The Bourne basket works

A small but thriving industry that existed in Bourne during the middle years of the 20th century was basket making.

Children and women were employed cutting willow branches, or osiers, to provide the raw materials and during the Second World War of 1939-45, evacuees sent to the town to escape the bombing in Hull were also recruited to help.

The basket works was at No 22 Burghley Street in the wooden hut that is now the clubroom of the Royal Antediluvian Order of Buffaloes, or Buffs as they are popularly known. The business was established around 1910 by George Stafford and produced hand-woven baskets of all shapes and sizes, for shopping, picnics, potato picking and a variety of other uses. The raw materials came from a plantation of osier beds along Meadow Drove, towards Dyke village, and were cut seasonally by occasional labour, usual women and small boys anxious to earn a few pennies.

The flexible branches were peeled and dried and delivered to the works where they were stacked ready for use, either in their raw state for general products or boiled to give them a greater strength and more attractive appearance for quality items. They were then woven into baskets of all shapes and sizes and anyone who was interested in the craft was invited to attend lessons once a week from the men and women who were employed to cut and fashion the willow.

In later years, the bulk of the firm’s trade was to provide baskets for cycles built and sold by Currys Ltd, then the country’s biggest manufacturers and suppliers at a time when bicycling was enjoying a tremendous popularity. Hundreds of baskets left the works each week and were sent by freight train from Bourne railway station to the company’s works in the Midlands where they were fitted to cycles before being sold at their various retail outlets, including one in Bourne which then existed in the Market Place, shop premises now occupied by Connells, the estate agents, although their logo could still be found in mosaic on the floor of the entrance doorway until it was covered up with rubber matting by the present tenants.

But changing fashions put paid to this cottage industry. Wire began to replace willow and cycle manufacturers preferred its durability and so the wholesale orders that had kept Stafford’s works in production slowly petered out and the business was forced to close around 1950. The building stood empty until 1956 when it was taken over by the Buffs whose members continue in occupation today.

See also The RAOB Lodge