|
THE PROPERTY at No 32 North Street dates from the early 19th century, built of red brick and blue slate, and most probably as a private house, but as was the practice in later years, the front windows were turned into shop frontages as the business life of the town expanded along the main street while the coaching arch can be clearly seen. A later owner, Edward Pearce, clock and watchmaker, silversmith and jeweller, is pictured outside circa 1910 with one of his children. This was a family business that had been started by his father, Thomas Pearce, and also included a china and glass warehouse, porcelain and pottery. Thomas was in business in Bourne as early as 1842 although he was then operating from premises in West Street but had moved to North Street by 1856. Edward Pearce was the clockmaker who was called in to overhaul the clock over the Town Hall in 1900 and to install gas lighting to illuminate the face for public display. Ironically, it with this mechanism that caused the fire which destroyed the clock tower in 1933 and it was never replaced. The shop during his occupation was famous for its wall clock and the outline of its position can still be seen on the brickwork. An application to demolish this property was made to South Kesteven District Council in 2004 with a proposal to replace it with new retail shop units. The last tenant was Bourne Jewellers which closed down in 1997 and it has been standing empty ever since and has become derelict as a result. SKDC has the power to carry out repairs and bill the owners but chose not to do so. Instead, it has blighted the street scene for almost a decade. Successive town mayors, Councillors Don Fisher (1998-99) and Mrs Marjorie Clark (1999-2000), expressed the hope that the dreadful appearance posed by these shops might be tackled during their years in office but nothing materialised. After that, no one on the town council even mentioned it. There was an attempt to cover up the mess with murals painted by local schoolchildren but it was not a success and merely added to the untidy appearance of our main thoroughfare.
Messages flooded in from abroad when I showed pictures of the property on the Bourne Internet web site in 1998 and there was also some adverse comment from the other side of the Atlantic, from Donald Cooper who lives in a small town called Dundas at the very western tip of Lake Ontario in Canada. "I can understand the concern of Bourne residents about these empty shops", he wrote, "because urban blight is everywhere, even here in Canada. But it is mostly confined to the larger cities. What a pity to see this occurring in dear, lovely little Bourne. If any of your city fathers are reading this, shame on them! I have no right to voice my opinion really but I do like putting in my two cents worth and I join the residents who are obviously very concerned with the inactivity of the authorities in handling this matter. Please clean up your wonderful little town." His advice was ignored. Numbers 30 and 32 were eventually sold in 2003 to businessman Michael Thurlby, the present owner, who is now behind the rebuilding programme. He has already breathed new life into the ancient grocery shop across the road, now enjoying a new role as a popular public house called Smiths of Bourne, named after the previous owners, and it is to be hoped that his efforts will be equally effective here. It is certainly time that something is done to retrieve this part of the street scene.
WRITTEN MARCH 2005 |
