Monkstone House

Monkstone House

Among the oldest domestic buildings in Bourne is Monkstone House at No 12 West Street. Few properties in which the townsfolk lived in earlier times have survived but this one is virtually intact and is similar in style and period to the house nearby that is now used by Lloyds TSB.

The rear part of the house dates back to 1620 while the impressive red brick frontage was erected in the mid-18th century and the original doorway incorporating a broken pediment and fanlight still graces the main entrance.

This handsome Grade II building rising to two storeys above the ground would doubtless have been the home of one of the town's more affluent citizens.

Monkstone House

The house was the lifetime home of the late Mr Jack Rayner, a teacher at Bourne Grammar School who died in June 1990 at the age of 73. His family ran a carriage making and undertaking business from the building behind, now occupied by the stationery shop Fovia overlooking the Burghley Street car park. Rayner was an expert in timber and carpentry and spent a great deal of his spare time transforming the appearance of the house, filling the main rooms with intricate wood carvings of foliage and small animals, particularly mice, converting the drab interior into the splendour of a richly decorated Elizabethan home.


Jack Rayner (above left) as a young man, pictured outside the back of Monkstone House where he lived, and this photograph of the interior (above right) was taken circa 1975. Rayner spent his spare time embellishing the rooms with his craftsmanship and samples of his delicate wood carvings that survive to this day.

Mr Rayner also carved many other items that are still preserved in the Bourne area, including a chair and a replacement staircase finial in the Red Hall, and a wooden cross mounted on the wall and illuminated by spot lights behind the pulpit of the Methodist Chapel in Abbey Road during major renovation work in 1968. Later in the century, when the house fell vacant, it stood empty for several years but was converted for use as an Indian restaurant in 1993.

When they agreed the change of use the previous year, South Kesteven District Council made it a condition of planning permission that the carvings should be preserved and the front facade of the building remain unchanged. Mr Clifford Hirst, agent for the owners said at the time: "They have bought the building because of its character and with the intention of retaining that character as a feature of the restaurant. All hardwood carvings, the carved fireplace and beams, including those with carved mice, will be retained, as will the listed staircase and carved doors."

Monkstone House from the rear