Bawtry’s history – original content written by Bawtry Heritage Group, Bawtry census returns, and other material.
Bawtry in the Georgian and Victorian eras
Bawtry and the Coaching Era
Between 1650 – 1850 Bawtry, through a geographic accident, found itself at the centre of a transport revolution with the emergence of road travel by stagecoach. The town played witness to the changes and opportunities that accompanied a population having access for the first time to organised road travel. Whilst it is often considered an inner world of cosy coaching inns with jolly landlords, and an outside populated by legendary “knights of the road” full of chivalry and tally ho spirit; it was a time far more complex and often more harsh than the legendary tall tales present.
To establish a real sense of this period and the heritage impact on Bawtry one needs to reflect on the substantial socio-economic advances that were underway on the bigger national stage, changes that ultimately launched us out of the medieval and into the modern. This paper invites you to get a sense of all this, with Bawtry as its backdrop.
Read this paper by clicking here:
The Toll Gate Keeper
On pages 33-34, our paper “Bawtry and the Coaching Era” (above) referred to the toll gatekeeper at Scrooby being brutally murdered in 1779. After that paper was placed on the site, an Austerfield resident gave us this story, titled “The Toll Gate Keeper”, which had been written some time ago by someone called W J Scott.
We present it here as an “addendum” to the Coaching paper.
Read this paper below:
Bawtry – a Railway and Coal Town rather than a Market and Inland Port
In 1890 The Retford and Gainsborough Times ran a story about the opening of Bawtry’s new town hall – the building in Market Place which used to be a florist, and more recently an art gallery.
The article is reproduced in this new paper. Details of the attendees for the opening, the menu of a special lunch and the programme of a celebratory concert are of interest, but what is fascinating is that the article reveals Bawtry might have become an industrial town, with a railway works and a colliery!
Read the paper by clicking the below icon:
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