St Peter's Road

 

 

This short stretch of road just off West Street is barely 200 yards long and was important in years past only because it led to the Bourne Union, or workhouse, later St Peter's Hospital from which it takes its present name. The hospital was demolished during the summer of 2001 and is now a car park for the printing firm Warners Midlands plc and so the road leads nowhere, except to a back entrance of the Wellhead Gardens.

 

There are several old properties in the lane, mostly Victorian and Edwardian houses and bungalows, although there is also a block of eight council flats on the left as you walk up. They were built in 1982 at a cost of £175,000 despite protests from local people that they would have preferred six flats only on the site and the rest of the space devoted to car parking which has been excluded from the current development and so vehicles are parked at the kerbside for long periods. 

 

Photo: Courtesy Michael McGregor

 

The flats were built on the site of a row of terraced 18th century cottages that provided homes for hundreds of families in the town down the years. They were small and cramped with few modern comforts and outside toilets but they were regarded with some affection and their demolition was seen as a sad loss to the town by many people, not least some of those who were brought up here, for despite their drawbacks by today's standards, these were the places that they called home.

 

There were ten cottages in the terrace, built of red brick and blue slate, and rented out over the years to working class families. The absence of modern conveniences appeared not to have been a deterrent to tenants because many couples lived there for most of their lives and brought up large families and there were rarely any vacancies. But increased vigilance by the local authorities during the late 20th century over health and housing regulations eventually sounded their death knell and they were condemned as being unfit for human habitation and acquired by South Kesteven District Council through a compulsory purchase order before being pulled down in September 1981 (bottom picture) to make way for the new flats with all modern conveniences that were completed the following year. These included of course, inside loos, unlike the privies of yesteryear, pictured below, with their wooden thunderboxes and bundles of cut newspapers hanging inside the door in lieu of toilet paper.

 

 


Photo: Courtesy Michael McGregor

 

FOND MEMORIES OF THE COTTAGES

NEWLY-WEDS Trevor and Winifred Pool began their married life at No 5, formerly occupied by Trevor's Aunt Ethel who had been allocated an almshouse, and they moved in on 21st December 1946. Trevor, who went to live and work at Halifax, Yorkshire, later remembered these years with some affection: 

The accommodation was very basic by today's standards, two up and two down with a lean-to erected by my aunt which extended up to the coal shed which we shared with an odd rat or two. The ceilings were very low and I know that when my hair touched that I needed a trim. But there were plus points in having a low level house because you could take delivery of the Sunday newspapers through the bedroom window and pay your weekly bill to Mr Lane who brought them round at the same time. 
There was no mains water and the only tap was at the far end of the row near the toilets which were shared by more than one cottage. They were flush toilets in that you kept a bucket inside which you filled from the river at the back and then tipped it into the pan when you had finished. We always kept the toilets locked to prevent others from using them but you were in trouble if you went out to use them and forgot the key. The rent of the cottage was only half a crown or 2s. 6d. a week and an extra 1s. 3d. for rates, a total of 3s. 9d. in old money. 
I did make some improvements to the cottage before we left in 1953 by installing electricity and provided washing and cooking facilities in the lean-to but because the cottage was one of the furthest away from the mains water tap, the most important innovation was to connect some ex-War Department high pressure hose pipe between the mains supply and the river bed out the back. I suppose this is what we would call an illegal act today but my goodness, it did improve the quality of life. 
However, the river might have looked clean and it was certainly an ideal place to put bottles of milk and keep them cool in hot weather but I never relished the idea of drinking river water which some people had done in the past even though it was often the place to deposit unmentionable liquids that found their way into it in the mornings, especially as it was a long walk to the toilet block. Nevertheless, they were happy days.

 

See also Mswil House, a Grade II listed building 

that can be found at No 4 St Peter's Road

 

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