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Located in the heart of the Market Place is the former town hall, a Grade II listed building which was constructed in 1892. There was a former moot hall, or meeting hall, in the same place previous to this which had dated to around 1750 but wasn’t seen as substantial enough for the growing town. Gainsborough wasn’t much troubled by the air raids during the Second World War, but the one that there was caused damaged to the town hall and the replacement section of the structure wasn’t as ornate.

George Lansbury, the then Leader of the Labour Party, came to visit the building in December 1933. In a situation that was far from ideal, he managed to fall and break his thigh, leading him to have to return to Hampstead to recover. He had been quite vocal on his thoughts about the Tories in a speech he made before falling over, saying:

“The Tories are fascist, both in spirit and in action. They wish to reform the House of Lords in order to be able to frustrate the nation’s will when a mandate is given for socialism. Any such attempt is foredoomed.”

Don’t hold back….

Getting back on topic though. Perhaps sadly, the building was turned into an entertainment centre and has been left in a poor state of repair. An angry resident wrote to the local press in June 1981 complaining about the sale, stating:

“In connection with the proposed sale of the Town Hall. I challenge the people of Gainsborough to fight. Are you afraid of the councillors that represent you? Are you a Lincolnshire Yellow belly, too afraid to stand and be counted, but then the Town Hall is sold, have a lot to say?”

They evidently didn’t fight, but the letter writer was right to be concerned. The future might be better as part of the town’s regeneration plans includes restoring the structure and the scaffolding up suggests that this is happening. You can rent the building for £25,000 a year if you so desire, the details are at https://pph-commercial.co.uk/view-property/old-town-hall-lord-street-gainsborough-lincolnshire-dn21-2db-18048/. Hopefully the next couple of decades will be a little more auspicious for the building than the last couple of decades, it’s an odd way for a former public building to end up.

I accept that I’m not Jay Rayner, but I feel an obligation to report back on any regional bakery that might be in competition with Greggs. Cooplands is the second largest bakery chain in the country, with only Greggs being larger, and their outlets are mainly in the Midlands and north of the country.

There was very little choice (unless you love cheese straws) when I went in during the afternoon, although I’m sure they would have prepared something for me on request. They had five sausage rolls for £1.80, so that seemed a very good deal even though I wasn’t sure that I actually needed five sausage rolls. However, value is the key and all that. The service was friendly and everything seemed clean and organised, albeit quiet. They did have a steak and ale pie that I was briefly tempted by, but I’m not very good with fatty bits of steak and I couldn’t be dealing with my high levels of awkwardness in picking the bits of fat off the steak. I understand that food connoisseurs like fat, but I don’t.

Here they are in the bag.

And here they are in my luxury hotel. I say luxury hotel, but I mean Travelodge. I accidentally ate one between Cooplands and the hotel. They had a pleasant aftertaste, although were slightly mushy in texture and I would have liked a little bit more of a peppery taste to proceedings. Let’s be honest here, they’re not Greggs sort of quality, but I liked the pricing. I’d go here again and they were far better than the Pound Bakery, who gave me a highly sub-optimal experience a few months ago in Crewe with their pasties.

Right, that’s the end of another riveting food review. I think I need to get out more.

The Canute pub is operated by Stonegate so I expected a hugely overly refurbished pub and minimal effort made with real ale or craft beer. It’s fair to say that they delivered on that and they’ve evidently spent a lot of money on the interior to make it look modern and comfortable. It was also clean and tidy, so the staff seem to be on top of the whole arrangement.

The service was friendly, but there were only two other customers in the pub and so this clearly isn’t a venue making Stonegate a fortune during lunchtimes if my visit was anything to go by. No-one was eating despite the low prices they were charging. A number of reviews have suggested that they are closing before their scheduled closing time, not something which bodes entirely well for any venue.

The Wainwrights seemed slightly tainted and wasn’t at its best, but it was the only real ale available and there were no craft beers on offer. The price at least was reasonable at £3.10, although I forgot that I could have used one of my 50p off CAMRA discount vouchers until after the event. I like the Wainwright glasses incidentally for what it’s worth…

For reasons unknown, you can get 33% off the bill if you book in advance and you’re not a group of one. I suspect desperation has sunk in here from Stonegate, but there was a slight irony in the arrangement that if they had extended the offer to groups of one, they might have actually made a food sale from me as the food here seemed well reviewed. They are inevitably going to suffer from the JD Wetherspoon that is next door and has no shortage of lunchtime customers (and real ale, craft beer and sensible pricing which isn’t dependent on the group size). But, this pub seems as if it would cope with parties well and I think their target audience is older teenagers with their party nights, so I’m in entirely the wrong demographic now I’m aged over 26.

Firstly and primarily, I’m not a football writer, so anyone vaguely interested in knowing what happened in this match would be far better going to look at https://www.scunthorpe-united.co.uk/news/2024/july/report-gainsborough-trinity-3-5-iron/. I thought I’d meander along to the game now that I’ve become quite into this football thing again since the Euros and there was a decent turnout for the game. It cost £12.50 entry including the programme and I managed to resist the very tempting snack bar options during the match.

My first challenge was not to get hit by any flying balls during the practice before the game. Fortunately, I was successful in that mission, but a couple of other people who were less observant (or, more precisely, weren’t focused entirely on avoiding that scenario) managed to get gently struck by a flying football.

I was able to work out that Scunthorpe were playing in claret and blue, with Gainsborough playing in pink for reasons that I didn’t entirely understand. Perhaps with this depth of football writing, I should actually consider a career as a sports journalist.

I’m not a sports photographer, not indeed a photographer of any kind, but here’s the nearest I was getting to an action shot.

This is because it all gets a bit blurry when there is actually action.

Anyway, I thought that the whole arrangement was suitably entertaining. The stewards and staff were all friendly and engaging, politely telling off the errant children who decided to stand on things they shouldn’t. I managed to stand up for two hours without falling over, but I could have gone and got a seat had I wanted to. The ground has a capacity of 4,340 of which around 500 are seated. A long time ago, back in 1912, Gainsborough were in the Second Division of the football league which was quite an achievement given the relatively small size of the town. I’m sure that fans back then hoped for a swift return after they finished last in the league with just 23 points and 4 wins, but it wasn’t to be.

I can’t comment much on the football, although the standard of some players was high and they seemed to work the ball well without just booting it around the field. The teams were relatively young and both teams seemed to play most of their squads with plenty of substitutions, a good way I assume of working out who should be in the starting line-up come the start of the season. At least there were no shortage of goals, with Scunthorpe winning 5-3, although there were a couple of injuries. The referee gave up the match at what seemed to be 89 minutes, but it transpired that there was an injury and that seems a most pragmatic decision. The post-match report mentioned the that the injury that saw the match come to an end required stitches, but wasn’t as bad as it had looked at the time. It’s all a bit dangerous this sport thing……

There’s something beautiful about a Carnegie library, not just in the architecture, but also in the aspirations behind it. Andrew Carnegie, perhaps one of the greatest of the philanthropists, paid for thousands of public libraries and kick-started the process in many areas when local authorities were taking too long to provide resources. It was designed by Scorer and Gamble and opened in 1905, with the building purposely being in keeping with the Old Hall opposite.

The building is the oldest purpose-built library in Lincolnshire and its external beauty and internal structure have stood the test of time. Personally, I was less engaged with the library as the building now seems cluttered and it felt more structured looking at older photos. I excitedly went upstairs to see the reference section, but the local history books have mostly been locked away with no guidance provided about whether they were accessible or not. If old books need protection, whether because they are slightly fragile or whether they are valuable, then put them into locked storage, but get rid of physical barriers to the others. I did also slightly cringe at the number of books standing at an angle, but they had Pevsner and that’s my slightly odd base line of what I expect a library to have.

Anyway, this was one library where I didn’t feel comfortable, so I left quite quickly, but it’s great to see Carnegie’s legacy has prevailed and the building remains in use. My slight obsession (if someone can be slightly obsessed, is that a thing?) with local history does leave me with a concern though regarding whether a youngster with a slight interest in the town’s heritage would find something here to inspire them, and I fear that they might not.

This rather charming hotel seems to have had an interesting few years. It has a long history since it opened in the eighteenth century, but the police and licensing authorities shut it down in 2018 following a series of drug incidents and violent disorder. The owner was a former councillor, so the local media seems to have had a field day reporting that. It was known as the White Hart, but was rebranded after the closure as the Gainsborough Hotel to try and give it a new lease of life. It now appears to be closed and locked up, a sub-optimal situation for the owners. I can’t see anything in the local media as to why it’s closed, or whether it’s reopening again soon, although the reviews suggest that it has had a troubled couple of years. It’s a shame that it’s closed though, the building is beautiful and in its prime it must have been an important part of the local community. The cost of renovating a hotel such as this would be substantial though, especially as it’s a Grade II listed building.

Back on Christmas Day 1013, Sweyn Forkbeard (the son of Harald Bluetooth) swept into England and pronounced himself as King. He arrived in Gainsborough by sailing up the River Trent, then legend states that his forces spread across the country and everyone became supporters. That might perhaps be aspirational, but it’s clear that he took control of some significant parts of England and he established himself in Gainsborough to plan his new empire. He then, rather inconveniently for his new nation, died on 3 February 1014, but it’s not known for sure how his death occurred. It did mean that 50-day Liz Truss did manage to outlast at least one leader, although I think it’s fair to say that when her forces spread across the country not many people became supporters. Anyway, I’ve digressed into politics.

Æthelred the Unready, which actually is perhaps a name that Liz Truss could have used (the Unready bit, I’m not sure Æthelred would have suited her, but I’ve very quietly digressed again), took over the country after Sweyn’s death and Gainsborough’s brief period as the national capital came to an end. History might have been somewhat different if Sweyn had managed to live just a little bit longer, perhaps Gainsborough might have become a regional powerhouse. But, instead, it’s a useful fact that local tourist officials have tried to make something of.

This blue plaque was erected by the Delvers, a local history group in Gainsborough, who seem to do much good work in the area promoting the town’s heritage.

Sir Nikolaus Pevsner is my favourite architectural historian. Actually, he’s the only one that I can name, but he is such an authority and his judgement always seems sound to me. I was interested to read what he thought about the Lincolnshire town of Gainsborough, but he really wasn’t that keen. He describes it as:

“One of the dreariest of the Midland red brick towns. The factories are all red brick, and those in the centre cannot for a long time have been proud of the appearance of their buildings. Neither the manufacturers nor the council seem capable of thinking of their town in post-Victorian towns.”

Pevsner writes interesting walks, or perambulations as he called them, of towns, but he says about Gainsborough:

“A perambulation around Gainsborough is not necessary nor advocated.”

Ouch. I actually suspect he would have been less impressed at how it is today, as the council of the 1960s demolished some of the interesting heritage buildings in their road expansion obsession.

This church looks a little out of proportion as the nave and chancel were entirely rebuilt between 1734 and 1744 when the previous structure was thought to be too dark and dingy, but the tower, which dated from the fifteenth century, was kept. After three years of construction, the new church opened on 16 September 1744 and it reminds me of how some of the slightly later churches in the United States, such as Old North Church in Boston, look.

The church is kept locked, but you can request the key from the cafe on-site, which I did. It’s well proportioned internally and I can imagine the excitement when it opened, with its two levels of seating and plenty of space. It’s certainly bright, which would have been in contrast to the previous building.

Looking back to the organ. The chandelier is a survivor from the previous church.

The pulpit, which was installed in 1869.

It’s spacious and would have been able to cater for several hundred worshippers. The National Churches Trust notes that:

“The architect of the present building was Francis Smith of Warwick (1673-1738) who was greatly influenced by James Gibbs, the designer of St Martin in the Fields, Trafalgar Square.”

The height of the box pews were reduced by 12 inches in the 1860s.

Alan Stephenson, who served as the organist here for twenty years between 1913 and 1933. He was also the last organist to play at Coventry Cathedral before its organ was destroyed during the 14 November 1940 air raid.

The eighteenth century benefactors.

The memorial to Francis Elliott, who had served as the District Commissioner of Jubaland. He was the son of the Rev. Canon J. R. Elliott, M.A., of 1, Greenstone Place, Minster Yard, Lincoln and Francis died at the age of 35 on 2 February 1916. He’s buried at the Mogadishu African War Cemetery where there are 182 burials, but the Commonwealth War Graves Commission is currently unable to access the site. Unfortunately, the site has been desecrated and the graves destroyed and vandalised, there’s more at https://adeclewlow.com/2018/11/07/discovering-the-commonwealth-war-graves-cemetery-in-mogadishu/.

The entrance to the church.

What I assume is the entrance to the bell tower.

The tower, which I think is the most magnificent part of the structure. The authorities had to raise money in 1871 for the church’s protection as they were worried about bits of it falling down, which was considered sub-optimal. Also, a local cabinet maker, Mr. Knighting, had been walking across the church yard on a dark Sunday evening and a slab gave way and he nearly plummeted three feet down into a vault, located near to the base wall of the tower.

The graveyard, stripped of all its gravestones. There has been some controversy about this and the idiotic decision was enacted in 1961, stripping the area of its historic relevance and interest. They said at the time that it tidied the area up as it had become overgrown and gravestones were damaged. I mean, perhaps repair the gravestones and cut the grass? Anyway, it’s a memorial garden now.

Richard Rollett’s gravestone was saved as it was thought to be of interest as he was the master sail maker on HMS Resolution, which Captain James Cook captained.  The Captain Cook Society has more information on the life of Rollett at https://www.captaincooksociety.com/cooks-life/people/cooks-officers-and-crew-and-contemporaries/richard-rollett-1750-1824. Although that’s it, the rest of the stones and their memories have gone.

It’s a wonderful example of eighteenth century church architecture, although there’s surprisingly little history here to see beyond that. They’ve knocked the old church down, the tower is inaccessible and the gravestones have been removed. Pevsner was very rude about Gainsborough, but he didn’t make any personal comment on his thoughts of the church’s architecture.