Page 16 - It's a Rum Life Book 3 "Ivy House Tales 1970 to 1984"

first change, the old Ford Anglia with its huge mileage and misshapen rear bumper having
gone to another world via the commercial car auctions.

The MG midget had left Lincoln at the same time as myself and had been trying to shake
me off its tail the whole journey. CGJ 18 H though, had been in my hands for two years,
was well ‘broken in’ and could ‘fly’!
Half way down the ‘seven mile straight’ is the village of New Bolingbroke and it was here
that KEN45 slowed down and turned into the yard of the old Globe Inn.
But what had caught my eye at the same instant was a “FOR SALE” sign outside the
house next door.

NEW BOLINGBROKE
New Bolingbroke in its own way is a village packed with history. The name Bolingbroke
comes from its older relative just a few miles further north on the very edge of the
Lincolnshire Wolds.
Old Bolingbroke was the birthplace of Henry the Fourth, the local stronghold being owned
by his ‘Lancastrian’ father John of Gaunt.

Anya Seaton’s famous book ‘Katherine‘ has important references to Old Bolingbroke.

The ‘new town’ of New Bolingbroke was created in the very early 1800’s by a young chap
called John Parkinson who was at that time the son of the manager of the estates of
famous botanist Joseph Banks and his family, who lived close by at Revesby Abbey.

The totally straight road was created after the town had been built. The ‘town’ had been
complete with rope works, candle factory, brick works and several other industrial
enterprises.
Even today the village has a ‘Town Hall’ that has done duty as school, library, market hall
and is now a community building. Other major features are a crescent of London Town
houses in the centre, long rows of workers cottages at either end of the village and Ivy
House, the home of John Parkinson.

It was a large square Georgian house, well positioned close to the road with holly trees on
either side of its imposing porticoed doorway.
On the south side of the house was a lovely walled garden with lawn sweeping down to
one of the navigable land drains that connected the whole village by water transport to
Boston.
The land drain concluded at the bottom of that garden and it was this way that all the
building materials and requirements for the whole community had originally been
transported to the village.

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