All towns have and need key meeting places that evolve over time and become centres for social and commercial activity and one of the oldest of these was the Black Swan in New Road. The Black Swan was my father’s favourite pub and where I had my first pint in my early teens, albeit supervised by my father and grand-father under the auspices of the then landlord, Ron Cook who ran a good pub and would not tolerate any trouble.
Historically the Black Swan, thought to have been built in the seventeenth century, benefitted from a significant field to its rear, and originally the commercial thoroughfare of the river Westlode and its crossing outside its frontage. Over time the field would reduce in size and eventually disappear into a newly built Gateway supermarket. Once the River Westlode was covered over the town’s livestock market was held in the streets in front of the pub, and even when this disappeared from the streets in the 1930’s it was still close enough to the livestock market to be a significant meeting place for commerce and deals to be had over a pint. A town does not necessarily need purpose built buildings to serve its needs, but rather buildings that serve a purpose run by competent people. Thus the Black Swan served as a centre of commerce and pleasure for centuries. In the past it was a coach house for carriers carts and drovers with stables and grazing. It was a convenient meeting place for farmers, traders and other business and a popular auction room for land and property sales.
In 1870 we see the travelling bonesetter, Mr. J.M. Jackson using the Black Swan for clinics every Tuesday and seasonal visits of prize stallions to service mares. The 1880’s saw Spalding’s first cycle club meeting at the Black Swan.
In 1874 Spalding’s Athletic Association formed based at the Black Swan and its field was used for all sorts of sports including cricket, cycling, football, running to name but a few. By the 1880’s popular annual athletic meetings occurred at the Black Swan field. It was common in this Victorian era for balloons and rockets to be used as entertainment at public events to draw a larger crowd and you see this fashion increasing throughout the 1870’s with events including ballooning aeronauts from Horncastle to Holbeach.
These balloon ascents would involve the aeronaut being lifted by the balloon that supported a parachute canopy. Once at a ‘safe’ height the balloon would be deflated and the aeronaut would descend by parachute. These demonstrations were a regular draw of crowds at Spalding athletic meetings in the 1890’s despite this disastrous evet in 1890:
The 1890 athletic meeting attracted thousands of people from the Midlands, Peterborough, Wisbech and Kings Lynn. The great draw to this event was the advertised cycle competition that was promoted to include two famous cycle racers of the time F. J. Osmond and Woods. But, these two cyclists failed to turn up despite their promoted participation. Mr Osmond’s younger brother and another popular cyclist Mr. Syner, were to compete instead, but they had a “misunderstanding” with the judge caused by the final lap bell not being sounded in one of the heats, and refused to race resulting in what many regarded as a third rate competition. However, the greatest attraction of the day that pulled the crowds in was the engagement of the ballooning aeronaut Professor Russett to make a balloon ascent and a subsequent descent via parachute from a balloon that had been filled with the town’s highly flammable and poisonous coal gas. This was so popular that 7000 people had paid a schilling a piece compared to the usual sixpence for such meetings. 4000 of those had arrived by train.(the population of Spalding would be approximately 8000 at that time).
Unfortunately when they inflated the balloon it would not retain the gas as it escaped from the neck of the balloon with public disorder ensuing:
“The weary waiting over an hour beyond the time advertised for the ascent produced a feeling of suspicion in the minds of the crowd and they at once jumped to the conclusion that they were being hoaxed. A general murmur culminated in a loud roar of indignation, followed by a rush for the unfortunate professor and his apparatus, and , but for the timely and vigorous assistance rendered by several gentlemen and by the police, it is quite possible that the balloon would have been torn to pieces and the aeronaut lynched. The spectators included some roughish working men from a distance, whose rage knew no bounds on learning that they had spent their money in vain. This is not to be wondered at, and in the absence of explanation it was natural that they should imagine themselves to be duped. Fortunately the attempt to wreak vengeance upon the stranger was fraught with no serious consequences.
Russett was quickly assisted to the pavilion and locked up safe from the mob. His assistants Mr. Lindley, Mr. Vernon and several of the men, were subjected to some rough treatment, but the balloon was rescued with only a trifling damage being caused to it, the silk showing two rents. A number of extra policemen on duty in the town were sent for and the combined force kept the mob from breaking into the pavilion. The fugitive remained there nearly two hours in sound of the imprecations of many of those outside, who also vented their wrath by beating upon the doors and panels with sticks. Inspectors Caban and Wackett were hardly pressed while defending the parachute party and were compelled to resort to fisticuffs. Eventually, assisted by a ruse adopted by the police, he escaped in the rear and across Cave’s garden. Some considerable time elapsed before the excitement subsided, hundreds of people in the streets expressing their disgust with Russett, with the sports committee, and with the town of Spalding as well, accompanied by more or less bad language. During the row in the field, one man was about to strike a match with the object of destroying the balloon; if he had not been restrained a dreadful calamity would have occurred. The wonder is that an explosion did not occur seeing the large number of persons who were smoking.”[i]
Despite all this the event raised £450!
1898 saw the Star Lubricating Oil Company open a sample and ordering office in the Black Swan yard to take orders for and sell oil for the machines increasingly used in agriculture in this case with oil imported from America via Liverpool. The Black Swan field was used for recreation and commercial fairs.
In 1899 we see the Spalding Amateur football team play Mr. C.P. Wilson’s XI. The Wilson family were farmers from Horbling and had enough able and skilled family members to field their own highly successful football team. By 1899 they had played the Spalding team four times, winning thrice.
In the late 1940’s much of the larger part of the Black Swan field was compulsory purchased for the benefit of the town, with the remainder built on in the 1980’s.
The Black Swan continued to be a key pub for business and commerce especially as a popular market day haunt for local and visiting farmers and traders. In those days opening hours were extended on market days in most towns. The closure of the town’s livestock market together with the movement of the produce market to an out of town site removed that custom. However, it remained a key venue for the auction of property and agricultural land for a few years. However, it became venue for a new type of market that has enveloped Spalding that is very different, and often black.
Sadly from 2011 to 2019 the Black Swan increasingly became a venue for the trading and consumption of drugs and by 2019, with traces of cocaine found throughout the premises, it lost its licence. This is perhaps symptomatic of an increasing feature in 21st century Spalding that sees a massively increased trade of illegal drugs, vapes, cigarettes, alcohol and even meat. The black markets have increased as the old “market town” markets have disappeared. Before we judge such markets it needs to be remembered they can only exist if supported by a demand!
On one side of the Black Swan towards Swan Street was Molson’s chemists – a business that had changed very little since Victorian times. In 1897 this was part of the Talbot chain of pharmacies and was run by Mr. A.H. Molson. The importance of such a shop in the market town of Spalding cannot be over-emphasized as it would source drugs, pharmaceuticals and medicines for both humans and livestock as well as be a source of poisons for pests and chemicals for photography and horticulture. In my childhood in the 1970’s you could walk into this shop and one of the Mr. Molson’s, for there were three generations, would concoct a remedy from various bottles whilst you waited. On another occasion you might go in there to purchase “some stuff to get rid of a wasps nest.” The walls were stacked with rows of glass jars and flasks containing various substances in a scene that would be worthy of Harry Potter’s Diagon Alley. When I had my eyes tested I would be led down the back of the shop to be greeted by a young Robert Molson who continued as an optician after the pharmacy was demolished for a road widening scheme.
Between the Black Swan and Molson’s was C Jay hairdressers run by Colin Twell and John Pett. They had originally started in Red Lion Street in 1966 before moving to this site. I only ever had my hair cut here or at Frank Haresine’s in Red Lion Street. Frank was a D-Day veteran that I am sure must have learned his hairdressing skills in the army, whereas Colin and John were more refined in their skill. I preferred to have my hair cut by John Pett, especially if I had to wait as it was the only place I had seen Marvel comics with characters like Thor and Captain America. John Pett was a charming man with a stammer – the first person I had ever encountered with such a condition. I recall him experimenting in his shop by having a metronome and using the rhythm of it to try and control his stammer. The old hairdresser’s joke, “something for the weekend sir?” had a slightly different meaning than the supply of condoms common to almost all barbers (along with styptic pencils, combs and razor blades) in that in the back of the shop he stocked a variety of sex aids for which my father’s shop supplied the batteries.
On the far side of the Black Swan was a tiny sweet shop run by Miss Vera Woolridge since the 1920’s until her death in the mid 80’s. She was an active preacher on the methodist circuit. Next door to her on the corner of the back entrance to the Black Swan yard were the Harrison Brothers fruit and veg shop that first set up there in 1956 and remained for thirty years.
It is relatively easy to trapse through my memory of what I call my parochial town centre of Spalding and see a selection of shops, businesses and people that all knew each other. If a person traded with your shop you reciprocated trading with them. This was an old-fashioned principle I was brought up with and tried to carry into my working life especially in the towns of Spalding, Holbeach and Long Sutton where I would prefer spending money with a customer if I could. If you go through other towns of the Fens you can see a pattern of family businesses, many of which had long-standing roots in their towns. Some extractions of directories I have done in an approximate way have revealed the average longevity of town shops in 1979 was 28 years, this reduces to 8 years in 2005. I am reliably informed by estate agents from two separate firms that it is down to three years fuelled by a combination of Brexit, pandemic closures, rents, interest rates and the increase in seasonal pop-up and charity shops. Considering the volatility in the retail sector nationally the average lease term for retail shops in 2020 was only 5 years.[ii]
The family run shop was at the centre of every Fenland market town centre from the nineteenth century through to the 1980’s. With it went an element of connection of people and families with each other. Surely this is a positive side of parochialism and localism?
It is with a sense of irony that I have seen the same local politician, who shall remain nameless, state in different times the following:
1980 – “It will be good to see more large retail chain outlets like Marks and Spencer helping the town prosper.”
1994 – “We should do everything we can to support the retention of small family run shops.”
2018 – “These new small shops make no contribution to the town centre.”
The last statement in 2018 was directed at the generation of small businesses set up largely by migrated East Europeans to which I direct the dear councillor to Mark Steel’s thought that a town centre should reflect the people of the town.
I loved and enjoyed the parochial town of my youth, but accept that it has passed. Pursuit of large retailers, growth of supermarkets, out of town shopping, lack of through traffic, poor public transport and the internet have all played a significant role in dismantling the old order.
It is recognising that connections between people, between town and countryside, have been lost and not been replaced by the stable structure that the old towns had, whether it be via key meeting places like the Black Swan, the cattle markets or simply waiting in the queue at the Bank.
Frequently migration is referred to as the downfall of the town. But, the simple fact is that family retail business were starting to fold and disappear at accelerating rate from the early 1980’s onwards. It should also be considered that without the occupation of shops by incoming migrants there would be substantially more empty shops. Could they spawn a new succession of family businesses?
The single issue that saw the downfall of the old family businesses in the town was the inability of the town to attract customers to buy from those businesses, despite an expanded population. This simply was not achieved. As to whether it was achievable I would suggest that the reader visits the last full market town in Lincolnshire, Louth[iii] and consider its town centre, but in doing so remember Spalding is now something different – an industrial town.
Largeness and evolution of the town has seen the parochial nature of Spalding lost. It was so much more than interconnected shops. The simple fact is that people were known to each other in all walks of life. I can name doctors, policemen, firemen, teachers (even of schools I did not go to), shop keepers, butchers, magistrates…..the list goes on, but the point is that they were known as people by name. I could also name some of the “wrong-uns” of the time. One advantage of smallness is its interconnection and the fact that you get to know people as people and not simply by their role. This parochial nature is not always good as it can prejudge people and act as a barrier, but it is, in my opinion, on the whole beneficial.
My parochial town gave me an attachment to the area and the region, something that I feel is no more when I speak to my children who do not have the same attachment I had. For me it is a history of people I have known and where I have come from. The challenge for me has been to make the barrier that parochialism permeable so that it enables the new to enter. It is perhaps a failing that I often do not feel part of this area any more, although my roots remain I have moved away to Northumbria in December 2022. Perhaps as an “incomer” to a new area I felt I had little to lose because increasingly, especially in my home town of Spalding, it was becoming an area that no longer held the same welcome. What was small, familiar and local has become large, unfamiliar and cosmopolitan.
However, I do wonder if it’s just a matter of perspective. On a recent visit to Spalding in 2024 I was talking to a young family that had moved into the area and started a family in the last ten years having migrated from Poland and I asked if they felt part of Spalding. They said yes of course, they found Spalding friendly and where they were “putting down roots”. However, they then said something that took me aback, “You need to stop letting so many foreigners in.” Perhaps a new parochialism is creeping in and it was not, like me, born in Spalding.
Personally I like to view it as the rings inside a living tree, as the new rings grow you do not see what went before, but the earlier rings still form part of the structure and history growing well in good years and poorly in bad.
[i] Spalding Guardian August 9th 1890
[ii] Source Savills
[iii] Louth has different challenges of gentrification that is both positive and negative.
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