Some old street names,

Thanks to Harry Fountain, a lover of local history, for the following.

When Swineshead Abbey (5 miles from Boston) was in its palmy days the Abbot is said to have been "rowed in his barge to the ford at the entrance to Boston, where the Abbey owned a house and garden near the mill." This street became Ford End Lane, then Forthe End Lane, Farthing Lane, Fir Dale Lane and ultimately West Street as it is still known today.
Carlton Road was an old road formerly known as Butt Lane. Towards the close of the 15th century King Edward IV issued an order that archery butts should be provided on the borders of each township. The Boston butts were situated on the west bank of the river, Butt Lane leading to them. The butts on the east side of town were situated near Bargate Bridge on the town side of the stream known as the Scyre Beck, now the Maud Foster Drain.
George Street, King Street, Queen Street and Innocent Street (top of King Street) are said to have been named as a result of the trial of Queen Caroline, the wife of George IV, who was tried for adultery and found to be innocent.
Liquorpond Street was once called Walnut Tree Pastures, a road called Water Lane connected it with High Street (once called Gowt Street} via what is now Victoria Place.

Some old industries in Boston.

Boston was a hive of industrial activity throughout the 1800's. It made, among other things, hats and caps, mattresses, chairs, rope, boots and shoes, pipes and cigars. It also grew woad and tanned leather. Around the 1850's there were at least three makers of clay pipes, and the industry thrived for many years, their little factories were sited in Pinfold Lane, West Street and Pipe Office Lane.

Pipe Office Lane, off West Street.

It wasn't surprising therefore that it attracted people bent on the idea of filling them at a profit. The first possibly (in 1842) was a George Hartley of Silver Street who was described as a tobacco manufacturer and cigar maker. By the 1890's there were at least two or three cigar makers. There was Thorns cigar factory which ran to a staff of about 200, Whittle and Cope's in Norfolk Street and another was in Bond Street whose premises were later to become the Boston Steam Laundry.

Inside Whittle and Cope's cigar factory, Norfolk Street.

Hat and cap making was also a flourishing trade, and it appears to have been highly competitive too, for records reveal that a certain Mr. Waterfield used to make them while his wife and daughter sold them on the local markets. It is said that they walked as far as Spalding every week to take up their pitch. One of the last local survivors in the trade was a Mr. Jay of Wormgate.
One of the oldest crafts, rope-making and twine-spinning, was carried on in several parts of the town and there were at least eight still in existence as late as the 1890's, one of them was sited opposite the Central Park where Tawney Street and Hartley Street now are. Rope of all thicknesses were produced, mainly for agriculture and fishing.
We also had a "whiting" industry, this was ground chalk that could be purchased at any grocer's or chandler's shop and was much in demand for hearths, outside steps, silver cleaning and other domestic purposes. Mr. Walter Whyers, a local historian, said in 1934, "As a boy I would go to watch the old horse going round and round as he turned the mill that ground great lumps of chalk to powder, It made me feel giddy to watch the movements of the horse, and I thought it cruelty to the poor animal until they showed me the blinkers that it wore which, they said, prevented the horse from realising that its journey was limited to the ambit of the mill shaft." Among those who made this commodity were Matthew Booker of Wide Bargate, Isaac Trolley, and Mr. Bentley.
Woad growing, for dyeing cloth, once a profitable crop, was an important agricultural sideline and was discontinued only because it was superseded by synthetic dyes.
Boston also made some furniture and in the 1870's there were six chairmakers  and 18 cabinet makers, of whom one was described as a bed pole turner.
The leather producing trade was centred in White Horse Lane, where the washing and tanning was carried out. Curing and dressing also took place at a tannery in Bargate End.
The very old craft of boot and shoe making which was once widely practised in the town was slow to die because even as late as 1850 there were no fewer than 50 manufacturers.
Boston in those days was virtually self sufficient and the men of Boston produced almost all the goods required.

Farming to football.

If you had walked down Tattershall Road in August 1973 you would have seen in the front garden of number 104 (the bungalow home of Mr. and Mrs. Gosling) an old horse drawn potato plough. For Mr. and Mrs. Gosling this plough was the only remains of a farming business covering three generations the site of which was only a few hundred yards from their home.
Sold in 1962 on their retirement, the land which is now Boston Football Club's ground was first farmed by Mr. and Mrs. Gosling in 1925. Mr. Gosling had previously been working with his Father in Broadfield Lane on arable land that had been bought by his Grandfather. Specialising in market gardening Mr. Gosling once took a bet that he could not grow five Brussels to the pound, but his sprouts became so big that three made up the weight.
Mr. and Mrs. Gosling became childhood sweethearts when Mr. Gosling transferred at the age of 12 from Staniland school to Shodfriars school where Mrs. Gosling was a pupil. Six years later the First World War began and Mr. Gosling was stationed in France with the East Lancashire Regiment. Later on in the war he was taken prisoner on the Somme and Mrs. Gosling lost hope of him ever returning alive, but after nine months as a prisoner the war ended and he eventually arrived back home.
The couple, who were both 77 in 1973 had lived in Tattershall Road since they had retired.

Two clocks.

The Haven Bridge clock.

The Haven Bridge clock was fitted by Managing Director Mr. J.V. Aaron in 1975, on the then premises of Boston Divers Ltd.

Originally buying and planning to put up the old Willer and Riley clock he found out it would take up too much space so in the end settled for the electric one pictured above. Mr. Aaron, said at the time that four clocks had been taken down or stopped working in recent years and as his office was in a busy area he thought a clock would be useful to motorists going over the bridge.

Willer and Riley's clock.

At the West Street end of Queen Street, where Aldi's supermarket now stands, stood the old Willer and Riley factory and in the apex of the gable facing toward the street was a circular opening that graced a clock. The clock was removed by Boston Corporation in about 1974 and placed into their Broadfield Street depot for storage and was purchased by Mr. Aaron as stated above. Since he could not use the clock it was sold to Bert Fleet (then Chairman of Directors at Fogarty's) whose stated intention was to erect a small tower within the entrance of Fogarty's Havenside works and install the clock therein. Unfortunately Mr. Fleet died before this was accomplished and Mr. Aaron had no idea what happened to the clock.    Does anyone know where it went?..............

The Chimney Sweep.

For a hundred years a metal cast of a little man carrying brushes hung above the door of the Hull family in Boston. In August 1970 it went, along with four generations of chimney sweeps.
For the previous 25 years the little man had hung over the door of 4 Spain Place Boston, the home of Mr. Harry Hull but in that August of 1970 Harry brought the little man indoors, for he himself decided to retire and there was no-one to continue the family tradition.
Edgar Hull, Harry's Great Grandfather, started the family business at the time of the Franco-Prussian war and then Harry's Grandfather, his Father and then Harry himself carried it on but Harry's children would have nothing to do with it.
"Tradition is all very well,"  said Harry, "but we encouraged the boys to do well at school so they could have a better job than me."
Harry was 67 at that time and he swept his first chimney when he was 15. He had his own round when he was 20 and for the next few years he was averaging 80 chimneys a week. He started off in the country while his Father concentrated on the town chimneys but as his Father grew older Harry began to take over his town round. His father, Mr. William Hull, had retired 25 years previously and since then Harry had concentrated on sweeping chimneys within Boston Borough. He used to do his round with a horse and trap but in the late 1920's he bought his first car, a Model T Ford, and since that time had always had motorised transport.
He recalled making a few pounds out of Lady Beryl Groves who owned Revesby Abbey (about 10 or 12 miles from Boston) after the Second World War. "Her estate agent instructed me to sweep the chimneys there, when the Americans who were billeted there went home. There were 60 chimneys and it took me over a week to clean them all."
One of the reasons Harry retired in 1970 was " all this gas and electric coming in " but even Harry went over to electricity two years previously.......................................
                                                                                                          

Paradise Row.

Church Close, the quaint row of old houses opposite the Stump, was once called Paradise Row. The first building on the extreme left is Lloyd's Bank, built in 1864 by the bankers Garfit, Claypon and Co. Ltd. It was taken over by Lloyd's and has remained in their possession ever since.

The row is basically late 18th. century, probably built around George III's time, the buildings to the right were slightly remodelled in the 19th. century and again in 1964.

Isaac Reckitt once lived in the row, then known as " Part of Church Yard ", his family owned the Maud Foster Windmill at the time and were later taken over by Reckitt and Colman, a rival firm who are now much better known in Britain for their famous mustard.

There are recordings down for 1817 and 1828 which state that two private schools were set up at those times in one of the houses. The first run by Mr. and Mrs. Staniland and the other by Miss Hannah Tuxford.

One man who lived in the row went by the name of John Field Smyth, he owned a tobacco and cigar making factory at the bottom of Wide Bargate. The story goes that the Customs and Excise asked him to expose some tobacco smuggling that was going on around the docks at that time, he did - but suffered the consequences. An angry mob hurled bricks through his shop window in a riot, then repeated the procedure on his house. Other occupiers have included attorneys, auctioneers and millinery and dress establishments.

Apparently the houses in the row replaced mediaeval buildings as they got woodrot.

 

 

Lloyd's Bank with the date above it.

Shodfriars Hall interior.

The outside of Shodfriar’s Hall is one of Boston's most photographed sites, but what of the inside? Here are a few pictures to give an idea of its interior.

The building comprises two conjoined buildings of different dates and styles, a fifteenth century L-shaped structure and a substantial red brick extension of 1874.

 

 The older of the two (described by Pevsner as ‘the ghost’ of a timber framed building) was heavily restored or, more correctly, reconstructed and much altered by J Oldrid Scott in 1874.

The hall was employed for much the same mix of uses as an old circuit theatre, that is, dances, public meetings and concerts, with occasional theatricals, the main difference being that touring theatre companies usually played for only a few nights on each visit.

There were big open fireplaces. A proscenium was inserted in 1905 and replaced by a presumably more permanent one in 1915 when the hall was also reseated and the public entrances improved, making regular theatrical presentations possible.

 It finally closed as a performance centre in 1929 and became a billiards hall.

 Since then, it has had continuing uses as snooker hall, night club, restaurant and shops.

The balcony, now disused, still has turned and twisted wooden balusters. A proposal to convert Shodfriars into an arts centre in 1944 proved abortive.