City Centre South

Extract from the chapter:

Residential development in the district, c. 1875-1939 by Andrew Walker

During the later nineteenth century there was a significant development of residential property on streets adjoining the lower High Street. This chapter focuses especially upon the following cluster of streets, on the east side of the southern end of the High Street, and west of Sincil Dyke. These comprise: Queen Street, Shakespeare Street, Gibbeson Street, Featherby Place, Spencer Street, Little Bargate Street and Knight Street, all of which were developed in the period roughly c. 1875 to 1880: Queen Street and Spencer Street first appeared in trade directories for the year 1877; the remaining streets were listed in trade directories of 1881 (which were usually published a year earlier than their specified date).

Following local by-laws passed in 1866, building plans had to be deposited with the surveyor of the Corporation of the City of Lincoln Council. Details of the owners and builders of properties in the streets mentioned above confirm that much of the area’s development took place in the later 1870s. Plans for 73 houses were submitted between 1876 and 1879 for Shakespeare Street; and proposals for 31 properties on Little Bargate Street, and 61 on Gibbeson Street were also considered during the same years. In this period of rapid development, plans were submitted relating to these streets by a small number of owners for up to 20 properties at a time, either to be built by the owners themselves, or on their behalf by a number of Lincoln’s larger building companies.

The largest owner in this specific area of the lower High Street at its most rapid period of residential development appeared to be James Weighell, whose portfolio included properties in Featherby Place (including Harrison’s Place) and Gibbeson Street, where he also built a blacksmith’s shop and other workshops. Weighell’s properties were developed principally by Drury and Mortimer, local architects and surveyors, who worked closely with a number of Lincoln builders, such as David Taylor of Napoleon Place, mentioned in an earlier chapter by Maurice Hodson. In some cases, builders owned the land and developed it themselves: Samuel Horton, for instance, possessed land on Gibbeson Street and submitted plans to build 13 houses there in 1877.

As elsewhere in the city, there was also evidence of the Co-operative Society developing residential property in the area. The Lincoln Land and Building Society, based at Co-operative Hall, Silver Street, owned and built 15 houses in Knight Street in 1877 (numbers 8-10; 16-30; and 5-15). These residential developments were part of a significant growth in this part of the city at this time. The parish in which these streets were located – St Botolph’s – grew in size from 1209 residents in 1871 to 3347 by 1881, representing an increase over the ten years of 177%. The only other parish in the city which more than doubled in size over the same period was neighbouring St Peter-at-Gowts, which grew from 3197 to 6560 in the same period, an increase of 105%.

Over the same period, the city’s population had increased 39%, from 26,766 to 37,313 inhabitants. In order for a district to increase so rapidly in size in such a short period, even if death rates fell considerably and birth rates rose, a significant amount of this growth had to be achieved by in-migration. Whilst this increase in population was much associated with the growth of the city’s engineering works in the south of the city, there was also a significant increase in the number of individuals associated with the city’s services and trades sectors, many of whom moved into the streets under scrutiny here.

A large proportion of the city’s engineering workers had migrated to the city to find jobs from the surrounding agricultural districts, where the demand for labour was falling along with wages during the long Agricultural Depression from 1870 until the close of the nineteenth century. Those with trades and associated skills also sought to move when the demand for their wares in rural districts was decreasing. The names of a number of residents of these streets who lived in the district over a relatively lengthy period can be found in Table 1. It also presents details of these residents’ trades and information about their birthplaces drawn from the census.

End of extract

Correction:

P. 14 Nonconformist Chapels And Meeting Houses Of Other Denominations

second paragraph should read: In 1913 (Date-stone), a Congregationalist Sunday School/Lecture Hall was erected ......

Arthur Ward adds: In 1888, on a site north of the present 1913 building, was erected a iron building (tin tabernacle), following the clearance of six houses. This was paid for by Joseph Ruston and erected under the supervision of architect, William Mortimer.

The 1913 building became redundant in 1992/3. It was designed by architect J C Broughton and built by builder, F S Highton.