NO MANORIAL STATUS FOR THE CROFT

The metamorphosis of a five-bedroom residence into the Manor House of Bourne was soon apparent with lavish advertising in our local newspapers in readiness for a formal opening in the autumn of 2012 when The Croft suddenly became "the old manor house".
We advised the developers that the use of this description for a very ordinary and comparatively new property was incorrect but to no avail and advertisements continued to appear, one even with the whimsical phrase, “To the Manor Bourne”, in an attempt to attract prospective buyers to what purported to be an ancient site.
The dictionary definition of manor house is the former home of a lord of the manor which was not the case here. This was a relatively modern property standing in seven acres of land and dating from 1922, a town house built as a family home for modern living by local farmer and corn merchant Richard Gibson (1879-1958) with no connection whatsoever with either of our two ancient manors, those of Bourne and Bourne Abbots, both of which date back to mediaeval times and to call The Croft a manor house may be an attractive marketing ploy for the £8 million development but was and is a misnomer.
Richard Gibson chose The Croft as a suitable name because it fitted the design, the original meaning being an enclosed plot of land adjoining a house occupied by the owner. Admittedly it was a spacious property comprising an entrance hall, cloakroom, lounge, dining room, two kitchens, five bedrooms, a dressing room and a large bathroom while outside was a detached garage for two cars, a tennis court and grassland. But it has no claims to antiquity and the term manor house is totally unjustified.
Nevertheless, it has been used regularly by the developers and will no doubt soon enter the guide books and street maps and as the years go by the name will eventually be referred to in the annals of Bourne, so proving once again the famous remark by the American car maker, Henry Ford, that history is more or less bunk.

The Croft with the Victorian lamp standards along the main drive. They were slightly damaged by vandals while the house was standing empty but the developers who are building the retirement village have promised to restore them as part of the project and keep them in situ.

Once left empty, the main house began to deteriorate and the surrounding meadowland neglected. Some of the trees were felled and the entire area began to take on an air of total abandonment.

BOURNE CANNOT AFFORD TO OWN IT

THE GATES OF The Croft in North Road have been standing open in recent weeks to reveal an empty and boarded up mansion surrounded by a lush green space but a large question mark hangs over its future. The planning tussle over the proposed use of the meadowland surrounding the property for housing development is over for the time being although many fear this is only a lull before a renewed application to build new homes on the site is made by the developers.
Others are of the opinion that the land will never be built on and there is even speculation that the property may be given to the town as a gift, a gesture that would receive widespread public acclaim because it has already been suggested that the house would be perfect for conversion into a hospital or hospice, a community centre or even a small theatre for the performing arts. To donate The Croft to Bourne would be a magnificent philanthropic undertaking by the owners but one unlikely to be accepted because the stumbling block would be money.
Who would take on such a project? Who could afford to contribute the millions of pounds needed to bring any of these ideas to fruition for the benefit of the people? We may be surrounded by organisations that handle large amounts of public money seemingly on behalf of the community but getting them to part with it for benevolent and altruistic causes such as this would be well nigh impossible.
The obvious source would be the local authorities to whom we pay our council tax and who are supposed to provide our public services but you can forget them. Bourne Town Council’s income is barely bigger than that of a corner shop while South Kesteven District Council and Lincolnshire County Council are both struggling to pay increasingly larger staffs their inflated salaries and index-related pension entitlements and are having to reduce spending elsewhere to balance the books.
Perhaps our big charities might chip in, but don’t bank on it. The Len Pick Trust is dedicated to paying out small sums annually to selected recipients and that would not include a major seven figure donation while Bourne United Charities, a much wealthier organisation, has already jettisoned some of its properties rather than pay for their upkeep. The Vestry Hall was sold and the Old Grammar School handed over to the Bourne Educational Foundation while Baldock’s Mill is leased to the Civic Society and the trustees are far too committed maintaining their current property holdings to make a contribution of any substance to a new community scheme in Bourne.
A hospice at The Croft could be funded by the National Health Service, I hear you say, but then pigs might fly. This over-staffed and unwieldy organisation is too busy meeting crisis after crisis and trying to resolve a current deficit of more than £500 million to take on any new challenge while the National Lottery Fund can also be ruled out because that treasure chest is now raided regularly by the Chancellor to pay for projects that should be funded by government instead of those which benefit the community directly as was originally intended.
The outlook therefore looks bleak and if the scenario I have painted is a little hard to swallow, then consider the Red Hall, an early 17th century property that has become the jewel in Bourne’s architectural crown. It was bought in 1860 by the Bourne and Essendine Railway Company for use as a ticket office and stationmaster’s house when the newly built railway link opened but when this closed in 1954, this magnificent building became redundant. It was offered to Bourne Urban District Council, Kesteven County Council (the former county authority) and South Kesteven Rural District Council for a nominal £1 but turned down by all after councillors said it was a useless building and one that should be pulled down rather than spend public money on it for any other purpose. Fortunately, not everyone was so unsympathetic and the late Councillor Jack Burchnell enabled Bourne United Charities acquire the freehold in 1962 and it survives to this day.
The Red Hall is an important Grade II listed building, The Croft is not. It is a large but unspectacular house built as a family home in 1922 by a local corn merchant with little to commend it other than the land on which it stands. If it were offered to Bourne and the initial obstacles overcome to enable it open in its chosen role, we would have yet another Butterfield Hospital situation in the making, with a needed and much loved amenity surviving only through voluntary help and goodwill. Apart from the capital investment required to bring the building up to standard, the organisers would also face an annual demand for upkeep and maintenance and it would be inevitable that financial advisers might recommend at some time in the future that the parkland would make excellent housing and could be sold off piecemeal to fund annual overheads. The wheel would therefore have turned full circle.
As it is, the developers may consider that they have spent enough money on trying to obtain planning permission to develop the site, their many attempts thwarted by opposition from the town, including a vociferous nimby element living in the vicinity, particularly Maple Gardens.
If the site is left as it is, The Croft is likely to remain empty and boarded up, a strange and remote property surrounded by stone walls and iron gates, and it will soon acquire the mystery of those large empty mansions so popular in Gothic novels and old Hollywood B movies. If this happens, it will become the monument to a victory by the small man over big business but it will be of no benefit to Bourne.

Reproduced from the Bourne Diary, Saturday 19th August 2006