1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Bourne (town)

BOURNE, or Bourn, a market town in the S. Kesteven or Stamford parliamentary division of Lincolnshire, England; lying in a fenny district 95 m. N. by W. from London. Pop. of urban district (1901) 4361. The Stamford-Sleaford branch of the Great Northern railway here crosses the Saxby-Lynn joint line of the Great Northern and Midland companies. The church of St Peter and St Paul is Norman and Early English with later insertions; it is part of a monastic church belonging to a foundation of Augustinian canons of 1138, of which the other buildings have almost wholly disappeared. Trade is principally agricultural. Bourne is famous through its connexion with the ardent opponent of William the Conqueror, Hereward the Wake. Of his castle very slight traces remain. Bourne was also the birthplace of the Elizabethan statesman Cecil, Lord Burghley. The Red Hall, which now forms part of the railway station buildings, belonged to the family of Digby, of whom Sir Everard Digby was executed in 1606 for his connexion with the Gunpowder Plot.