Gainsborough

A Memory of Gainsborough.

The Gainsborough today is not the Gainsborough of my youth. It was a busy market town with a very busy market on Tuesdays and Saturdays. A lot of farmers came into town on a Tuesday to take care of their business, a quick pint and haircut. While we never had a lot of the top shops you could get everything you wanted. Nobby Scotts was a treasure trove to us kids. We had two picture houses loads of pubs and plenty of churches. Both our engineering factories have now gone, Marshall's and Roses. Marshalls is now a retail park which is doing fairly well but sadly is not good for the town centre. Not many of the old places are left, a lot of pubs have closed or were pulled down, some churches still remain but of the chapels, most are empty and one church is now cinema. Most of the buildings in the town are still being used, but the fronts have changed a lot over the years and some have not been very well looked after. A lot of the old schools amalgamated and are now empty or turned into flats or pulled down. We had two railway stations which were very busy - Central Station was busy on summer weekends taking day trippers to Cleethorpes and the sun was always shining, but sadly it was pulled down years ago. Gainsborough Lea Road is still operating but very few trains in a day. As for the River Trent there is very little traffic these days. There used to barges up and down the river everyday as the tide changed, some tying up at the wharfs to unload grain and other goods, but again sadly nearly all the warehoues are now flats - but on the plus side the river side is now a good place to walk by the river. But what has happened to Gainsborough has happened to lots of towns up and down the country but with careful planing over the years the town could have kept most of it character, like Reford and Bawtry have done.


Added 31 July 2012

#237522

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