There was never a market cross at New Bolingbroke, but an open market hall was built here in the 1820s, when the new ‘town’ was established.

New Bolingbroke market hall in the late 19th/early 20th century (photo from village website)
Parish/DistrictCarrington and New Bolingbroke/East Lindsey
LocationAt the centre of New Bolingbroke village west side of B1183
CategoryMarket hall (modern)
National Grid RefTF 30797 58023
DesignationListed
Stone TypeColour-washed red brick with hipped pantile roof
RefsPevsner, N, 1989, Lincolnshire, p.574
Visits

There was never a market cross at New Bolingbroke for it is a modern village established in the early 19th century by John Parkinson, the steward to Sir Joseph Banks. He intended that it should be a new town in the newly drained fenland. He built a market hall, a textile factory and workers’ housing and linked the village to Boston by canal. A church was built in 1854 and New Bolingbroke was linked to the railway in 1913. Despite all this input the village did not prosper.

New Bolingbroke market hall was built in the 1820s, at the very centre of the new settlement, opposite a grand crescent of workers’ houses. It was called the Butter Market and had an open-arched ground floor for the market and a upstairs room. By the later nineteenth century, the arches had been infilled with brick and a south porch had been added. It is called ‘Town Hall’ on the 1888 O.S. map. The upstairs room had been in use as a church (prior to the new church being built) and as a school.

In 1976 the building – now called the Village Hall – was renovated and the bricked in arches were glazed. A second renovation was undertaken in 2016 and new window frames fitted and facilities improved. But the upstairs room has never been reinstated.

New Bolingbroke market hall undergoing renovations in 1976 (Photo: C&NB Parish Council)
New Bolingbroke Butter Market in 2010 – The new windows now partly boarded up (Photo: Richard Croft)
The Village Hall in 2022 following further renovation (Photo: Jonathan Thacker)

New Bolingbroke

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