Local History – Bourne in the 1960s

Local History Bourne in the

It’s the mid-1960s, Queen Elizabeth II

is entering her second decade on the throne, Labour’s Harold Wilson tussles with Edward Heath’s Conservative party, and Beatle-mania has reached the sleepy little town of Bourne (estimated population 5,370 on April 1st 1963), some of whose residents would have already made the journey to the Embassy Theatre in Peterborough to see the “Fab Four” play live.

1960 s

Part One

According to a fascinating pocket guide, issued “by authority of the Bourne Urban District Council” and available at the time for one shilling, (five pence in pre-decimal terms) “Bourne is a town in which one may live a happy, healthy and contented life.”

Now, over half a century later, this guide continues to furnish the reader with much information that has remained so, right up to the present day, as the two following paragraphs testify. The historical elements are, of course, unlikely to be altered very much by the passage of time.

“A typical interesting Lincolnshire market town, consisting of historical remains and sites, Bourne is pleasantly situated at the foot of the rising ground that formed the shores of the North Sea centuries ago, and is now the western boundary of the Fens.”

“Many old parts of the town were destroyed by two disastrous fires in 1605 and 1637 … the whole of Manor Street (now Manor Lane) in the former, and the greater part of Eastgate including Victoria Place Potteries, which had manufactured pots since Roman times, in the later year. Several buildings escaped however and still remain.”

It is when the everyday comings and goings of the town are described in the guide that we begin to see just how much has changed over the decades. For example, we are informed … “A pleasant old-world town, Bourne has four main streets; its length from east to west is over two miles, and the breadth from north to south about the same. In the junction of the four streets is the Market Place where a stall market is held every Thursday and Saturday.

Overlooking the Market Place stands the Town Hall, an interesting and unusual building, built in 1820 to replace earlier buildings erected by the Wake family and the first Lord Burleigh. The local petty sessions are held fortnightly in the Town Hall, and the quarter sessions periodically, an arrangement which dates back to the fourteenth century.

Next door to the Town Hall is the Burghley Arms Hotel (until recently the Bull Hotel), the site where William Cecil was born in 1520. He was the man who later became Lord Burleigh, the Lord Treasurer to Queen Elizabeth I. Converted into an inn over three hundred years ago, it was one of the old posting houses. Also in the Market Place is the Angel Hotel, formerly an old coaching house.”