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The most isolated fenland community in the Bourne area is undoubtedly Tongue End, a flat and featureless place with a few houses strung out along one side of the road that runs parallel to the drainage dyke known as the Counter Drain three miles south of Bourne, constructed during the 19th century to carry overflow water from the 400 acres of the Deeping Fen washes and to relieve the River Glen during periods of heavy rain. This place was first mentioned in a document of 1781 describing the nature of the land at this point, where Baston Fen, Thurlby Fen and Bourne Norton Fen, all converge and where the Bourne Eau flows into the River Glen, and it is this geographical feature that gives this village its colourful and descriptive name because the piece of land where the two rivers meet is tongue-shaped, hence Tongue End.
Tongue End once boasted three public houses but all have closed. The Boat Inn has gone and so has the Chequers which was built in the hope of attracting business from a local railway station on the Bourne to Spalding line but the opportunity never materialised and the Counter Drain station was built a mile away instead. Finally there was the busiest of them all, the Carrington Arms, named after a local landowner, Lord Carrington of Wycombe Abbey in Buckinghamshire, one of the Adventurers who helped finance the drainage of the fens. This inn opened in 1811 and must have been one of the earliest buildings in the village, surviving as a public house until the mid-20th century but is now a private dwelling, still accessed by a concrete bridge over the Counter Drain that runs past the front of the pub and was used by wagons and then lorries to bring in regular beer supplies from the brewery. Most of the village inhabitants were farm labourers who left school early, sometimes as the age of 10, for a life on the land, and social conditions were not good. There was a square called Tongue End Yard where families lived in very cramped conditions and about 1848, one old house called Eastcote had been divided into five tenements, each with separate tenants. There was no public water supply and they took what they needed by bucket from the Counter Drain although a standpipe was eventually installed outside the Carrington Arms to bring in water from nearby Tongue End Farm and this became a focal point for villagers to meet and exchange gossip. Poorly sited houses, bad living conditions, overcrowding, an unsatisfactory water supply and inadequate sanitation, all contributed to the prevalence of tuberculosis that cost the lives of many children, including three in one family. But spiritual matters played a major part of community life during the 19th century. When the religious census was taken in 1851, Methodist services were being held in one of the houses, according to the Rev John Bowman of Bourne, who went on to report that it had "no title, being a dwelling house. Preaching every alternate Sabbath." This cottage in Mill Drove was owned by Daniel Crompton, a farm labourer, who also used it as a Sunday School while fund raising went ahead to build a permanent chapel with contributions of one penny a week by all who could afford it. After one unsuccessful attempt to build the chapel, in which the walls collapsed after reaching roof level, the stone and slate United Methodist Chapel was finally opened in 1864.
In the early 19th century, Sundays in Tongue End were noted for drunkenness and prize fights and rival gangs often arrived from the surrounding villages to take part in these affrays. But the building of the chapel ended this disorderly conduct. Sunday meetings were always crowded and there were frequent temperance and revivalist gatherings. The chapel continued in use until the late 20th century when it was turned into a village hall but this venture collapsed through lack of support and the building has now gone, cleared to make way for a new housing development. The Church of England also had a presence with St Michael's Church, built of brick during the early 20th century, but dwindling congregations forced its closure and that too was demolished. Children were taught reading and writing by a cobbler who held regular classes in his workshop attached to the Carrington Arms until the North and South Township School was built in 1876 with classroom space for 126 boys and girls and it must have been popular because in 1885 the average attendance was reported to be 96. This building and the adjoining schoolmaster's house remain the last of Tongue End's old public institutions but is now used for second hand car sales and its 19th century red brick frontage is totally obscured by masses of old vehicles. Near to the village is Earl's Farm and the remains of the old Counter Drain railway station. Between 1866 and 1959, the railway line crossed both the Counter Drain and the River Glen within a few yards of each other and the bridge over the river is still intact. Bus services no longer run as they did half a century ago when the Eastern Counties Omnibus Company operated a Tuesday and Saturday service into Spalding and Route 318 had one of the oddest worded timetables of any service in Lincolnshire: Spalding-Pode Hole-Cuckoo Bridge-Counter Drain-Tongue End. Despite its depressing history, Tongue End is enjoying a small revival in popularity. Council houses built in 1914 and again during the housing boom following the Second World War are all fully occupied and by the summer of 2001, several residential developments were underway and now modern homes are lining the road where once there were dilapidated cottages and run down public buildings. The new villagers however, do not work on the land but commute to the surrounding towns for better paid employment that brings in sufficient remuneration to make them home owners. |
