Bourne's lost cottages

Mrs Alice Gray's cottage and smallholding at No 35 South Street which she ran with her husband David was demolished in January 1977 after becoming a traffic hazard. The mud and stud cottage was 250 years old but flooding in later years made life difficult for the couple and influenced their final decision to vacate and demolish after living there for seventy years. These two pictures were taken in 1967 from the third floor bedroom window of Cavalry House at No 36 South Street, across the road, and I am indebted to Howard and Olga Lindsay of South Hamilton, Massachusetts, USA, who provided them.

Many old properties that are now no longer lived in or have disappeared are still known by the name of the last occupant, Baldock's Mill and Notley's Mill being two good examples of this practice. There are also two old cottages that have disappeared from the street scene that are also similarly named.

No 35 on the west side of South Street is one of them being known as Gray's Farm. Mrs Alice Gray and her husband David were farmers who had taken over the business from his father, Mr Snowdon Gray, when he died, and the land adjoining the house was always filled with produce in season, cabbages, potatoes, carrots, parsnips, cauliflowers and Brussels sprouts while there were some animals such as chickens and pigs in the outhouses at the back.

The fen type cottage was built in the early 18th century, perhaps even before, and consisted of a single storey with a steep pantile roof, two gabled dormers and casements. It was constructed in red brick but had been rough cast and colour washed. The front windows were added in the 19th century with flat arches and wooden frames and no glazing bars while the door was of plain wood. There was a modern one-storey addition at the side, a brick extension at the rear with a mansard roof and two dormers and the ground floor was latterly used as a garage.

During her lifetime, Mrs Gray became a familiar figure in Bourne and Dr Michael McGregor, who once lived at Brook Lodge across the road when it was a medical practice, remembers the flooding in South Street in the spring of 1968 when she was marooned inside but happily chatted to firemen from an upstairs window as they pumped away outside to clear the road.

The location of the cottage was unfortunate because it stood on a sharp bend and created a road hazard for the increasing traffic flows of the 1960s and 1970s and although earmarked as a building worthy of preservation, it was demolished in January 1977 and the site used for two new houses, Nos 35 and 37, whose frontages have been set back from the road.

No 15 Bedehouse Bank dated from the 17th or early 18th century, a mediaeval thatched cottage made from mud and stud which was typical of many old cottages in Lincolnshire. This was the last surviving example of this building method in Bourne and the property had been in continuous use for more than 250 years. Mud and stud was used for the construction of cottage walls, the mud being plastered on to the lathes nailed to a wooden frame, a method reputed to be more durable and stronger than the wattle and daub used in other parts of the country where the mud was plastered on a screen made of woven saplings.

The dwelling was called Cherry Tree Cottage because there were two cherry trees, one on either side, but it became better known as Miss Adams' cottage, after the last tenant who had died, when it was condemned by the local authority as being unfit for human habitation and had been put up for sale as a redevelopment site but the owners failed to find a buyer. 

It was a Grade II listed building consisting of one storey and attics, rendered walls and a thatched roof over two dormer windows at the eaves with two brick built chimneys. The door had a flat wood lintel with two panels of glass and there were two windows on the ground floor, one an 18th century sash with a flush frame, flat arch and glazing bars while the other was a small sliding sash window.

Experts insisted that it was sufficiently rare to be preserved, perhaps as a museum, but costs were said to be prohibitive and the owners sought permission to pull it down. Although it was a listed building, the cottage was demolished in 1980 after a public inquiry when objections by the Civic Society, the Ancient Monuments Society and other conservation organisations, were overruled. 

Another mud and stud thatched cottage was situated in Willoughby Road (pictured above), owned by George Rodgers (1876-1922), slaughterman, butcher and farmer, whose wife Charlotte Rebecca Rodgers (born 1873) can be seen at the door, circa 1935. When she died in 1948, the property was demolished and replaced by a bungalow that still stands on the site.

Cuckoo Bush Cottage stood quite isolated in North Road on the corner of Christopher's Lane and was such a quaint, attractive and olde worlde property that it became the subject of an Edwardian picture postcard entitled A Bit of Old Bourne and copies were bought locally by visitors and posted to addresses throughout the world. Many survive and they are much sought after by collectors.

During the 19th century, this delightful cottage was owned by Edward Briggs, a shepherd, whose son had emigrated to seek his fortune. They lost touch and when Mr Briggs died, he wanted him to inherit the property. In his will dated 1874, he wrote: "Whereas about fourteen years since, my son and only child Edward Briggs went, as I believe, to Australia, and I am not aware whether he is now alive . . . " The point of this clause was that if his son should prove to be dead or could not be found within two years, the property would then go to the two nieces of Mr Briggs who lived at Osbournby, near Bourne. In 1877, an entry in the manorial records reveal that the executors of the will had made diligent inquiries and found that the son had emigrated to the USA and not to Australia. They had advertised in the New York Herald and the Washington Evening Star but without success. Two years had now elapsed and so the cottage was inherited by his nieces who sold it at a public auction held at the Angel Hotel on Thursday 15th March 1877 when it was bought for £190 by Mr Thomas Hardwick, a farmer, of West Street.

The cottage was demolished in 1965 and in later years an access was built nearby for Digby Court, the residential home for old people in Christopher's Lane although the name is still used by many older residents who insist on referring to it as Cuckoo Bush Lane.

See also

Bourne Conservation Area     The Civic Society     Bedehouse Bank

Housing     Old South Street     Memories of Mrs Gray's cottage