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Description: | A former House of Industry (workhouse), then a butcher's premises. The northern part is at present vacant but the southern part is now flats. It was built in 1791 and underwent alterations in the mid 19th and late 20th centuries. It was constructed of red brick with cogged brick eaves and has a pantile roof with a truncated end stack.
The old Poor Law, requiring individual parishes throughout England to relieve their own poor and set able-bodies paupers to work, evolved through a series of late-Tudor statutes and culminated in the definitive Act of Elizabeth in 1601. Parishes financed their repsonsibiltiy by levying a tax, the poor rate, on householders. By 1640 many urban parishes were using the poor rate to shelter children and the aged in 'hospitals' and to employ those capable in 'working houses'. In the 18th century attitudes towards the poor hardened, with the idea that poverty was due to idleness and indulgence gaining ground. Knatchbull's Act of 1723 empowered parishes to offer able bodied applicants a place in a workhouse as a condition of receiving relief. By the middle of the century, parish based administration was being severely criticised, the workhouses were viewed as economic failures and open to corrupt practices, and demand grew for reform. Most old poor law buildings which survive date from the 18th century, there was no standard form and size and appearance varied, ranging from converted cottages to imposing edifices.
In 1834 the Poor Law Amendment Act inaugurated the era of the New Poor Law with administration based on groupings of parishes into New Poor Law unions overseen by three Poor Law Commissioners. Many Unions found it more cost effective to build new 'central', mixed, workhouses than to maintain the ones they had inherited. In addition to accommodating seven classes of pauper the new workhouses also accommodated staff, offices, a boardroom and waiting room. Four model designs were published in 1835 and again in 1836. The 'square' and 'hexagon' plans proved most popular, the 'hexagon' being most suited to the necessary segregation. By 1841 a network of workhouses answering the requirements of the New Poor Law extended over England and, of those, 320 had been erected as a result of the 1834 Act.
This is a comparatively little-altered pre Poor Law purpose built workhouse and is a rare survival on the scale of a small institution in a market town. The part to right was upgraded in the mid 19th century but retained the window disposition. There have been alterations behind on this side to form flats, and the mid 19th century wing to rear, also flats, is not of special architectural or historic interest. However the main structure remains intact and the interior of the left part survives perhaps remodelled to a small extent when it became a butcher's premises and residence. In addition to its individual rarity this workhouse's significance is augmented by the survival, as well, of the post Poor Law workhouse, of 1837 to 1839 (q.v.). Recent English Heritage research has shown that the survival of an Old Poor Law workhouse in a market town on this scale is rare and of both in the same town very unusual.
Sources.
Sir Frederick Morton Eden, The State of the Poor: A History of the Labouring Classes in England, with Parochical Reports, 1797.
Bill Painter, Upon the Parish Rate, The Story of Louth Workhouse..., 2000. pp14-16.
Kathryn Morrison, The Workhouse, English Heritage, 1999, pp 28-31. For the full description and the legal address of this listed building please refer to the appropriate List of Buildings of Special Architectural or Historic Interest. {1} | Subjects: | Building Poor Law Unions | Temporal: | 1791 - 1900 | Source: | Lincolnshire County Council | Identifier: | http://www.lincstothepast.com/Records/Re... | Go to resource |
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