a hundred years ago could be worth £40 today. All
of this merely demonstrates what good value there is in buying a copy of the
CD-ROM A Portrait of Bourne, now the definitive history of the town, containing
half a million words of text and 2,500 photographs, many from past times,
including views that were priced at £10-£50 at the weekend postcard fair. If you
want a copy, you may access a mail order application form from the front page of
this web site.
The rose bowl awarded annually by the Rotary Club of Bourne for
environmental projects which I mentioned last week has been presented on two
occasions to the Civic Society, collected in 2001 by the chairman Brenda Jones,
and again in 2004 with her husband Jim in recognition of his work on designing
and rebuilding the two water wheels at Baldock’s Mill in South Street, home of
the town’s Heritage Centre, which he completed practically single-handed.
He devoted a year of his life to the project at the early 19th century mill with
the result that the wheels are now back in working order as a remarkable tourist
attraction and the Lincolnshire Wildlife Trust has marked this achievement with
a Highly Commended certificate in their annual awards scheme, established in
1992 to promote improvements to our environment and to raise the awareness of
wildlife and conservation.
This is a particularly pleasing acknowledgment because I chronicled and
photographed the project from its inception in September 2003 to completion a
year later and my illustrated guide is currently on display at the centre,
reflecting the hard work, professionalism and skill of a dedicated worker for
the Bourne community.
Jim is always busy at the mill and some will have noticed that
the front wall is looking much cleaner of late. Over the years, a line of grime
has appeared on the stonework, just a few feet above the ground, and it is
supposed that this was caused by emissions from vehicle exhausts because queues
of cars and lorries are a frequent occurrence at this point in South Street as
the result of delays created by traffic lights in the town centre.
The windows and frames of the 18th century building have been restored and
repainted in the past few weeks by local craftsman Gilbert Smith who has done an
excellent job, even adding a little gilding to the main sign at his own expense,
and Jim decided to give the dirty patches his attention. After a few tests, he
concluded that it could be removed by a jet power hose and the theory proved to
be correct because after a morning’s work, the grime has gone. You may not have
noticed either the painting or the cleaning in which case, go and take a look
and you will see that the mill has been much enhanced by the recent
refurbishment.
Thought for the week: Almost everywhere with the motor-car erased is
better. – Paul Johnson on happy memories of favourite places in past times,
writing in The Spectator, Saturday 23rd July 2005.
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