The Jehovah's Witnesses

The sect known as Jehovah's Witnesses has maintained a presence in Bourne since 1933 but was then part of the congregation that covered Stamford, Peterborough and Spalding,

The first meetings of the independent Bourne congregation were held in 1950 at the old Co-operative Hall on the upper floor of No 17 North Street [now occupied by the Paper Chain newsagents and the Nationwide Building Society] where they remained for eight years and then for a further spell at the Bourne Institute in West Street, moving to find more space each time the numbers expanded.

In 1982, they moved into a late 18th century converted barn in a yard off Burghley Street at the rear of No 35 North Street that was once used as a pig sty and which they renamed the Kingdom Hall, the traditional name for all meeting places used by the Witnesses.

They leased the red brick and tiled property for 20 years but in 2002 decided to build their own Kingdom Hall on land in Victor Way. The total cost was almost £150,000 which they raised by themselves but were assisted with donations from other congregations sympathetic to the cause as Bourne was one of only ten in England without its own Kingdom Hall.

Work on clearing the site began in December 2002 with people of all ages digging the foundations to bring them up to the damp course stage. Then during the summer of 2004, the qualified tradesmen moved in to finish the building work during two weekends of concerted voluntary effort and the final building has air conditioning and central heating with facilities for the disabled and a mother's room and a block-paved car park with 42 spaces while the design provides a maximum capacity of around 150 people, compared with fewer than a hundred at the previous premises.

Simon Hall, one of the five members on the project committee, could not conceal his pleasure when the building work was completed. “We have swapped a pig sty for a palace”, he said. “It means a great deal to the congregation because for the first time in their history, the Witnesses in Bourne have their very own place of worship. The congregation has worked hard for this day and they have proved what people can achieve when they pull together.” He added: “People imagine that there are just a few of us in Bourne but there are currently more than 70 members in the congregation and it is growing all the time with attendances at meetings regularly reaching over 100.”

Illustrated histories of all the religions represented in Bourne
can be found on the CD-ROM A Portrait of Bourne.

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