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THE HISTORIC CENTRE of the town is St Peter's Pool or the Wellhead for around this natural feature sprang the early settlement that was to become Bourne. Today, it is a circular, clay-lined and embanked pool reputedly filled by seven springs and would have provided an abundant supply of water for the early settlers. This is a direct contrast to today when water is a valuable commercial commodity and supplies from Bourne are piped to other districts and in times of shortage, St Peter's Pool dries up for weeks at a time and this picturesque part of the town becomes a morass of mud and weeds. The pool is possibly one of the most ancient sites of artesian water supply in the country and has figured prominently in the development of the town. It now forms part of the memorial gardens and it is this spring, or the stream that flows from it, that gives Bourne its name from the Old English word burna which was common in the early Anglo-Saxon period and is found in its modern form, particularly in Scotland, as burn meaning stream or spring. Many other English place names have a similar derivation with burn, borne or bourne as an ending to denote a river or stream in the vicinity. The footpath that follows the stream past the site of the former St Peter's Hospital, now re-developed by Warners Midland plc as a new printing hall, originally skirted another large pond known as the horse pool, so called because it sloped gently at one end to allow horse and cart together to enter the water to be washed in the clear spring water. In July 1999, a pair of black swans, indigenous to Australia and Tasmania, made their home at St Peter’s Pool. The black swan is a handsome bird with dark, curly feathers, a bright red bill and white wing feathers that show only in flight. It appears on the armorial standard of Western Australia where the Dutch discovered it in 1697. The Dutch took it to Batavia and thence to Europe where the existence of a black swan was regarded with amazement. Like the mute swan, it has been successfully domesticated and raised in captivity and this pair were a gift from the Wildfowl Trust and a shelter has been made on the side of the pool where they have bred several cygnets every year since, although they are always banished by their parents on reaching adulthood and fly off to live elsewhere. Return to HOME PAGE MAIN INDEX
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