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North Road in past
times
The picture postcards above show
North Road in the early years of the 20th century
with electricity poles
and gas lamps along the pavements, although the houses
are relatively
unchanged. The mill in the far distance on the left in the top
picture was dismantled in
1915.
Two views of North
Road from the early years of the 20th century, looking
northwards, the picture below taken from a hand-tinted postcard before
the introduction of colour printing.
Both pictures show Cuckoo
Bush Cottage on the
extreme left at the entrance to what is now
Christopher's Lane, a picturesque
thatched building that was demolished around
1960.
The
photograph above was taken in 1910 by Ashby Swift, a local photographer, showing the view looking towards town with the shops at the entrance to Meadowgate that were gutted by fire in 1922 and rebuilt as Woolf's Garage
in 1928, while the row of cottages known as Albion
Terrace can be seen in North Street on the right. The
double telegraph poles that can be seen in both photographs were a
distinctive feature in the streets of Edwardian England but most of the
wires and cables are now either underground or carried by single
distribution poles.
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Cuckoo Bush
Cottage in North Road on the corner of Christopher's Lane was such
a quaint, attractive and olde worlde property that it became the
subject of an Edwardian picture postcard entitled "A Bit of
Old Bourne" and copies were bought locally by visitors and
posted to addresses throughout the world. Many survive and they
are much sought after by collectors. |
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The substantial early Victorian
house at No 20 North Road was the home of Mr Horace Stanton, a
well known local solicitor and holder of many public offices. His
wife Dorothy continued living there after his death but she died
in 1988 and two years later, planning permission was given for the
building to be demolished to make way for a new residential
development that is known today as Maple Gardens although the
front gate remains on the main road. |
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Photo:
Courtesy Don Fisher |
There
was a mill on this site at what is now the junction of Mill Drove
with North Road since the earliest times but the original structure
was rebuilt as a four-sailed windmill in 1832 when the old stone
tower was raised to six storeys in height. It became known as
Wherry's Mill and continued grinding corn until 1915 when it was
struck by lightning and badly damaged, reducing it to two storeys.
The remains of the mill were eventually demolished in 1994 to make
way for a housing development. This picture shows the miller, Robert
Barnatt (1850-1917) and his wife Sarah (née North 1849-1937)
outside with two of their eight children and was taken circa 1890.
Before moving to Bourne, Robert was miller at Coggleshall Mill,
Sleaford, and after retiring from this mill, he ran a sweet shop
from the front room of his home in Stanley Street.
See
also Mill Drove |
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Another picture of Wherry's
Mill from the late 19th century, taken by William Redshaw and reproduced
from a plate rescued from his collection after his death. The
cottage on the right was the toll bar cottage and all road traffic and
animals could only pass on payment of a fee. See Early
days on the road |
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A more leisured age.
This is North Road pictured in the early years of the 20th
century, the picture at the top from 1910, the one above from 1914 and
that below from 1919. Motor
cars were still a rare sight and most of the traffic was horse
drawn, such as the delivery wagons passing close to Cuckoo Bush
Cottage that can be seen on the left. |
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See also The Hollies North Road
The Meadowgate fire
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