The Corn Exchange is a commercial building in Abbey Road in

Bourne, Lincolnshire Bourne is a market town and civil parishes in England, civil parish in the South Kesteven Non-metropolitan district, district of Lincolnshire, England. It lies on the eastern slopes of the limestone Kesteven Uplands and the western edge of the ...

, England. The structure is currently used as a community events venue.

History

In early 1870, a group of local businessmen decided to form a company, to be known as the "Bourne Public Hall and Corn Exchange Company", to finance and commission a purpose-built

corn exchange A corn exchange is a building where merchants trade grains. The word "corn" in British English denotes all cereal grains, such as wheat and barley; in the United States these buildings were called grain exchanges. Such trade was common in towns ...

for the town. The site they selected, on the northeast side of Abbey Road, was leased to the proprietors of an old post office. The

lord of the manor Lord of the manor is a title that, in Anglo-Saxon England and Norman England, referred to the landholder of a historical rural estate. The titles date to the English Feudalism, feudal (specifically English feudal barony, baronial) system. The ...

, William Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Exeter, whose seat was at Burghley House, agreed to make the freehold interest in the site available to the directors of the new company on favourable terms. The building was designed by

Charles Bell Sir Charles Bell (12 November 177428 April 1842) was a Scottish surgeon, anatomist, physiologist, neurologist, artist, and philosophical theologian. He is noted for discovering the difference between sensory nerves and motor nerves in the ...

in the Italianate style, built by Robert Young of Lincoln in red brick with stone dressings at a cost of £2,000 and was officially opened on 13 October 1870. The design involved an asymmetrical main frontage of four bays facing onto Abbey Road. The central section of two bays featured a two-stage tower with round headed windows, flanked by short

Corinthian order The Corinthian order (, ''Korinthiakós rythmós''; ) is the last developed and most ornate of the three principal classical orders of Ancient Greek architecture and Ancient Roman architecture, Roman architecture. The other two are the Doric or ...

pilaster In architecture, a pilaster is both a load-bearing section of thickened wall or column integrated into a wall, and a purely decorative element in classical architecture which gives the appearance of a supporting column and articulates an ext ...

s supporting

voussoir A voussoir ( UK: ; US: ) is a wedge-shaped element, typically a stone, which is used in building an arch or vault.“Voussoir, N., Pronunciation.” Oxford English Dictionary, Oxford UP, June 2024, https://doi.org/10.1093/OED/7553486115. Acces ...

s, in the first stage, and square headed windows in the second stage: it was surmounted by a steep

pyramid A pyramid () is a structure whose visible surfaces are triangular in broad outline and converge toward the top, making the appearance roughly a pyramid in the geometric sense. The base of a pyramid can be of any polygon shape, such as trian ...

-shaped roof with brattishing and a

weather vane A wind vane, weather vane, or weathercock is an instrument used for showing the direction of the wind. It is typically used as an architectural ornament to the highest point of a building. The word ''vane'' comes from the Old English word , m ...

. The left-hand bay, which was single storey, was formed by a

porch A porch (; , ) is a room or gallery located in front of an entrance to a building. A porch is placed in front of the façade of a building it commands, and forms a low front. Alternatively, it may be a vestibule (architecture), vestibule (a s ...

with an gable containing a stone shield inscribed with the words "Public Hall", while the right-hand bay was fenestrated on the first floor by three

lancet window A lancet window is a tall, narrow window with a sharp pointed arch at its top. This arch may or may not be a steep lancet arch (in which the compass centres for drawing the arch fall outside the opening). It acquired the "lancet" name from its rese ...

s of differing sizes. Internally, the principal rooms were the hall keeper's accommodation, which was in the tower at the front, and the main hall behind, which was long and wide. The use of the building as a corn exchange declined significantly in the wake of the Great Depression of British Agriculture in the late 19th century. Instead, it was adapted for use as a ice skating rink in 1876. It went on to be used for lectures, operas and theatrical events: performers included the American entertainer, General Tom Thumb, in 1880, the magician, Hugh Washington Simmons also known as "Dr Lynn" in 1884, and the Bourne Amateur Operatic Society who performed the musical, '' The Quaker Girl'', in 1930. The building was acquired by Bourne Urban District Council in June 1938, so allowing the company that developed the building to be wound up in November 1938. The building also served as a popular concert venue: the Irish

rock band ''Rock Band'' is a series of rhythm games first released in 2007 and developed by Harmonix. Based on their previous development work from the Guitar Hero, ''Guitar Hero'' series, the main ''Rock Band'' games have players use game controllers mod ...

, ''

Thin Lizzy Thin Lizzy are an Irish rock band formed in Dublin in 1969. The band initially consisted of bass guitarist, lead vocalist and principal songwriter Phil Lynott, drummer Brian Downey, guitarist Eric Bell and organist Eric Wrixon although Wr ...

'', performed there in October 1973. Following local government re-organisation in 1974, ownership of the building was transferred to South Kesteven District Council. In the early 1990s, it was substantially remodelled at a cost of £900,000 with a large modern extension being added to the rear of the structure. Following completion of the works, the leader of South Kesteven District Council, Councillor Marjorie Clark, officially re-opened the complex on 4 September 1991. A further major programme of refurbishment works, which involved the creation of a community access point at the rear of the building, was completed at a cost of £600,000 in 2013.

References

{{reflist Commercial buildings completed in 1870 Bourne, Lincolnshire Bourne

History

See also

References