Church Street

Church Street today (2012) is a small, quaint cobbled area of Boston with shops, a cafe and of course the Britannia Inn. It has hardly changed since 1956 (picture below) the year when one lady, Miss Jessie Mason, who was born in Church Street in 1866, spoke of her memories of the street.

(above) Church Street in the 1950's.

(above) An undated picture of Church Street, but obviously before Health and Safety days as the hung up rabbits show !

She recalled Miss Storr's school for infant boys and girls, Ward's carpet warehouse and Tuxford's goldsmiths and silversmiths. She admitted that she liked it better in her childhood but the memory was tempered by the thoughts of regular flooding at very high tides. These occasions she recalled caused great excitement. To the cries of "The eagre's coming, the eagre's coming," whole families would turn out to rescue what they could from the inevitable flooding and the men to tend their boats. Talking of the river, Miss Mason remembered skating on the River Witham six days a week for six weeks in 1875.
Lawyer Arkley, a well known figure in those days, was quite a character. She recalls he adopted a dictatorial attitude about who should enter the churchyard, and certainly wouldn't allow wheeled vehicles, such as perambulators, to pass through. There were four posts barring the way from Church Street to the Churchyard and Lawyer Arkley lived in the house on the corner opposite the Church Key so was therefore able to keep a sharp eye on all who passed.

Mr. Hackford, in the top hat, standing outside The Church Key, Lawyer Arkley lived in a house opposite out of shot of the picture but the 4 posts can be clearly seen. The Stump in this view would be directly behind us.

There was a butter market in those days, held at the opposite end of Church Street. Here sat the country women with huge baskets of butter and eggs, it was a flourishing market and brought a lot of business to Church Street. The Church Key, so called because the keys of The Stump were kept there, was the home of the verger for many years Mr. G Hackford. Some people believe the Key was originally spelt Quay and with steps on the wall on the riverside and old prints showing boats unloading there this could be true.

Boston Guardian

The Boston Guardian newspaper began in 1854 and ran for over a hundred years until 1958, here are some snippets from one of the early issues dated April 19th. 1854.

There is an announcement that Steam Packets for Lincoln leave the Grand Sluice every morning at nine 'o' clock (Sundays excepted) arriving in Lincoln in time for trains to all parts of the Kingdom. Packets also left Lincoln for Boston at ten 'o' clock each day and arrived at Boston at four 'o' clock in the afternoon.

The advertisement columns provide many reflections of Boston life at this period, for one guinea Mr. Charles Ridgway taught Polka in six lessons, Mr. Keller had a musical warehouse in High Street, a library for subscribers and he was an insurance agent as well and Mr. J. Buck of Strait Bargate sold pianos at his music room. Music was not on tap in those days and people had to make their own.
The Pleasure Gardens at Vauxhall, Skirbeck, were re-opening, the Yacht Club were entertaining their Commodore to a public dinner at the White Hart and tenders were required for the building of the Corn Exchange and the Athenaeum. Mr. S. Southwell, hair cutter and wig maker of West Street not only made ladies and gentlemen's wigs but had private hair-cutting rooms next door to the Mansion, West Street. I wonder what became of the Mansion?
The old Guardian referred to was printed by Robert Roberts, in Strait Bargate, but for many years the Guardian had its works in West Street, the building (on the left in the picture below) was demolished and the Pizza Hut now stands in its place.

Odds and Ends

THE CHERRY CORNER CAFE.

In the midst of a raging snowstorm in early 1947 the "Cherry Corner" milk bar took in its first consignment of ice cream. Experience in the U.S.A. had convinced ex musician L.W. Harris, of the Royal Marines, that people will eat ice cream at any time, even with the temperature below freezing point. Mr. Harris, son of a former police sergeant, thought all this over as the aircraft carrier "Victorious" cruised through the Atlantic, the Pacific and a large area of the world's remaining oceans. Then he wrote about his post-war dream of opening an American style milk bar in Boston to his friend, Sergt. Alf Bell, of Swineshead. He, too, had plenty of time to think as he lay in hospital recovering from wounds received in Normandy on D-Day plus ten, which resulted in him being invalided from the Army. The two got together and the "Cherry Corner" was the result. At the same time they were hoping to install a juke-box if the magistrates gave their blessing and granted a music licence. Later on they parted company and Mr. Harris became proprieter of the "Pop Shop" cafe in West Street.

This is the only picture I have of the Cherry Corner building (the printers and stationer) obviously taken long before 1947. Hinds Jewellers now (2012) occupies the site.

NEWSPAPER CUTS.

2nd May 1834 LINCOLN, RUTLAND & STAMFORD MERCURY

The absconding of a confidential clerk to an attorney at Boston with over
£800 of his employer´s money, is another melancholy illustration of the lost
morality of the times, when oaths and obligations of good principles are treated
as mere matters of convenience. The young gentleman took some Deeds to Lincoln,
received the Purchase-money, and instead of returning to Boston, went to Hull
and took shipping for America. His name is PLUMB, he was clerk to Mr
COOKE, the sum he received was £843 and he sailed from Hull on Friday
last in the St Mary, bound for Quebec.


23rd June 1826 LINCOLN, RUTLAND & STAMFORD MERCURY

Married on Monday last Mr. Edward GREEN, fisherman, to Mrs.
DAY, both of Boston; being his 5th wife and her 2nd husband. His last
wife had Five Husbands - the Bridegroom applied to the clergyman for some
abatement of the usual fee, on the grounds of his having been so good a
customer. The Bride was given away by the Bridegroom´s son-in-law.


7th September 1827 LINCOLN, RUTLAND & STAMFORD MERCURY

On Thursday the 30th, aged 59 years, William RAISON of North
Street, Boston - and on the same day aged 52 years William RAISON of
Grove Street, for many years a publican at Hildike Bar. It is remarkable that
these two persons were not related although they were of the same Christian and
surname, resided in the same town and died on the same day and were buried on
Sunday last in graves not more than twelve inches apart.

THE PIE MAN.

Years ago in the days when Boston had a thriving cattle market, there used to be a baker called Barrard, in West Street, who would appear about mid morning in the Market with a huge basket of hot meat pies. He was eagerly awaited by many men for a mid morning snack, no doubt they had nothing since an early breakfast, and perhaps they had walked some miles to the town driving bullocks, and they could not leave them in the market unattended. The Cattle Market has long gone and so has the Pieman, institutions of a bygone age.

Arthur Morton, a Bostonian to remember.

Please see http://www.diggersdiary.co.uk/Articles/ArthurParishMorton/Morton_Boston.htm

Arthur Morton was born in 1872 in Boston. He started a mineral water business some time between 1901 and about 1910, as a sideline to a grocers, bakers, and provision merchants business he already owned at 70 Blue Street. By going into the grocery business Arthur was following in the footsteps of his father William, who had a grocers shop on London Road in Boston for several decades up to about 1920 (William was also the landlord of the Black Bull pub, next door to his shop).

Above:
Arthur Morton outside the Blue Street shop, probably about 1909 or 1910, with his delivery cart pulled by his pony ‘Topsy’. Various enamel advertisements can be seen on the walls including Fry's Cocoa, Rowntrees Chocolates, and Colmans Starch.
Arthurs drinks business was entirely for fizzy pop. He used Penny Monsters bottles, stone flagons and 10oz codds. The codds, and possibly the flagons, had his own name on them, but the Monsters bottles were the standard ‘franchised’ type of one pint screw stoppered bottle, embossed ‘Monsters’ but without any proprietors name.

Above:
Arthur (on the right) in the yard of his mineral water business, also in Blue Street, some time in 1913.
Arthur was in the pre – 1914 equivalent of the Territorial Army, having joined while he was still a teenager in the 1890s. He was called up for active service abroad on the 10th September 1914, a month after the war started and by October 1914 (within a year or two of the photograph above being taken) he was on the Western Front with the 7th Division. He was a driver for 105 Battery of XXII Brigade Royal Field Artillery, and between October 1914 and September 1916 he was involved in most of the major British battles of 1914, 1915 and 1916 including 1st Ypres, Neuve Chapelle, Loos, Aubers Ridge, and the Somme.

Above:
Arthur (on the right) in a studio portrait taken in France or Flanders, probably in 1915 or early 1916, along with his best friend of the time ‘Nobby’ Clark (or Clarke).
Arthur was invalided back to England in September or October 1916 after being incapacitated during the Battle of the Somme. He had shell shock (and possibly a head wound), and never fully recovered. Both his mineral water company and his grocers shop were already out of business before he returned to England. In 1917 his wife and children moved from Boston to Grimsby, where Arthur joined them after several months of convalescence at the Lord Derby War Hospital in Warrington, and then at the smaller hospital at Poulton-le-Fylde.
Arthur suffered badly from the effects of shell shock for the rest of his life. For several years he could only cope with quiet and low-intensity work. After spending several months in hospital he returned to his family in Lincolnshire. He managed to find a job as caretaker of the smallpox hospital in the rural setting of Laceby, near Grimsby. Eventually he moved on to other work, but he never again ran his own business. He died in 1937 at the age of 65, two weeks before he was due to retire.

Arthur's Father, William Morton's shop on London Road, Boston, about 1918 - 1920. The taller building immediately to the left is the Black Bull pub, of which William was the landlord for many years. William died in 1920, and his shop was taken over by two of his daughters
(Arthurs sisters).

Picture booths at the Fair.

Years ago, before there were any fixed cinemas in the town, some of the showmen had huge marquees in which very early comic strips were shown. There were long wooden bench seats and as many as possible got squashed into the tent.

One of the old Picture tents at Boston May Fair.

Admission was 2d and 3d, according to which part of the tent you went. The films would be laughed at now but were a new novelty then, they often used to break and then there were minutes of waiting before they were joined up. When fixed cinemas came to the town and showed more modern films these shows passed out. There was another attraction besides the film strips, there were usually two of these shows - Tubys, on the Green and Farrars in the Market Place, and they both had some dancing girls on the platform in front of the large organ which generally played rolled classical music, which was really very good to listen to, as there were no orchestras to listen to in those distant days. In due course the highlight appeared - Orpheus in the Underworld, and the girls danced the can-can, the nearest approach to the Follies Bergere which ever reached Boston.

Bringing Boston down.

Bringing down Boston and Bostonians is nothing new, this article appeared in a Welsh newspaper called "The Leader" with offices at Portmadoc in 1951. The writer was J. Ellis Williams.

" I spent most of last week in Boston (Lincs., not Massachusetts). It is the place which the Pilgrim Fathers left to go to America. I don't blame them. Boston is flat, dull, uninteresting and uninspiring. Five days there made me feel as flat as the countryside. Five months there would have driven me to meloncholia.
I met and talked with a good many people there, and listened to the conversation of many more. Not once did I hear anybody speak of music, poetry, drama, painting or any of the arts, sorry I did hear one man speak of architecture, he was building a pigsty.

How could anyone find fault with this?

The roads around Boston are built on embankments which are a few feet above the land. On each side of the road there is a deep draining ditch. Houses built along the roadside have little bridges leading to the front door. One of the worst roads is that leading from Boston to Skegness, it follows the old cattle track which used to meander through the marshes surrounding the Wash and at each and every bend there is the same flat monotony. Towering above the town is the Boston Stump, a church tower that gives one the impression that an absent minded architect forgot to put a steeple on it."

You have to be a Bostonian and live here to understand Mr. Williams.

Queen Victoria's "visit" to Boston.

The highlight of the year 1851 for Bostonians was undoubtedly the "visit" of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert. About the middle of August of that year it became known that the Queen would pass through the town towards the end of the month on her way to Scotland. The Town Council immediately applied for permission to testify to the "loyalty and affection to Her Majesty and her Royal Consort, either by presentation of a loyal and dutiful address or such other mode as may be deemed most desirable."

Queen Victoria and Prince Albert.

At first the request was refused but a second application pointing out that the Queen would not be delayed, "as the train must necessarily stay for at least five minutes," succeeded. The station was decorated with evergreens and banners  and a Mr. Lewin loaned all the timber necessary for the special platform.
On the day, rejoicing began at 12 o'clock when the Mayor (John Noble) gave a breakfast in the Assembly Rooms. At 3.30 the doors of the station were thrown open and those who had succeeded in getting tickets - about 2,000 in all - began to pour in and secure their places. When the train arrived , Lord John Russell alighted and made the introductions. The Queen received the address from the Mayor, standing at the door of her carriage, and she "was pleased to show herself to the people at the windows on both sides of her carriage." Albert however seems to have remained in the background.
The "visit" over, the train passed slowly toward the Grand Sluice and the day's festivities were brought to a close with a civic dinner at the Peacock Inn.