Grand House Built on the Sale of Drugs

 

Francis Jonathan Clarke was a successful Lincoln High Street chemist, to demonstrate his success he commissioned his brother-in-law, Albert Vickers, to design a house to rival Sibthorp’s Canwick Hall, the result: Bracebridge Hall.

The Hall was completed in 1883 in “A brash and chunky High Victorian" (Pevsner)  style.  A Gothic design, the heavy porch faces west onto Newark Road, standing in extensive grounds, stretching from just south of the Gatehouse public house to All Saints Church and bounded by the railway in the east. 

The area around the Hall was wooded with a fish pond of almost half an acre to the south of the Hall, the rest of the grounds, amounting to about 18 acres, was laid out as parkland. The decorated lodge was completed in 1884. 

Lincoln was a major centre of agricultural engineering and heavily polluted with smoke and smells from the many factory and house chimneys in the city. At this time Bracebridge was still a village but within easy reach of Lincoln city centre by the new horse tram service which terminated in the village.

Francis Clarke died in 1888 at the age of 46 after developing serious lung and heart problems.  George Bainbridge the draper was living there in 1894.  In 1918 it became Bracebridge Hall Club (see below) for employees of W Foster & Co and in the 1930s and 1940s it was part ​of Bracebridge Heath (Mental) Hospital.

​Later it became the offices of Gothic Electrical and it is now Grosvenor Hall Care Home.

Between the wars Bracebridge Hall's extensive grounds were reduced for the building of housing on Brant Road and the “Tree Streets” behind the Hall. Recently the grounds have been further reduced until it stands on land hardly bigger than its footprint. 

Bracebridge Hall Club

The Engineer 1918 March 8th

Other Lincoln Houses

The Lost Houses of Lincoln  - Boultham Hall
The Lost Houses of Lincoln  - Hartsholme Hall
The Lost Houses of Lincoln  - Eastgate House
The Lost Houses of Lincoln  - Monk's Tower
The Lost Houses of Lincoln  - Monk's Manor

The Lost Houses of Lincoln  - Cold Bath House

The Lost Houses of Lincoln  - Sibthorp House

The Lost Houses of Lincoln - Eastcliffe House

The Old House on Corporation Street

The Crooked House and the Harlequin

The Lincoln Horse-Drawn Trams

The Lincoln Tramways Company Limited was formed in 1880 with a capital of £20,000. The first directors of the company were William John Warrener, JP; George Bainbridge; Francis Jonathan Clarke; Joseph Maltby, JP; Edwin Pratt; Henry Pratt; Edward Waterhouse.

Plans were put before the Board of Trade in November 1880 for three routes, "

"Tramway No. 1, commencing in the Parish of Bracebridge, in the Division of Kesteven, in the County of Lincoln, at or near a point 20 yards north (the Gatehouse Hotel) of the Board School on the Newark-road, and passing thence along the said Newark-road from Bracebridge ... and terminating in the High Street at a point about 120 yards south of the Stonebow, in the parish of St. Benedict

" Tramway No. 2, commencing by a junction with Tramway No. 1, at the point of termination of that tramway in the High-street aforesaid, in the parish of St..Benedict, and passing thence along the High-street in the parishes of St. Benedict and St. Peter-at-Arches, and terminating in the said High-street, at a point about 22 yards north of the Stonebow, in the said parish of St. Peter-at-Arches

"Tramway No. 3, commencing by a junction with Tramway No. 2, at the point of termination of that tramway in the High-street aforesaid, in the parish of St. Peter-at-Arches, and passing thence along the High-street and Silver-street by the junction between Broadgate and the New-road, and thence along Monks'-road, in the parishes of St. Peter-at-Arches, St. Martin, and St. Swithin, and terminating °in Monks'-road aforesaid, at a point opposite or nearly opposite to the entrance of the Arboretum, in the said parish of St. Swithin

"A Tramway No. 4, commencing in the Saxilby or Carholme-road at a point about 22 yards from the north-eastern corner of the iron railings separating the Grand Stand Inclosure from the West Common, in the parish of St. Mary-leWigford, and passing thence along Saxilby or Carholme-road, Gas-street, Far Newland, Newland, Guildhall-street, and High-street, in the parishes of St. Mary-le-Wigford, St. Martin, and St. Peter-at-Arches, and terminating by a junction •with Tramway No. 2 at or near a point about 140 yards from, the commencement of the said Tramway No. 2 in the High-street aforesaid, in the parish of St. Peter-at-Arches."

These were grand plans for a tramway system to cover the most populated parts of below-hill Lincoln, but Tramway 1 was the only route built. It was single track with double track passing places.

The tramway was opened on 6 September 1882, the trams were horse-drawn and an immediate success. The route was 1.75 miles long and the total journey took 20 minutes. The two original trams were too heavy when full for one horse to pull, smaller trams were acquired and the larger trams were used at peak times and drawn by two horses. Season tickets were introduced for regular users in 1882. There was an intermediate stop near Cranwell Street. The fare was 1d (0.42p) for each section of the route, a total of 2d (0.84p) for the whole route from Bracebridge to St Benedicts.

In September 1883 workmen's cars were introduced and the fare was 1p per journey irrespective of distance. The cost of season tickets was reduced at the same time from 25 shillings (£1.25) to £1.

In 1882/3, the first year of trading, the trams covered 44,103 miles, carried 247,513 passengers and returned a profit of £848-0s-5d.

1897 Horse Tram timetable

In 1899 the City Corporation were interested in building an electric tram system and adding a route from the West Common to the Monks Road Recreation Ground, Lincoln Tramways Company had approached the Corporation some months before with an offer to sell the tramway to the Corporation.

Lincoln Tramways had a total of 10 trams in 1903, eight single horse and two double horse.

​After several months of acrimonious negotiations and letters to newspapers the Corporation agreed to purchase the tramway for £10,437.10s. in February 1904.

​The last horse tram operated on 22nd July 1905, the system then being closed for reconstruction. The running of the last horse tram attracted a large crowd and the tramcar was specially decorated for the occasion.


Some employees of Lincoln Tramway Company

1891
Charles Lister, Manager
Edward Turner, tram driver
​Arthur Smith, tram conductor
Edward Laurence, labourer
Frederick Fortescue, labourer
George Pimp, groom
John Taterson, tram conductor
Osbourn Gibson tram driver
William Frecklington, tram conductor


1894
Amos Crawshaw, Manager


1897
​Amos Crawshaw, Manager
Charles W Harris, tram driver


1901
F C Peel, Manager
Robert Moore, tram driver
Fred E Kilner, tram driver


Click here to read about Lincoln's Electric Trams

More about Transport in Lincoln

The Foss Dyke Navigation
Lincolnshire's First Balloon Flight?
Lincoln Joins the Railway Age
By Mail Coach to London