Below is a view of the first railway bridge in Boston over the River Witham, erected by the Great Northern Railway Company and opened for traffic on October 30th 1848. The bridge carried a single line of rails over the river in a sweeping curve. In the process of reproduction and reduction, interesting features of the original picture have been more or less lost to view. Two trains, for instance, are seen travelling in opposite directions, on the opposite sides of the river, on a single line of rails. But as a railway official is seen waving a flag in face of the train approaching the point where the present level-crossing exists, it is to be supposed that all danger of a head on collision midway of the bridge was thus averted.
A good deal of shipping appears to be moored just beyond the Sluice Bridge, adjacent to the Railway Bridge. The old buildings on the left of the picture are old warehouses that later became Beeson's Glass Merchants and are now modernised and converted into housing accommodation. See second picture below for the warehouses at a later date.
This warehouse was built in the late 18th. Century next to the Grand Sluice. It was broken up into four units and river craft stopped here and unloaded their goods instead of going through the lock.
For a number of years it was used by Beeson’s the glaziers (whose sign still remains there) and has now been converted into living accommodation with a bar/café at one end named The Jolly Sailor.
The warehouses in 2011.
