The Royal Coat of Arms.

Commercial House at 17 Market Place was once run by J.W. Loveley, even today if you glance up you can still make out the name on the side wall.
The strange thing about the building is that it once had the Royal Coat of Arms on it.

Loveley's Commercial House showing the Royal Coat of Arms.

Mr. John Loveley, speaking in July 1993 said that his Great Grandfather had a bakers shop in Dolphin Lane for many years. In the 1870's he purchased the shop in the Market Place from a jeweller who was giving up business, and that some years before, one of Queen Victoria's daughters, whilst visiting Sandringham, rode over to Boston and in fact purchased some jewellery from him and in consequence he was entitled to use the Royal Coat of Arms. These arms were put on the jewellers shop and were still on the shop when Mr. Loveley purchased it and it remained there for many years. Later a son of Queen Victoria stayed one night at the Peacock Hotel, so this became able to use the title "Royal" and the Peacock became the Peacock and Royal. The Arms on Loveley's shop were sold to the Peacock and  as shown in the picture stood over the main door. Maybe someone can tell us where they went from there.

The Royal Coat of Arms, just visible, above the Hotel door.

SOME PHOTO ODDMENTS.


Here are a few pictures that I can't find stories for at the moment, I hope you enjoy them.

In 1978 this lorry got stuck when the driver tried to get out of Mitre Lane in Bargate.

One of the many sets of cards given away by Beaulahs of Boston with their food products.

The Railway Mission Hall was in Fydell Crescent. Marriots Motors offices were built on the site and thankfully Marriotts kept this stone and built it into the new property.

The sixties group The Animals, on stage at the "Glider"

The last commercial sailing vessel to leave Boston Dock.

Some Boston nick nacks for the tourist trade.

An old Vesta case (match case) showing the Boston Coat of Arms.

An old picture of Carlton Road School.

Houses that were pulled down in Duke Street.

Looking out onto the Market Place from the Peacock and Royal window, note the Rum Puncheon in top right corner.

The Peacock and Royals curved window on show at the Guildhall.

Lord Nelson's Field in about 1966, built on its place now is the Nelson Way Industrial Estate.

Buildings on the corner of Pen Street and Main Ridge, demolished when John Adams Way was built.

The building of John Adams Way in the 1970's, with The Ram pub at centre right.

An old potato weighing machine used in the old hand-picking days.

The demolition of the Regal Cinema in West Street.

This is the Zion Church which was itself demolished and the Regal built on its site.

An old Lincolnshire Road Car bus and below an old Sharpes bus.

And finally some more nick nacks.

The Seed Huts

The seed huts, or agricultural merchant’s huts, used to be wheeled into the town centre on market days. They had been a familiar sight for years and it was here that the merchant’s did their trading - but not everyone liked this link to Boston’s historic past. In August 1961 the residents of Sibsey Lane were angry and worried. Angry because they were woken up at half past four every Wednesday morning by clanking, squeaking and shouting as the huts were moved from their store yard at the bottom of the lane to the Market Place and worried because recently one of the huts had caused an accident where both the driver and an assistant from the butchers shop at the top of the lane had to be taken to hospital.

The Huts in the Market Place.

In 1961 it had only been fairly recently that the huts had been kept in Sibsey Lane, they used to be stored in the Peacock and Royal Hotel yard and once upon a time they were brought up to the market along Shodfriar’s Lane, which bothered no one, so people were asking why couldn’t Shodfriars Lane be used again instead of the narrower Sibsey Lane.

The Huts, the Still pub can be seen on the right.

Mr. A. Lawton, who had an office in Sibsey Lane described the noise when the huts are brought back from the market at about half past four in the afternoon as shocking and said “The row created by unoiled wheels and creaking shafts makes it impossible to speak on the telephone”.
Mr. and Mrs. Musson, who lived in cottages opposite said they were woken up soon after four‘o’clock every Wednesday morning by an unearthly row, and the whole house and everything in it begins to tremble - including their bed! There were about thirty huts they said and what with the noise of the horses, the driver shouting and the iron wheels - which sounded as though they had never been greased - the row goes on for about three hours.
Mr. S. Swift, who had a butchers shop at the top of the lane was furious about the way the huts were moved and said that one of them had recently smashed into the front of Shodfriars Hall and both the driver Jack Goddard and one of Mr. Swift’s assistants Robert Rogers had to be taken to hospital.

Mr. Swift's butcher's shop can be seen centre right, at the top of Sibsey Lane.

Mr. and Mrs. Locking, both in their eighties, lived at the bottom of the lane and got the worse of the noise, they both agreed that it would be better if they had rubber wheels instead of iron ones.
Mr. J. O’Hara, who had a betting shop in Sibsey Lane drew up a petition signed by 11 people and sent it to the Corporation but he was told that it was not their problem and should be sent to the Highways Committee.
What the outcome was and what happened to the huts I don’t know, I remember them in the Market Place well into the late sixties but, like so much of old Boston, one day you look and it’s not there any more.

Description of The Peacock and the Red Lion (1904)

A description of the Peacock and Royal and the Red Lion in 1904 by an American visitor Josephine Tozier.

The Peacock and Royal.

The front is decorated by bright flowers and long trailing vines growing from the window-boxes on the balconies, and above all is a most gorgeous sign of the most gorgeous of birds, from which it takes its name. We ate our comfortable little dinner in the coffee-room……it was nine o'clock before we left the table. We were too tired to explore Boston's winding ways, and, as it was too early for bed, I had this time secured a large front room looking over the market-place, and my sleepy friends soon found entertainment there.

The sound of a twanging banjo, which came from beneath our window, gathered the few stragglers in the market-place into a circle around the door of the Peacock. We could not see the musician from our window, but he broke forth as soon as the audience had gathered into the usual sentimental ballad dear to English ears. Some boys, with dogs at their heels, formed the outside of the meagre crowd, and then from a side street came belated mothers, pushing their babies home in perambulators. Polly says that at no hour in the twenty-four are English streets entirely free from perambulators, and, late as it was, three of these useful carriages joined the circle, the mothers, in true Boston fashion, being unable to resist music. The audience grew larger and the circle wider; the songs were succeeded by dialogues, and coppers rained plentifully into the collector's hand, until a baby set up an opposition concert, and an enterprising dog was encouraged by the noise to fight his four-legged neighbour. During the rumpus which succeeded, the musicians vanished. The dog riot was finally quelled, the babies trundled home, and the market-place in a few minutes was absolutely deserted for the night.

The Red Lion.

The Red Lion Inn, which faces the Narrow Bargate, has a more venerable exterior than the Peacock, but a decidedly decayed interior. It owns to the age of four hundred years, so no wonder that it is neither very clean nor very modern at the present time. It was formerly the property of one of the Boston guilds, and in the inn yard strolling players were wont to perform for the delight of all Boston.
There is still a very stern, solemn, Puritanical look about the dull little Holland-like city, in spite of the numerous houses of entertainment. Some of these rejoice in extraordinary names. There is "The Axe and Cleaver," "The Loggerhead," "The Indian Queen," "The Ram," "The Whale," "The Unicorn," "The Red Cow," "The Blue Lion," and "The Black Bull." They all furnish abundant liquid refreshment, with our favourite "The Rum Puncheon," and the picturesque "Angel." Even the streets have delicious names: "Paradise Lane," and "Pinfold Alley," "Liquor Pond Street" and "Silver Street," "The Worm Gate," "The Bar Gate," Wide, and Narrow, and "Robin Hood's Walk." There is "Pump Square," there is "Fish Toft Road," and in quaint "Spain Lane," in a house since demolished, until she was fourteen years old, lived Jean Ingelow, the writer. Boston is proud of its literary celebrities, and has erected a statue to Herbert Ingram, the founder of the London Illustrated News.

The Fair

The smell of candy floss and toffee apples, the caterpillar and speedway, the steam yachts, Rhona the Rat Girl and the boxing booth……….
Boston Mayfair has a very long history (to at least 1125) and traces it’s origins back to the great trading fair of medieval times although this was very different from the modern funfair that we know.

In the Middle Ages fairs were like markets and were held only once a year with merchants coming from all over Europe to buy and sell at the Boston fair.

However, by the 1890’s, the mix of fair rides and stalls that we know was certainly occupying both the Market Place and Wide Bargate and it is now one of the few remaining street fairs in the country.

The event, which has a Royal Charter, occurs in the first week of May (usually the 3^rd) and is surrounded by tradition and ceremony.

The Mayor declares the fair open at noon (see below) from the Assembly Rooms balcony overlooking the Market Place and the ceremony is attended by VIP guests including representatives of the Showmen’s Guild.

After the Fair has been declared open the mayor and guests tour with representatives from the Showmen’s Guild and are allowed to ride free on any of the attractions.

Families of showmen have been coming to Boston for generations, occupying the same pitches with their rides and stalls, which are jealously guarded. The Fair stays in the town for seven or eight days.

Below (1) Sideshows outside the Peacock and Royal Hotel in the 1940's.

Below (2) The Helter Skelter near the Post Office in Bargate in the 1920's.

The Peacock

The Peacock (in the Market Place) dated from around the 1670's.

The Royal was added, making it the Peacock and Royal, during the 1880's when a son of Queen Victoria stayed there.

It was finally demolished in the 1960's and the present Boot's the Chemist store was built on the site.