34 CONTEXT 175 : MARCH 2023 of which was the Victoria Inn in 1961. Several pubs were also pulled down to make way for Boston’s inner relief road, John Adams Way. Among those closed were the Royal Oak and the Whale Inn (which featured its own private museum and was demolished in 1974 despite vocal public opposition). In recent times, Boston pubs have continued to be knocked down. The Lord Nelson, a postwar estate pub, was demolished to make way for a convenience store in 2016, and the Duke of York, a Victorian public house, was reduced to rubble for apartments in 2020. At the time of writing, two more pubs are under threat of demolition to make way for new housing, the Axe and Cleaver and the New Castle Inn. Almost 100 historic pub sites were recorded for the town of Boston for the Inns on the Edge project. Fewer than a third of these trade today, with the rest either demolished or converted to commercial or residential premises. such as the Wellington and the Volunteer Arms, were converted to multiple dwellings in the early noughties. The beginning of the 20th century saw the birth of the ‘improved’ or ‘reformed’ pub. Across England, many of these were built in a neoTudor style, also known as ‘Brewer’s Tudor’, in an attempt to evoke notions of old ‘Merrie England’, with half-timbering and other building tropes, such as mock jetting. The New Inn, Boston, a good example of this type of architecture, replaced an earlier pub on the same site and is still in operation today. Some of the town’s oldest pubs began to be pulled down during the Victoria era, including the Green Dragon and the Three Tuns, the latter host to Oliver Cromwell and his advisors before the battle of Winceby. The 20th century was the most destructive period for pub buildings in Boston. On Rosegarth Street, for example, four pubs were cleared, the last Marc Knighton is the Inns on the Edge project officer with Lincolnshire County Council.
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MjgyMjA=