BOURNE, a parish in the wapentake of AVELAND,
parts of KESTEVEN, county of LINCOLN, comprising
the market-town of Bourne, and the hamlets of Cawthorpe
and Dyke, and containing 2242 inhabitants, of
which number, 2029 are in the town of Bourne, 36 miles
(S.) from Lincoln, and 97 (N.) from London. This.
place takes its name from a stream of remarkably pure
water, issuing from a copious spring a short distance to
the south of the town, which is so powerful as to turn
a corn-mill within three hundred yards of its source,
about half a mile from which it becomes navigable, and
is called the Bourn Eau; it joins the river Glen, which
runs on the eastern border of the parish, at a place
called Tongue End, and thence the Glen shortly joins
the Welland at Pinchbeck. Though little of its early
history is known, it is supposed, from the discovery of
Roman coins and tesselated pavements, to have been
anciently a place of some importance. When the Danes
invaded England in the ninth century, Marcot, the
Saxon lord of Bourne, with a few .of his own vassals
and a detachment from Croyland abbey, after an obstinate
engagement, defeated a party of them, who had
made an inroad into this part of Lincolnshire. Prior to
the time of Edward the Confessor, a castle was erected
here, of which only the trenches and mounds are discernible,
appearing to have included an area of more than
eight acres. In 1138, Baldwin, a descendant of Walter
Fitz-Gilbert, to whom the town was given by William
Rufus, founded a priory for canons of the order of St.
Augustine, the site alone of which, now called the
Trenches, is visible: the revenue, at the dissolution,
was £ 197. 17. 5. In the seventeenth century, Bourne
was twice nearly destroyed by fire. The town, consisting
principally of one very long street, the houses in which
are in general modern and well built, is pleasantly
situated, and plentifully supplied with excellent water. The
trade is chiefly in leather and wool; for the former
there are several extensive tan-yards. A navigable
canal has been constructed from this town to Spalding
and Boston, by which means it is supplied with coal,
timber, and other commodities. The market is on
Saturday: the fairs are on April 7th, May 7th, and October~
2Qth. The county magistrates hold a meeting every
Saturday: courts of session for the parts of Kesteven
are held quarterly. The town-hall, recently erected at
an expense of £2500, on the site of a former one, built
by William Cecil, Lord Treasurer in the reign of Elizabeth,
is a spacious handsome edifice, under which is the
market-place.
The living is a discharged vicarage, under sequestration,
in the archdeaconry and diocese of Lincoln, rated
in the king's books at £8, and in. the patronage of the
Earl of Pomfret. The church, dedicated to St. Peter
and St. Paul, though spacious, appears to be only part
of a larger structure: it is principally hi the Norman
style, but contains several portions hi the early and
later styles of English architecture, and has two towers
of mixed character, of which the southern is considerably
higher than the other, and is crowned with pinnacles.
Within are some interesting monuments, a
finely enriched font of the later style, and a stoup under
a crocketed canopy: the western entrance is a fine specimen
of the later style, and over it is a large "window
of good composition. There are places of worship for
Baptists and Wesleyan Methodists. A school for thirty
children was founded in 1653, and endowed by Thomas
Trollope, Esq., who also endowed an hospital for six
aged men, and an almshouse for the same number of
women. There is a mineral spring in the town, which
was formerly in great repute. William Cecil, created
Baron Burleigh by Queen Elizabeth, was born here, in
1521.