The town today

Bourne is a compact market town with most everyday amenities close to the centre. Independent shops line North Street and West Street, alongside two supermarkets, a leisure centre and a hospital on South Road. Peterborough, Stamford, Spalding and Grantham are all within a generally 30-minute drive, providing access to wider employment opportunities and services.

The Wellhead Gardens and Bourne Woods are two of the town's main green spaces. Located on the road towards Grimsthorpe, Bourne Woods cover around 400 acres and offer free access, car parking and waymarked walking trails.

A short history

The springs that give the town its name were used by the Romans, who cut the Car Dyke along the fen edge to the east. A castle stood beside the Wellhead from the twelfth century; the earthworks are still visible in the park. Hereward the Wake is traditionally associated with the town, though the evidence is thin.

Robert Manning, who wrote one of the earliest works of English verse, was a monk at Bourne Abbey in the fourteenth century. William Cecil, Lord Burghley, chief adviser to Elizabeth I, was born here in 1520. Charles Frederick Worth, who founded Paris couture as an industry, was born on North Street in 1825.

In the twentieth century the town built racing cars. Raymond Mays ran English Racing Automobiles and later BRM from workshops on Spalding Road, directly behind his family home on Eastgate, winning the Formula One world championship in 1962.