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Eastgate
The Bourne Eau disappears underground in many places as it crosses the town but surfaces here, below the Queen's Bridge at the head of Eastgate that is tucked away in the side streets off the Spalding road and there are several public footpaths that cross and recross the river as it runs through the district. This is one of the oldest areas although there are no properties in Eastgate that pre-date 1637 when fire engulfed most of the street and also marked the end of the pottery industry that had thrived in the area, destroying kilns, storerooms and homes. Excavations in 1973 unearthed evidence of this industry.
Notley's Mill stood beyond the bridge in Victoria Place, the last surviving working mill in the area that was grinding corn until it was demolished in 1973. The grassy bank on the left, below Queen's Bridge, was once a slope to provide access for horses and carts, allowing the animals to drink and the wagons to be washed and enabling the wooden wheels to swell within their iron rims. When the river was cleaned at this point in October 1898, the bed of the waterway was found to be paved with stones which indicated a well-laid ford of ancient origins and most probably dating from Roman times.
The large red brick house on the left was the lifetime home of the motor racing pioneer Raymond Mays while the block of flats on the right is Worth Court, named after another famous son of the town, Charles Worth, the celebrated international fashion designer. The racing cars produced by Mays were built in workshops behind the house although these premises are now the home of the Bourne Auction Rooms. The mansion was built on the north bank of the river in Eastgate in 1796 and this date can be found above the back door in the yard. The elegant 19th century brick frontage was grafted on to a large extension of the original stone building with its own well in the kitchen. Raymond Mays was born here on 1st August 1899 and was still living here when he died on 6th January 1980. A metal plaque on the front wall records his achievements.
A small shop further down the street was once a thriving butchery but is now empty and disused. Earlier this century it was owned by Mr T A King and when he retired, his assistants Eric Pick and Harry Sardeson bought it and invited Norman Sandall to join them and it became Pick, Sandall and Sardeson. Pick and Sardeson retired in the 1960's and the business is now N L Sandall and Sons and has been so successful that it has expanded into more spacious and imposing premises in the town's main West Street.
An ancient inn stands near what used to be the Eastgate quayside. This is the Anchor, one of the town's oldest hostelries, and it was once frequented by boatmen plying their trade on the Bourne Eau. Barges would have turned around here in the 19th century in the days when the river was navigable. Coal supplies for the town came in by water and in the early part of the century there was a portion of the riverside in Eastgate known as the coal yard or coal wharf and it lay on the north bank of the Bourne Eau, just below the Fen Bridge. Other goods were also moved by boat from this location and a directory of 1857 announces: "Conveyance by water to Nottingham and Spalding, Thomas Knott's boats, from Eastgate occasionally."
There was another public house at No 32 Eastgate, the Butcher's Arms, that was destroyed when a German bomber crashed into it during the Second World War.
Eastgate was also the focal point for the fellmonger's business founded by William Mays which early in the 20th century became T W Mays and Sons Ltd. Thomas Mays was his son and he extended the family's business in Eastgate where, in 1863, he bought the fellmonger's yard from John Lely Ostler and by the turn of the century, the firm of wool merchants and fertiliser manufacturers was well established and prospering including the tannery that handled the skins from dead livestock.
See also Thomas William Mays Eastgate House Bourne's potteries
Notley's Mill The corn trade Eastgate in past times
Bourne's first department store The Eastgate plane crash
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