The History of the Usher Gallery & Temple Gardens

Temple Gardens

Temple Gardens is in one of the most historic parts of the City. On the eastern side of the Gardens is a Roman defensive ditch, and on the western side once stood the Roman wall and rampart of the lower city. In the northern part of the Gardens is the site of St Andrew's-under-Palace church, established during the 11th century; it was one of the 40 Lincoln churches pulled down in the early 16th century. 

Joseph Moore, a Lincoln solicitor, named the area Temple Gardens and opened it to visitors for an annual fee of 10s. (50p), payable in April of every year, in 1824 as a pleasure ground. The Gardens were laid out with plants and antiquities. Moore had built a copy of ​the Greek Choragic Monument of Thrasyllus. Band concerts and exhibitions were held in the Gardens.

The Choragic Monument of Lysicrates near the Acropolis of Athens was erected by the choregos Lysicrates, a wealthy patron of musical performances in the Theater of Dionysus, to commemorate the prize in the dithyramb contest of the City Dionysia in 335/334 BCE, of which performance he was liturgist.

The monument is known as the first use of the Corinthian order on the exterior of a building. It has been reproduced widely in modern monuments and building elements.

Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=5239070

The second annual "Lincolnshire, Nottinghamshire and Yorkshire Grand Brass Band Contest and Peoples Festival" was held on 6 June 1859 at Temple Gardens, total prize money was £50.  Sixteen bands had entered and the public could attend on the payment of 1 shilling (5p) the event ended with a "grand display of fireworks.  Cheap train tickets were made available throughout the area covered by the contest.

Band concerts and fetes were regular attractions at Temple Gardens.

Joseph Moore died on 21st May 1863, and the Gardens were closed. The plants and equipment were sold at auction by Brogden & Co on 4th April 1864.

The Gardens were left to become overgrown, and were eventually bought by the Collingham family of Mawer & Collingham, the Lincoln department store on the corner of High Street and Mint Street, and added to their house at 7 Lindum Road. The house and Temple Gardens were sold in the early 1920s to the Ecclesiastical Commissioners.

7 Lindum Road, the Collingham family home

Usher Gallery

The Usher Art Gallery (as it was once known) came about due to a bequest from James Ward Usher, a Lincoln jeweller. James was an avid collector of ceramics, watches, clocks, coins, silver, miniatures, and paintings. 

James never married and left his collection to the City of Lincoln together with almost £60,000 (equivalent to £3,447,000.00 based on the retail price index) to design and erect a suitable building to house it. 

The Ecclesiastical Commissioners imposed certain conditions when the land was sold to Lincoln Corporation; one of these conditions was that the building should stand in the north western corner of Temple Gardens; eventually it was agreed that the Gallery should be built on the tennis courts where it now stands. Sir Reginald Blomfield was commissioned to design the building; he also designed the Central Library and Westgate Water Tower, and William Wright and Son (Lincoln) Ltd. were engaged to erect the building, which began in August 1925. Two foundation stones were laid on 10th March 1926, by the Mayor of Lincoln, Councillor Miss M E Neville, the stones were left plain at the request of Miss Neville.  A total of 119 piles from 14 to 25 feet long were used to stabilise the ground. The cost of the building was in the region of £34,000.

1899 Advert

The Gallery was officially opened on the 25th May 1927 by the then Prince of Wales (later King Edward VIII) with a solid gold key.

The Collection archaeology museum is located on Danes Terrace near to the Usher Gallery, visit the Collection website: https://www.thecollectionmuseum.com/

Lincoln Markets

In this age of online and supermarket shopping, it is hard to think of a time before national retail chains when the Lincoln shopper had a wide choice of small businesses from which to buy their food. Street markets are one the oldest forms of retailing and Lincoln had a good choice of such markets.  

The Meat Market was on the High Street, it stretched from Dernstall Lock to St. Lawrence's Lane, near the King's Arms Yard.  This market moved in 1774 across Clasketgate (then known as Butchery Street) to an area called the Butchery; next to the earlier Crown Inn.  The Butchery had shops on its periphery with stalls in the centre, it also had its own slaughterhouse.  A cloth market, the Drapery, had existed on St Martin's Lane since the 13th century, it was then known as the Parmentaria.

Newland, the location of the Butter Cross

On Newland stood the Butter Cross, where other products such as milk and egg were sold. John Lobsey, Mayor of Lincoln in 1736, proposed that the Corporation suspend their Civic Banquet for 10 years in order to cover the cost of building a Butter Market that would offer protection from the elements. The Butter Market was built to the north of St Peter at Arches church, which stood on the corner of High Street and Silver Street. Before the building of the Buttermarket, the Skin Market or Peltry occupied part of the site.

If our Lincoln ancestors wanted to buy fish for their Friday dinner they would head for the fish market at Fish Hill (now Michaelgate), the market stood on the grounds of the present Chad Varah House, formerly the County Hospital. The fish market later amalgamated with the meat market at The Butchery. The Poultry Market was on the lower part of Steep Hill.

The 1847 Corn Exchange

Bread made from wheat was too expensive for the ordinary people, they would buy their bread ingredients from the oat market at the junction of High Street and St Mary's Lane (now Street). Unsurprisingly the corn market was on the site of the present Cornhill. This is where farmers would trade their produce.  In 1847 the first Corn Exchange was built on the Cornhill, this building included space on the ground floor for market stalls, relieving the congestion caused by stalls along the High Street from the Cornhill to the Butter Market.  A new building was erected to replace the Corn Exchange and market in 1879.  The Butter Market was demolished in 1938 and the front facade was incorporated into the New Market, where it still stands today.