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Gonerby Hill Foot

Mon, 20 Nov 2023 07:17:39 GMT

During the first decade of the eighteenth century, Edmund Boulter, a wealthy benefactor and a Member of Parliament for Boston, paid for stone mounting blocks to be placed at regular intervals in and around Stamford to aid travellers on horseback. The blocks were all identified by his initials E B carved into the back, and were dated to between 1703 and 1708. Many were adjacent to inns or hostelries, but the block at Gonerby Hill Foot, Grantham, was on the verge of the road at the bottom of Gonerby Hill, with no buildings in the vicinity. Only five of these mounting blocks are now extant, and over the intervening years they have been subject to much misinformation. The remaining mounting blocks are at Stilton, Water Newton, Castor, Stamford and Gonerby Hill Foot. There are remains of a mounting block at South Witham, and the Spittlegate mounting block was moved to the George Inn in Grantham, where it remained until the mid-twentieth century.

John Wesley

Tue, 31 Oct 2023 14:19:35 GMT

John Wesley in Grantham

John Wesley rested at the White Lion Inn (later the Blue Lion) on 18th February 1747. He also preached to a large crowd at the back of a house on Watergate on 9th July 1781.

NHS and Key Workers

Sat, 30 Apr 2022 15:06:30 GMT

This plaque was placed by the Rotary Club of Grantham to thank NHS and Key Workers who worked during the recent pandemic.

This blue plaque was paid for and sited by the Rotary Club of Grantham to thank NHS and Key Workers for their work during the recent pandemic.

NHS plaque

Fri, 29 Apr 2022 17:33:24 GMT

NHS and Key Workers Plaque

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The Angel Inn

Fri, 29 Apr 2022 16:05:31 GMT

Angel and Royal plaque

The Angel Inn was a 15th century gatehouse inn. King

Richard III received the Great Seal here in 1483. The inn

was renamed The Angel and Royal in 1866. The plaque

was unveiled in June 2022.

Market Place

Thu, 30 Sep 2021 11:17:05 GMT

The first signboard was erected looking towards the Market Place near to the Old Conduit. The board took the site of an old red telephone box which was not much used. The job was done at the time Lincolnshire County Council was reconstructing the pathway close the Old Conduit and so LCC kindly installed the signboard for us led by Mark Heaton.

This detail shows the Angel carving on the Angel & Royal hotel and the first draft of the Conduit drawing. Unfortunately, Richard depicted Franciscan monks, the Grey Friars, drawing water from the Conduit. Malcom Knapp protested “But the Reformation had arrived and their Friary had been demolished and the stone used to build the Conduit – you can’t show the Grey Friars!” Richard redid the drawing showing a shepherd but had trouble doing sheep’s feet so he hid them behind the barrels!

The shepherd and his sheep are now shown and the Curteis plaque.

The Market Cross and the Fight! Go and look at the signboard to read about it.

Manuel Immanuel

Thu, 30 Sep 2021 11:12:26 GMT

Manuel Immanuel was thought to have been born around 1758. He may have been the son of a painter and illustrator of manuscripts of the same name in London. He was an immensely talented artist, and also designed scenery and interior designs of theatres. He used transparencies and lamps to illustrate his work, often illustrating full size animals such as elephants.

In 1805 The New Street Theatre on Red Lion Street in Boston was built to house Robertson’s Touring Company. When it was completed in January 1806, it could accommodate 1,079 people. It was reported that the interior decorations from ‘the Masterly pencil of Mr Immanuel, evince a taste and genius, which add to the reputation he already acquired as an artist’. Whilst in Boston he joined the local Lodge of Freemasons.

In 1809, there were many celebrations to commemorate King George III, who had acceded to the throne nearly fifty years before. At St Ives in Cambridgeshire, Mr Immanuel, who was at that time living in Bedford, painted a large transparency and was given huge acclaim for his work. At was noted that he had recently produced a similar piece in Huntingdon.

By 1814 he was living in Grantham, when he subscribed to a book called A genealogical history of the English sovereigns, from William I. to George III. inclusive: Accompanied with a brief statement of the principal events ... and illustrated by genealogical tables, by William Toplis. On 27 March 1815, his one man panoramic exhibition opened at the Lyceum theatre in London and lasted until mid May. His paintings were in oil, painted on velvet, and occupied 2,160 square feet. The display space was a segment of a circle, and so it was described as panoramic. Some paintings were copies that he made of a variety of famous paintings, such as Ruben’s ‘Daniel in the Lion’s Den’, while others were his own composition such as ‘Rural Scene’ and ‘African Wilderness’. The entrance of the theatre from the Strand was newly painted, and the royal family visited the exhibition in April.

The painting of Grantham Market Place in 1820, showing the opening of the mid-Lent fair, was thought to be by Immanuel. The painting appears to show an exhibition of paintings and may have illustrated his work. This painting now forms part of the Lincolnshire Collection. At the same time he transferred his Freemason membership to the Lodge in Grantham.

Manuel Immanuel continued to live in Grantham, in his house on the Market Place, where he had established an academy and taught drawing. In July 1821 Grantham celebrated the coronation of George IV. The church tower was draped with a flag, and the bells were rung from seven in the morning until the evening. The Corporation processed in their robes to church, where a service was held. Over 500 children from local Sunday School also attended. A meal was served afterwards in the Town Hall and local hostelries, of roast beef, plum pudding and strong beer. Women and children were given money to enjoy themselves at home. In the evening a large bonfire was lit in the Market Place and a general illumination of transparencies and exhibitions took place. Many shop keepers also had transparencies in their windows, including Mr Immanuel. Over the next few years, Immanuel stayed in Grantham and is mentioned as subscribing to several books. He continued to teach at his drawing academy until his death in 1834, aged 71. He is described in the Stamford Mercury as a drawing master and rigid observer of the laws of Moses, and celebrated as a connoisseur, an antiquary and a Hebrew scholar. Some of his paintings are now in the Lincolnshire Collection. He is buried in Nottingham in the Sherwood Street Jewish cemetery.

Mary Ann Rawle

Thu, 30 Sep 2021 11:10:21 GMT

Mary Ann Rawle was born in Lancashire, where she was branch secretary of the Women’s Freedom League. She lived in Grantham 1910-1964.

W.S.P.U. Suffragette imprisoned in Holloway Prison, friend of Mrs Pankhurst, who gave her a brooch to mark her time in prison. She was a friend of Keir Hardie the first Labour MP.

Founder member of the Grantham branch of the National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies, local branch secretary of the Woman’s Co-operative Guild and chairman of the Old Age Pensions Association. She stood as a Labour party candidate in the local and National elections.

Madame Montanari

Thu, 30 Sep 2021 11:09:34 GMT

The Dalton’s were local publicans who kept the original Nag’s Head pub some way down London Road. Augusta grew up and moved to London where she met the exotically named Corsican gentleman Napoleon Montanari. They married and he, the sculptor, made the wax dolls and she made the costumes. They became much respected for their wax dolls winning a medal at the Great Exhibition in 1851 and even, it is said, supplying dolls for Queen Victoria’s children. Grantham Museum has a fine example of one of her dolls.

L/C Walter Parker VC

Thu, 30 Sep 2021 11:08:24 GMT

Walter Parker was born at 5 Agnes Street Grantham. He enlisted in the Royal Marines in September 1914 at Nottingham. On the night of 30th April 1915 at Gallipoli, Lance Corporal Parker as a volunteer stretcher bearer, went out with a party of NCO’s and men to the assistance of comrades in an isolated trench containing about 40 men some of whom were wounded. After crossing about 400 yards swept by rifle and machine gun fire, L/C Parker was alone, the rest of the party being killed or wounded. Despite being seriously wounded he gave assistance to the wounded and helped evacuate the casualties early next morning. During the three previous days L/C Parker had displayed consistent bravery and energy whilst in charge of the battalion stretcher bearers, almost always under fire over exposed ground.

Recommendations for bravery were much delayed as his superiors were all wounded. He was invalided from service in June 1916 and his citation for the award of the Victoria Cross was not published until 22nd June 1917.

The blue plaque in Agnes Street was unveiled by Walter Parker’s great grandson Martin Edwards of Long Benington in the presence of several members of the family. A Colour party from The King’s School and members of the TA from Prince William of Gloucester Barracks were also present. The day was significant -11th November 2011.

William Stukeley

Thu, 30 Sep 2021 11:06:42 GMT

William Stukeley was born at Holbeach in Lincolnshire, and went on to study medicine at Cambridge University. He began making topographical and architectural drawings and published the results of his travels around Britain in 'Itinerarium Curiosum'.

In 1718, he became the first secretary of the Society of Antiquaries of London. His excavations at Stonehenge and Avebury were published in two books in 1740 and 1743.

He moved to Grantham in 1726 and said ‘I chose Grantham, because a very pleasant place, in a very fine country, near my estate and place of nativity in Holbeach. It was a quiet country life, spent in innocent pleasures and employment, with an especially agreeable garden, the sweetness of the air and the verdure and cheerfulness of rural scenes’.

When he left the town in 1730, he wrote: ‘by removing from Grantham to Stamford, I lost the pleasure of a garden and pastures for horse keeping and by degrees found out the great want of literary conversation, without which study is but trifling’.

He changed career and was ordained as vicar of All Saints Church in Stamford in Lincolnshire.

Stukeley died in London on 3 March 1765.

Arthur Storer

Thu, 30 Sep 2021 11:05:08 GMT

Arthur Storer 1645-1687, was the posthumous son of Edward Storer, a gentleman, and his wife Katherine, nee Babington, sister of Rev Humphrey Babington of Trinity College, Cambridge. He was born at Buckminster in Leicestershire and baptised there on 20 February 1645. In 1647 his widowed mother married a widower, William Clarke, an apothecary of Grantham in Lincolnshire, and their respective and joint children were brought up together. The boys attended the local grammar school, where their uncle Joseph Clarke, was the usher.

From 1655 to 1661, Isaac Newton (born 25 December 1642), from the village of Colsterworth a few miles to the south, boarded at Clarkes’ house while he also attended the School. Arthur Storer was probably the boy with whom Newton fought in the churchyard next to the school. Newton took hold of his ears and rubbed his nose along the church wall. A few years later, when Newton listed his sins, he said that he regretted ‘beating Arthur Storer’. Newton and Storer later developed a lifelong friendship.

Arthur Storer appears to have become an apothecary, as later amongst his possessions was listed ‘a Parcell of Docters meanes’. His main interest was astronomy and in the late 1660s, he travelled with his half-sister Ann and her family to Maryland, to measure and observe the stars, planets and comets. His equipment was rudimentary, and with an astrolabe, he took regular readings of the celestial bodies. In 1678, he returned to England and stayed with his uncle Babington at his parish in Boothby Pagnell, Lincolnshire. He later returned to Maryland where he measured stars, planets and comets and sent his calculations to Isaac Newton. He said of the comet of 1682, that he must be ‘one of the first that took notice thereof in Maryland’. The comet was eventually named Halley’s Comet, since Edmund Halley was the first to identify its previous appearances and forecast its next. All these observations were later found to be very accurate, and were some of the most accurate readings of the time.

Storer died in early 1687 and is buried in Maryland. Shortly afterwards, Newton’s Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica, was published. In it, he acknowledged Arthur Storer for all the observation and readings of the stars and the comet. ‘The same day, Mr. Arthur Storer, at the river Patuxent, near Hunting Creek, in Maryland, in the confines of Virginia, in lat. 38½o, at 5 in the morning (that is, at 10h. at London), saw the comet above Spica角, and very nearly joined with it, the distance between them being about ¾ of one degree’.

Arthur Storer was the first astronomer in North America known by name, to make accurate measurements of celestial objects, and is now internationally recognised. Newton’s tribute was a fitting epitaph for a skilled astronomer, scientist, mathematician and friend.

William Wand

Thu, 30 Sep 2021 11:02:54 GMT

The plaque at 69 (then 35) Manthorpe Road was unveiled by his grandson William, Viscount Addison on Sunday 6 ^th January 2012.

Arthur Blissett

Thu, 30 Sep 2021 11:00:21 GMT

Civic Society member Jane Handsley had been researching her family and came across Jesse Handsley who was a Royal Marine with Capt Scott on the 1901-04 Expedition to the Antarctic when their Ship the Discovery became stuck in the ice.

Jesse’s shipmate was another Royal Marine who, she found, was born at 48 Manthorpe Road Grantham. Old records revealed that No 48 had been renumbered as far back as 1900 as No 30. The 1886 Ordnance survey map pinpointed the house and it is still there. We tracked down the owner and he was delighted with the idea of a Blue plaque as his Father had been a whaler in the Southern Seas for many years.

Jane set about the task herself of funding the £420 cost of the plaque with the help of a community fund via her then employer British Sugar Plc and the plaque is now a proud feature of No 30.

L/C Joseph Tombs

Thu, 30 Sep 2021 10:58:59 GMT

L/C Joseph Tombs also went to the Grammar school early in the 1900’s. He was born in Australia but his family moved to England when he was a boy. He joined the King’s Regiment (Liverpool) in 1912 and during the Battle of Festubert in May 1915 he was awarded the Victoria Cross. His unit had been mown down by enemy fire but on his own initiative Joseph Tombs went into No Man’s Land four times to rescue wounded comrades.

He was wounded himself by shrapnel. He emigrated to Canada in 1921 and died in 1966.

Captain Albert Ball VC

Thu, 30 Sep 2021 10:57:28 GMT

Captain Albert Ball attended the Grammar school (later renamed The King’s School) in 1906 and 1907. He was a WW1 fighter ace who had been awarded the MC and three DFC’s before finally winning the Victoria Cross. At the time of his death at the age of 20 he was the leading fighter pilot with 44 victories. He was pursued and may have been shot down by Baron Richthofen’s squadron and is buried in France near, where many years later, a school was named in his honour.

Baroness Thatcher

Thu, 30 Sep 2021 10:56:19 GMT

Margaret Thatcher was Britain's first female Prime Minister and the longest serving PM for over 150 years. She was born on 13 October 1925 in Grantham into a shop-keeping family and attended Huntingtower Primary school followed by Kesteven and Grantham Girls school. She was joint head girl before going to Oxford to study Chemistry.

Her father Alfred Roberts was a local councillor, and then Alderman and Mayor of the town and with others founded the Rotary Club of Grantham becoming President in 1936-37. There is a Margaret Thatcher exhibition in Grantham Museum. Lady Thatcher was very proud of her time at KGGS and gave the school much credit for the education she received there.

Swinegate

Wed, 29 Sep 2021 11:18:13 GMT

The second signboard looks towards St Wulfram’s church from Swinegate and shows all the historic buildings along with another cartoon which depicts Isaac Newton’s fight with Arthur Storer in the churchyard. Isaac was lodging with Arthur’s mother at the time. They both went to the Grammar school but long after, they became good friends and corresponded over the position in the night sky of Halley’s Comet. Arthur became America’s first astronomer and of course Isaac too became quite famous.

St Peter's Hill

Tue, 28 Sep 2021 11:19:47 GMT

Signboard No 3 can be seen on St Peters Hill. It was suggested by Courtney Finn to mark his 2010-11 year as President of the Rotary Club of Grantham. The Club agreed and the signboard was designed. SKDC was happy with the idea but said it all needed planning permission and that cost £330. Grantham Future and Cllr Jacky Smith again came to the rescue with the money and the signboard was duly made and installed by SKDC.

The Rotary Club, the Mayor of Grantham and the Grantham Journal all turned out in force and the signboard was unveiled on Monday 3 ^rd December 2012.

Grantham Railway

Mon, 27 Sep 2021 11:22:09 GMT

On 7th and 8th September 2013 Grantham held a Railway Festival of Speed when the 75th anniversary of Mallard’s world speed record was celebrated. The iconic engine had travelled to Grantham railway station from the national Railway Museum at York and was displayed with other engines and the Gresley tea coach on a specially created siding right next to the station. 15,000 visitors came and Grantham Civic Society was involved in the planning of the Festival and organised 50 volunteer stewards into 70 shifts to look after the visitors and the weekend.

Sir Isaac Newton

Wed, 15 Sep 2021 11:29:22 GMT

The plaque was dedicated by Canon Christopher Andrews, Rector of St Wulfram’s and unveiled by Sir Martin Rees, Master of Trinity College, Cambridge and Astronomer Royal, as part of the Gravity Fields Festival in September 2012.

Isaac Newton has a second Blue plaque in the town and surely richly deserved. On 17 July 2013 Scott Mandlebrote, Fellow of Peterhouse College, Cambridge gave the annual Newton lecture at The King’s School. He is also Director of Studies of the Newton Project at the University of Sussex with Prof Rob Iliffe. He was delighted to unveil our Blue plaque on the wall of the Old School in Church Street. Canon Christopher Andrews was present to give a blessing.

Thomas Paine

Wed, 15 Sep 2021 11:26:09 GMT

Born in Thetford the son of a corset maker and apprenticed to him, Thomas was not a great scholar at school and went to sea at 19. He eventually became a tax collector or excise man for George III’s government and worked in Grantham for two years. His career took him to America where he became a journalist. He published “Common Sense” in 1776 – a strong defence of American independence from England. After adventures in France, being imprisoned for not endorsing the execution of Louis XVI, he returned to America having written ”The Rights of Man” and later “The Age of Reason”. His writings inspired great passion and also brought him much criticism but he created prose with ideas that stirred the hearts of the fledgling United States. He was derided by the public and abandoned by his friends but has now become honoured and regarded as one of the Founding fathers of the United States. His story is taught to every child in the US.

The Grantham plaque in the George Centre records Tom Paine staying at the George Hotel but in fact it was the George Inn which was on the site in 1762. The plaque was the gift of the Rotary Club of Grantham and was unveiled on 17th August 2011 by Ray Burman, the President of Rotary in Britain & Ireland (to acknowledge Rotary’s US founder) and Karen Huntress, the assistant cultural attaché representing the US ambassador to the UK. The American University of Evansville at Harlaxton was represented by the Principal Gordon Kingsley.

Charles Dickens

Wed, 15 Sep 2021 11:24:12 GMT

Charles Dickens came to Grantham on the Glasgow Mail coach en route to Yorkshire to research unsavoury schools which were cheating parents. He He stayed at the George Hotel and and the hotel subsequently figured in his novel “Nicholas Nickelby” when Nicholas passed the same way with Mr Wackford Squeers, the evil proprietor of Dotheboys Hall. and The George Hotel passed into literary history being described as “one of the best inns in England”.

This plaque was the gift of Grantham’s greatest historian and former President of Grantham Civic Society Malcom Knapp.

Henry Preston

Wed, 15 Sep 2021 11:14:34 GMT

Helped to found Grantham Museum and Public Library in 1926 and was a distinguished archaeologist. He was the manager of the waterworks and helped to investigate Roman Saltersford and the much earlier fossil remains there, including the dinosaur once resident at Grantham Museum. The town owes much to Henry Preston’s work to inspire the creation of a Library and Museum in the town and the fine scholarship of his archaeological work.

Queen Eleanor of Castile

Wed, 15 Sep 2021 11:12:07 GMT

Eleanor of Castile was the wife of King Edward 1 of England. They were married for 36 years when Eleanor died at Harby in Nottinghamshire on 28 November 1290. The funeral procession journeyed to London. King Edward decided that the resting place of the cortege each night should be marked by the erection of a memorial cross. The longest stage of the journey was the 23 miles to Grantham stopping on the night of 4 December. Our Grantham cross is one of three where there are no records of the construction, design and payments. It was constructed in the vicinity of St Peter’s Hill, where it survived for 351 years until it was pulled down by Cromwellian soldiers. Only three crosses remain with the most magnificent original being at Geddington near Kettering and Corby on the A43.

Ruby Stuckey MBE inspired Grantham Civic Society to consider having a replica cross built on St Peter’s Hill. We discovered an approved design from some years ago but cost ruled that out and we decided to go for a plaque instead. St Wulfram’s church architect and GCS Vice Chairman Graham Cook took to his drawing board and came up with a magnificent Ancaster stone plaque featuring the heads of Queen Eleanor and King Edward. The plaque was made by Head Stone Mason Derren Ross of our local firm the Skillington Workshop Company and paid for by public donations. Listed Building consent was received as the plaque was to be placed on the wall of the Guildhall and on Saturday 29 August 2015 the plaque was unveiled by Ruby Stuckey in the presence of a great crowd of townspeople and cyclists from St Martin in the Fields on their 8th annual charity cycle ride to continue their wonderful work of helping under privileged people.

South Kesteven District Council was an enthusiastic supporter of the project. We added a small brass plaque of explanation. The historians say that the crosses might be as much a public display of royal statues as affection for a much loved wife, but we prefer the love story that has come down through the ages.

PC Edith Smith

Wed, 15 Sep 2021 11:07:30 GMT

Edith Smith was born near Birkenhead in 1876. She married William Smith and so kept her family name. William died in 1907 leaving Edith with the care of their three daughters and one son James. Her life turned upside down and the 1911 census shows her training as a pupil midwife in London. Her daughters were living with relatives but her son was in an orphanage near Blackburn.

The outbreak of war in 1914 gave women the opportunity to become involved in policing. Mrs Smith had been trained in London and was described by a colleague as ‘a woman of outstanding personality, fearless, motherly and adaptable’.

On 17 December 1915 Chief Constable Casburn signed Edith Smith’s warrant card and she received the power of arrest, becoming the first full WPC receiving 28s (£1.40) per week. In June 1916 Edith was working alone in the town. She did rescue work among women and girls, saving many cases from coming to court. Indeed, although she handled hundreds of cases there is no record of her ever having to arrest anyone. However, she took no holidays, had no days off and worked nights with no overtime. By the end of 1917 Edith was tired out and she resigned in January 1918.

Edith moved to Runcorn in Cheshire to work for a nursing association, but died from a self-induced overdose of morphine on 28 June 1923. We do not know the background to this.

The Civic Society erected a Blue plaque on the wall of the original police cells in Edith Smith Way between the Guildhall and the Museum. It was unveiled on 19 October 2014 by our most senior lady policewoman DCC Heather Roach, who started her own police career in Grantham. In December 2015 Home Secretary Teresa May marked 100 years from the signing of
Edith’s warrant card by paying tribute to her when she apologised that her own department had first challenged the appointment of female police officers.

Edith’s family are very proud of her and we are in happy contact with grandaughter Margaret.

St Peter's Hill Dig

Sat, 11 Sep 2021 13:54:12 GMT

St Peter’s Hill Archaeological Dig

St Peter’s Hill Archaeological dig was our first buildings recording group project.

After scorch marks appeared on St Peter’s Hill green during the long hot summer of 2018, a resistivity study was undertaken by Lincolnshire Heritage, on behalf of Grantham Civic Society, funded with a grant from SKDC’s Community Fund. It revealed three areas of interest where it was possible that there was buried masonry. Early in 2019, the society were awarded another grant from InvestSK enabling them to employ Lincolnshire Heritage once again to supervise the digging of three test pits to try and identify what lay beneath the ground.

One pit yielded 17th century artefacts such as pottery and clay pipes, whilst another revealed a stone pillar, which may have been the entrance to the well house or conduit known to have been situated near there before 1858. The other pit was where an Edward I silver coin was found. The base of the pit dated to between the 11th and 13th centuries and had a cobbled base with demolition rubble on top, thought to be perhaps the remains of St Peter’s Chapel. The area of St Peter’s Hill, was owned at the time of the Norman Conquest by an Anglo-Saxon nun called Elsuid. When she died, she left the property to Peterborough Abbey.

The first reference to the chapel on the site dates from 1338, when Emma of Stapleford was given permission to be enclosed as an archoress in a cell adjoining the chapel. An anchoress was a pious woman who lived alone and apart from society. She was subject to religious rites of consecration similar to those of a funeral, and so was considered dead to the world, a type of living saint. She was fed by people in exchange for prayers. The chapel was mentioned again in the patent rolls of 1339 and 1349. They confirmed that Roger de Wolsthorpe and Richard de Saltby (whose tomb is on the south wall of St Wulfram’s church) paid for three chantry priests to pray for the souls of them and their families, one in St Wulfram’s church, one in St Peter’s chapel and one in the chapel of St Thomas the Martyr in St Wulfram’s churchyard.

Rentals dated 1346 and 1404 for the property of Peterborough Abbey in Grantham have survived, showing that they also owned land adjacent to the chapel and in Elmer Street and Castlegate. A singing chaplain was one of the people living in one of their cottages. In 1548, after the dissolution of the monasteries, the last priest of St Peter’s chapel was Thomas Mackander, retired with a pension of £6 per year. The goods and ornaments in the chapel at that time were valued at 3s 4d and the chalice weighed 3oz.

The chapel may have been ransacked during the Civil War; certainly the Eleanor Cross was pulled down at that time. When William Stukeley lived in a house on the corner of Castlegate (on the site of Alive church) from 1726 to 1730, St Peter’s chapel had fallen into disrepair and may have been demolished. His friend Mr Ashton, according to Stukeley, used some of its stone to construct the back of his house on St Peter’s Hill. The rest of the stone lay on the cobbled ground undisturbed and was eventually covered over. The land was later used as a wood store for a local architect and builder Joseph Langwith.

In 1800, after the area was acquired by the town, it was decided to build a theatre on the green. After initial excavation, numerous bodies were found, buried adjacent to where the old chapel had been situated. They were removed to the crypt of St Wulfram’s church and were eventually reburied in the churchyard. The theatre plans were subsequently abandoned. The buildings surrounding the green have changed, but the green itself has remained largely untouched, except for landscaping and the erection of the statues.

The Pest House

Sat, 11 Sep 2021 13:53:58 GMT

Grantham Pest House

Grantham Pest House was our second Buildings Recording Group project. It was built in the late C16, largely rebuilt between 1789 and 1790, and altered and extended as a private dwelling around 1880.

At Grantham, a pest house was constructed to the north of the town, and a lease of 1584 records the plot as being leased by the Mayor, Aldermen and Burgesses of Grantham. The lease records: ‘if it shall happen or chance hereafter ... the Town and Borough... to be visited with the plague called the pestilence or any other smiting disease or contagious sickness whereby it shall be thought good to divide the infected people from the whole... better safeguard of the said Town ... upon two days warning ... all the tenants and dwellers within said messuage or house to depart ... to permit and suffer the infected or visited people to enter into the house ...’ While later leases are associated with the Brownlow family, who held a seat at nearby Belton House from the late C16, earlier leases may have been with their predecessors, the Pakenhams. The Grantham Hall Book of 1702 recorded the rent due for the pest house for Michaelmas term as 3 shillings.

John Langwith jnr, a local master-builder, was chamberlain of the town from 1789 to 1790, during which time he oversaw the rebuilding of the pest house. The Enclosure Award map of 1809 shows a rectangular-plan site delineated on the east side of Manthorpe Road, containing a single and long ‘H’ plan building, the responsibility of the Alderman and Burgesses of Grantham. A report on the proposed municipal boundary of Grantham in 1837, indicated that the ‘Pest House’ was included within the north boundary of Grantham, and Dawson provided the accompanying map, again showing the ‘Pest House’ as two detached buildings. It was converted to a private dwelling in about 1880.

The walls of the building are now painted stone and red brick with a natural slate roofs and timber-framed windows and timber doors. It is now Grade II listed.