The Red Hall

Among the oldest surviving domestic properties in Bourne today is the Red Hall. It was built in the early 17th century for a wealthy businessman, Gilbert Fisher, and is typical of the new style of house being constructed for prosperous gentlemen of the early Stuart period. The walls are made of locally produced hand-made bricks of a distinctive deep red with stone detailing and ashlar quoins, hence the name, and the original intricately carved oak staircase remains intact with its chunky turned balusters, pendent obelisks and rudimentary paterae. The house is many gabled and has a fine Tuscan porch but there is evidence that Fisher was too ambitious because he died in debt in 1633 and the cost of constructing the Red Hall has been blamed for his insolvency.

It is generally accepted that the Red Hall was designed by John Thorpe (circa 1565- circa 1655) one of the foremost architects in Britain during the time of Elizabeth I. A volume of his architectural drawings survives and these enable us to judge his work and to say with some certainty that he was responsible. The building of the house is not documented but the date of construction is assumed to be between 1600 and 1610, with 1605 being the favoured date, and built for Fisher, originally a London grocer, who had amassed a sufficient fortune to finance such an ambitious project that would give him a standing in the community. The house was built on similar lines to Dowsby Hall, also designed by Thorpe about the same period, and was set in formal gardens. In fact, the original plans show a striking resemblance not only to the preliminary studies for Dowsby Hall but also to a whole series of drawings by Thorpe for other houses in this part of England, particularly in the Kesteven area of Lincolnshire. 

The house was conceived on the double pile principle with rooms two deep, a practice that was less common than the more traditional design of a hall with one or two cross-wings and two storeys with garrets. The four main rooms on the ground floor comprised an entrance hall and dining parlour at the front with the kitchen and buttery-cum-pantry in the rear. Above these, on the first floor, were four bedrooms, while on the second floor, running right across the front half of the building, was the high gallery. It is interesting to see that the two main living rooms downstairs were without beds, as we would expect them to be nowadays, but in that period it was still quite usual to find parlours that were used for sleeping in. It is therefore apparent that Gilbert Fisher was well up with changing trends, or as we would call it now, the fashion of the day. There were also a number of outbuildings attached to the Red Hall, the most important of these being a kitchen or scullery, a brew house, and a dairy.

The interior furnishings of the Red Hall show how the standard of domestic comfort was rising and this is reflected in the growing prosperity of families such as the Fishers. An inventory of the house in 1633 showed that in the hall stood a table, stools and a pair of andirons. The dining parlour had a green cover for the table, green chairs, two needlework chairs, stools with covers, cushions, two green curtains and curtain rods for the windows. The kitchen contained 42 pieces of pewter with brass pots for cooking, and a warming pan. The bedroom on the first floor had tapestry coverlets, silk curtains and hangings while one had a china basin and ewer. The so-called high gallery contained not only spare beds, but also stores of cheese and butter.

After Gilbert Fisher's death, the Red Hall subsequently passed into the hands of the Digby family. James Digby died in 1751 leaving four sons and the eldest, John, presumably inherited the house together with some of his father's lands. The other sons were James, George and Richard who all figured quite prominently in the Enclosure Awards, each receiving various acreages in the locality, and after John died in 1777, James, the eldest of the three remaining brothers moved into the Red Hall and it was here that he brought his bride Catherine, daughter of the Rev Humphrey Hyde, Vicar of Bourne, when they married in 1796. James Digby outlived his two other brothers and by the time of his death in 1811, he had built up a considerable estate in Bourne and Dyke. 

The Red Hall and a portion of his lands remained in the possession of his widow, then known as Lady Catherine, who played an influential part in the affairs of the town and although she had no right to any official title, she had gathered some prestige as a staunch Anglican, a thoughtful benefactress, both to the general community and to personal acquaintances, and a woman of strong feeling in family matters, and liked to be known as the Lady of the Manor. Lady Catherine died in 1836 and the Red Hall and some land passed to her nephew, Philip Pauncefort Duncomb who already owned property inherited from his mother Mrs Henrietta Pauncefort who was James Digby's sister. Lady Catherine was not too kindly disposed towards Philip and although she left him the furniture, plate and linen at the Red Hall, she refused to leave him any other part of her estates "on account of his very illiberal conduct towards me respecting a parcel of land after his mother's death". 

Duncomb died in 1849 and his property was inherited by his son, also named Philip Pauncefort Duncomb, who lived in Buckinghamshire. In 1857, the Red Hall was leased for use as a private boarding school for young ladies under the direction of Miss Eliza Wood and in 1860 Duncomb sold the property, together with the adjoining buildings and five acres of land, to the Bourne and Essendine Railway Company for £1,305 and so it came about that the town's railway station arose almost on the doorstep of this famous building.

While conversion work was going ahead, a disastrous fire that might have destroyed the building was narrowly averted. Shortly after 5 pm on Sunday 27th November 1859, the alarm was raised when smoke was seen coming from one of the rooms. The town fire engine was called out but their prompt assistance and help by others who were already at the scene prevented more serious damage. A subsequent investigation revealed that the fire had started in a room that had been occupied the previous day by men employed on converting the building for use as the railway premises. They had lit a fire in the fireplace to keep warm but there had been a large quantity of wood and other rubbish in the chimney, probably lodged there by jackdaws while the hall was unoccupied, and this caught fire and the flames then spread to a large beam and to several of the floor joists. A fire official said that the blaze could easily have spread to a quantity of old timber that was laying around the premises and had the outbreak occurred a few hours later when no one was about, it was probable that the entire building would have gone up in flames.

The Red Hall was eventually used as the stationmaster's house and ticket office for the railway line but when this closed, the railway company expressed an intention to give the building away but no one wanted it and many councillors, including some from Bourne, suggested that it should be left to fall down. Among them was Councillor H L Hudson, a member of Bourne Urban District Council and Kesteven County Council, now superseded by Lincolnshire County Council, who told a meeting on Thursday 29th July 1954, that it was "a useless building". The following year, when the future of the Red Hall was further discussed by the county authority, he was again among the most vociferous of those speaking out for it to be pulled down. A meeting was held on Wednesday 23rd February 1955 to consider a recommendation from the planning committee that they should not take it over but a report on the subject advised that the council would not be justified in assuming ownership and financial responsibility for the Red Hall because of the uncertainty of finding any real use for even two or three rooms and the likely heavy liability for maintenance costs, despite the offer of a £5,000 grant from the Historic Buildings Council. Renovation was estimated at £14,000, the bulk of which was for the main building.

The meeting was mainly hostile to any suggestions that the council should save the building and Alderman G A Jenkinson (Old Somerby) told members: “The people of Bourne don’t want it under any circumstances and I will back them absolutely. If Bourne doesn’t want it, why do we want it? I say let it fall down and the sooner the better.” Councillor Hudson was one of two councillors from Bourne who were similarly scathing. “Both Bourne Urban District Council and South Kesteven Rural District Council have definitely turned it down as being a useless proposition”, he said while Councillor R A Collins described the building as “nothing more or less than a white elephant”. Alderman C H Feneley (Deeping St James) also added his view that “no historic building should prejudice the march of progress”.

There was a spirited defence of the building and one councillor suggested that the people of Bourne should be consulted but it was to no avail. The vote was 33-19 against the council taking over the Red Hall and so its fate appeared to be sealed. But help was at hand, notably through the efforts of the late Councillor Jack Burchnell, and after a long and determined fight, he ensured that Bourne United Charities acquired the freehold in 1962 and they remain the owners to this day. The building was in a dilapidated condition when they took over but with the aid of local funds and grants, it was carefully and sympathetically restored to its former elegance and re-opened in December 1972. Since then, the main rooms have been used as offices and as a meeting place for local groups and conservation organisations and, after the church, it has become the best known buildings in Bourne. 

Most visitors see only the front facade of the Red Hall and few take the trouble to walk round and inspect it from the back. It is equally attractive from here and despite the financial problems it created for Gilbert Fisher, we are grateful for his architectural legacy that has become one of the delights of this small market town. 

Part of the long gallery on the top floor of the Red Hall

The Red Hall must be one of the great treasures from 17th century England because the exterior and, more particularly the interior, have remained relatively untouched for 500 years. The thought that it might have been pulled down, a very real threat when the railway line closed and its use as a ticket office was no longer required, is a dreadful prospect but fortunately, wiser counsels prevailed and it is with us today, an elegant reminder from that period of our history but few people actually take a close look at the inside of this house that was a remarkable achievement in its day. 

One on the top floor hallway says: 

The second plaque inside the door of the long gallery says: 

Further restoration has been carried out in the boardroom where the trustees of Bourne United Charities hold their regular meetings to administer the various funds under their control. A small plaque here says: 

There are also four of Gardner's framed watercolours on display in this room. 

The Red Hall and the Gunpowder Plot

There is a strong oral tradition of life and legend in Lincolnshire as in all parts of the world and belief often defies common sense. I was recently taking photographs in the town centre one sunny morning when I was approached by a man who mistook me for a tourist capturing images of the town to take back home and he suggested that I should not miss the Red Hall because, he said, this was the place where the Gunpowder Plot was hatched. I asked where such information came from and suggested that the story may have been apocryphal but he insisted that it was true because his wife had been born and bred in Bourne and had been told by her family that this was indeed the location for this little piece of British history and despite my doubts, his belief in the tale remained unshakeable. Such stories are as firmly embedded in the public consciousness as that of Hereward the Wake and to refute this romantic claim to eminence to a firm believer is tantamount to calling them a liar but I must place on record that the Gunpowder Plot has no connection whatsoever with Bourne. 

Historians began to question the myth in the early years of the 20th century and it was finally dispelled in 1963 by Mrs Joan Varley, archivist to Lincolnshire Archives Committee, who completed debunked the legend after studying parish registers and deeds of the hall that had recently been deposited in their archives by a descendant of the Bourne Digby family and so the popular theory has now been well and truly laid to rest..

The story has evolved around the mistaken belief that Sir Everard Digby, pictured left, was born and lived at the Red Hall and it has been frequently asserted that as he was one of the main perpetrators, he and his fellow conspirators met at his home where the plot was hatched. The date that the hall was built is not known exactly but 1605 is the most favoured. This was the year that the plot was actually discovered and as it was some time in the planning. it would have been impossible for the hall to have been the meeting place for those involved in the conspiracy.

The Gunpowder Plot, as it has come to be known, was a Catholic conspiracy to blow up James I and the Houses of Parliament when he attended there on 5th November 1605. The scheme was contrived by a number of leading Roman Catholics headed by Robert Catesby as a result of repressive measures against their faith in England that had been introduced by James despite their expectations of some measure of tolerance. The original plot was conceived in the spring of 1603 but gathered momentum and attracted new supporters in the succeeding months, among them Sir Everard Digby of Stoke Dry, near Uppingham, Rutland, and one of the great landowners in the Midlands. He was born on 16th May 1578 and was brought up as a Protestant and held office in the household of Queen Elizabeth I. In 1596, he married Mary, an heiress, and through her inherited a large fortune, including an estate at Gayhurst near Newport Pagnell in Buckinghamshire, but seven years later he turned Catholic and embraced the cause against James I despite being granted a knighthood by him on 23rd April 1603 while visiting Belvoir Castle in Rutland. Sir Everard was never one of the ringleaders in the plot and he joined the conspirators only reluctantly after some persuasion by Robert Catesby who first told him of the plans while out riding near Gayhurst in the early autumn of 1605. 

The conspirators had rented a house adjoining the House of Lords in May 1604 and in December that year they began to dig a tunnel from the cellar and three months later reached a vault under the Lords where they stored thirty-six barrels of gunpowder and other combustible materials. But their plans were discovered through an anonymous letter hinting at the underground preparations for which Francis Tresham, one of the plotters, was most likely responsible. A thorough search of the vaults was made by the Lord Chamberlain on the afternoon of 4th November 1605 and Guy Fawkes was found in the cellar beneath the Palace of Westminster, ready to set fire to a store of explosives surrounded by fuel and faggots. Catesby and his friends fled to Warwickshire where he and several of the conspirators were killed while Fawkes and seven of his fellow plotters were arrested, tried, convicted and executed. Sir Everard Digby's part in the conspiracy was to await news of the success of the plot and then immediately take up arms in the insurrection that was to follow the blowing up of parliament but when it failed, he was among those arrested, convicted and sentenced to death and incarcerated in the Tower of London to await execution. On 29th January 1606, he was lashed to a wattled hurdle and dragged through the streets lined with jeering onlookers to the scaffold in St Paul's Churchyard one mile away where he was hanged, drawn and quartered. 

The event is commemorated annually in England on every November 5th by fireworks and the burning of guys on bonfires and the searching of the vaults of Parliament before the opening of each new session although this was not instituted until the Popish Plot of 1678, an alleged conspiracy to murder King Charles II and re-establish Catholicism in England concocted by the Jesuit priest Titus Oates who was subsequently flogged, pilloried and imprisoned for perjury. 

At the time when the Gunpowder plot was discovered, the Red Hall had only just been built and occupied by the Fisher family and there is no documentary evidence at all to suggest that any of the Digbys, let alone Sir Everard himself, were connected with Bourne during these years. But over a century later, the building did pass into the hands of a Digby family and James Digby, gentleman, appears as a deputy steward to the Manor of Bourn Abbotts at a session of the manorial court in October 1730, and from then onwards there are numerous references to him and his descendants in the manorial records. It is at this date also that the name Digby begins to appear in the parish registers. The family owned and inhabited the Red Hall at this time until about a century later and this fact appears to have been the cause of some wishful deduction that they must have lived there as early as 1605 and that the Sir Everard Digby of Gunpowder Plot fame was a direct ancestor of the Digbys of Bourne which was certainly not the case. 

The Digby family has long been forgotten although the name remains in the town. Digby Court, a residential home for 48 elderly people, was opened in Christopher's Lane by the county council in 1965 and is still in service, although much modernised and extended.