Early hope

In 2018, we thought that the only controversy would be a debate as to where it was going to go.

The general consensus seemed to be strongly in favour of somewhere in the town centre. After all, that’s where  it  was  designed  for  –  originally  in the Market Place, then revised to Hall Place. As well as providing pure drinking water at a time when it was a luxury for many people in the town, it strengthened the distinctive character of Hall Place by giving it a striking central focus. That is, until it was removed to Ayscoughfee Gardens in 1954 to make way for a traffic scheme.

We expected that a recommendation on the fountain’s re-siting would figure in a wider review of the town centre. This was to be carried out by a working group which Policy 25 of the South East Lincolnshire Local Plan  required to be set up to support the enhancement of the town centre.

South Holland District Chairman Rodney Grocock spoke warmly of wishing to see the fountain back in the centre. At the District Council’s AGM in May 2018 he said: 

“It is my ambition to seek to reinstate the Drinking Fountain within Spalding town centre. I am, however, keen to ensure that this happens in conjunction with a wider consideration of town centre improvements. I am also unsure that reinstatement within Hall Place is necessarily the most appropriate location given the changes that have  taken  place to the town  over  the  past  century and more.”

After referring to Policy 25, he went on:

“I would hope the councillors would support me in proposing that officers embrace the opportunity, when implementing this new policy and considering the public realm within Spalding, to reintroduce the Drinking Fountain to a prime location in the heart of the town centre.” (Council AGM Minutes, 16 May 2018.)

Councillor Grocock was offered the Society’s warmest support.

In time, as expected the working group was set up.  As we had been invited to join the group, we naturally assumed that we would be included in those discussions and our Chair set about exploring funding options and making tentative enquiries, albeit somewhat hindered by the first Covid lockdown.

Out of the Blue

At the beginning of 2021, we along many in the town were shocked to read in the Spalding Voice that the the Cemetery Improvement Group had suggested that the Fountain be installed in the Cemetery. There could hardly be a more unsuitable place. In a cemetery it was bound to be perceived as the memorial of somebody-or-other who died and was buried there. 

On the contrary, it was a monument of gratitude to someone who was very much alive in 1874 – Miss Mary Anne Johnson – for the gift of life that she had brought to thousands of ordinary Spalding people. Her £150,000 (in modern money) enabled water mains to be laid along the three or four principle Spalding roads, bringing pure drinking water to whole areas of the town previously dependent on more or less contaminated well water, with the often fatal illnesses that resulted.

The Fountain was designed for the Market Place (with a last minute change to Hall Place); and Spalding lost a distinctive part of its character when it was dismantled to make way for an experimental traffic scheme in 1954. To restore it to the centre would be to restore some of that lost character. And it is of course a ready-made feature for the regeneration of the town centre, to which SHDC had pledged to undertake.

A follow-up letter to The Spalding Voice making these points set social media buzzing – overwhelmingly in favour of the town centre. Spalding people, it seems, clearly wanted to see the Fountain back again in a place in the town where it has meaning. It is an emblem of life, not death.

Things went silent, but at the Spalding Town Forum meeting in September 2021, our Chair formally requested that the Society be involved in the discussions as to where the Fountain should go. (item 6)

Promises broken

At the beginning of 2022, it was reported that the Fountain was to be restored and returned to Ayscoughfee Gardens – It was claimed that it was not feasible to return it to Hall Place  but gave no indication whether any other town centre location had been considered.  We therefore lodged a Freedom of Information Request to the District Council asking for copies of copies of all minutes of meetings, notes of telephone calls, written communications and emails together with any supporting documentary expert evidence that may have been obtained leading up to the conclusion that it could only be sited in Ayscoughfee Hall.  That was on 21 January 2022. No response.  However, we were invited to a meeting in March 2022 just before the planning application to return the Fountain to Ayscoughfee Gardens was lodged on 4 April 2022, and were told that we would be provided with a copy of the report on which the decision was made together with notes of a meeting that had been held with Historic England and that we would also receive a response to the Freedom of Information Request. We were provided with a copy of the report and notes of the meeting held with Historic England and were advised that the planning application would be withdrawn to allow us time to consider both documents. What seemed apparent from the documentation, though was that the Council had only considered two sites. Hall Place and Ayscoughfee Gardens.