LAUNCHING TODAY: BRIGG TIMELINE TO RECORD THE TOWN'S RICH HISTORY DOWN THE CENTURIES

Brigg Blog is today launching a town timeline to record notable events of the past.
We trust it will prove of interest and hope that people will pass on other events for inclusion by by emailing scoopfisher@aol.com
We will add the additional dates/events received and re-post an updated version of the Town Timeline from time to time so people can see it expand.
The initial version below is just a starting point, and Brigg Blog already has more dates to add.
Perhaps Brigg Heritage Centre may be interested in printing off our list and displaying it to inform visitors.
Although centred on Brigg, we think it only right to include surrounding settlements.

40AD (approx): The Romans arrived in the area.

1086: Local settlements mentioned in the Domesday Book, drawn up on the orders of William the Conqueror to show the value of his new lands.

1205: Market and Fair Charter granted to Brigg.

1287: River Ancholme being used by commercial barges.

1349: The Black Death plague hit Lindsey, killing many inhabitants.


1400: Estimated date for the opening of the Angel Hotel, then a coaching house.

1635: New River Ancholme cut over the next four years.


1654: Famous diarist and author John Evelyn - a friend of Sir John Nelthorpe - visited Brigg and observed it was a place "famous for its plantations of liquorice."

1665: Bridge built over the "old" river in Brigg.

1669: Brigg Grammar School founded by Sir John Nelthorpe, of Scawby, in his will.

1674: Jeremy Elwes bought the Tyrwhitt estates of Wrawby, Brigg and Bigby.

1752: Brigg Town centre expansion started by the Elwes family - property and landowners.

1765: Trust established to maintain the road from Lincoln via Brigg to Barton on Humber.


1772: The founder of Methodism, John Wesley, of Epworth, preached in Brigg.

1780: Wrawby Windmill built.

1790: Jail opened at Kirton in Lindsey.

1791: Quarter Sessions court held at Kirton in Lindsey through to 1868. More serious offences were tried at the Assizes.

1794: Brigg Fair attracted 200 people from Hull who crossed the River Humber by boat.


1795: Plays performed at a theatre in Brigg.

1797: Excavation of Roman mosaics at Horkstow.

1800: Through to 1805, enclosure of agricultural land in Brigg.


1813: The Congregational Chapel built on Wrawby Street.

1817: Building work began on the Town Hall (The Buttercross), Brigg.


1827: Gas company formed in Brigg to provide lighting.

1828: Building of County Bridge over the River Ancholme in Brigg. It was designed by J. S. Padley,  county surveyor.

1834: Building of the Wesleyan Chapel on West Street, Scawby.

1835: Work started on building Brigg Workhouse. It was completed in 1837.
Building of Horkstow suspension bridge,  designed by Sir John Rennie.

1836: Building of the windmill on Mill Lane, Brigg.

1840: Laying of the foundation stone fora Primitive Methodist Chapel on Bridge Street, Brigg. It was known locally as Bourne Methodists. Building of Redbourne School with funds from the 10th Duke of St Albans. 

1845: Smallpox outbreak in Brigg.


1849: First sewers laid in Brigg.

1842: Building of old school on  Vicarage Road, Wrawby.

1843: St John's Church, Brigg, built on the site of a former chapel of ease, costing £3,000.




1846: Work started on building Brigg police station.

1848: Brigg railway station opened.

1850: Building of Brigg Corn Exchange.

1852: Sargent and Co Brewery built on banks of the Old River Ancholme, Brigg, near the White Hart pub.

1854: National School built at Searby. It closed in the 1920s.

1855: Building of National School, Albert Street/Bigby Road, Brigg. Rebuilding of Grasby School - further enlarged in 1897.

1859: Work started on the Trent, Ancholme and Grimsby Railway which, by May 1866, had been extended to link with the Manchester, Sheffield and Lincolnshire Railway line at Barnetby and the South Yorkshire Railway at Althorpe.

1862: Opening of Barnetby School  on St Barnabas Road. 

1864: Brigg Town Football Club founded.

1865: Opening of United Methodist Church in Bigby Street, Brigg (demolished 1966). 

1867: First issue of the Hull Times weekly newspaper, later to become the Lincolnshire Times with offices in Brigg.


1868: Ancholme Rowing Club founded in Brigg.

1869: Grasby church rebuilt with money for from the vicar Charles Tennyson Sturner, brother of famous poet Lord Tennyson.

1870: First Elsham Show held in the grounds of Elsham Hall on August Bank Holiday.

1871: Building of Bigby School for D. H. Carey-Elwes.

1872: Road tolls abolished in Brigg. Building of the public elementary school, Elsham. Opening of Worlaby School. Closure of Kirton in Lindsey's House of Correction or jail. Founding of the Lincolnshire Farmers’ Company which produced fertilisers. In 1874 it united with flour and bone mill operators William Pigott and George Holmes at Brigg to form the Farmers’ Company.

1874: Building of Hibaldstow School on Redbourne Road.

1878: Brigg Grammar School enlarged. Thomas Bell company formed in Brigg.


1879: Brigg Subscription Band formed.

1880: Lincolnshire County Show held in Brigg.

1884: Ancient wooden trackway unearthed in Brigg.

1886: Prehistoric log boat unearthed during excavations to build a gasometer in Brigg. It was moved to Hull Museum in 1909 but destroyed by bombing during World War Two in 1942.

1889: Trade on River Ancholme up to Bishopbridge, a centre for farmers shipping corn, had virtually ceased after the arrival of the railway. Henry Spring began lemon curd manufacture in Brigg.

1893: Dunn’s shoe shop opened on Wrawby Street, Brigg.
George Layne established a cycle business in Market Lane, Brigg..

1894: Glanford Brigg Urban District Council created, taking on duties previously done by the Brigg Local Board and the Poor Law Union. Brigg Rural District Council served surrounding villages.

1894: Peacock and Binnington agricultural engineering company formed.

1897: Wallhead's outfitters established in Brigg.

1896: Rebuilding of  the front of the Angel Hotel in Brigg to simulate an older half-timbered building. Building of council school, North Kelsey. 

1898: Mock Tudor design added to the frontage of the Angel Hotel.

1899: Dunham's -  bakers and confectioners - established.

1900: First North Lincolnshire (Brigg) Music and Drama Festival held. 

1903: Brigg Amateur Operatic Society formed.


1904: Castlethorpe Mill damaged by fire.

1906: Joseph Taylor sang Brigg Fair at Brigg festival. The song was later orchestrated by Frederick Delius and was one of the many folk songs in the collection of Australian pianist and composer Percy Grainger who was a personal friend of Gervase Elwes.

1908: Laying of the foundation stone at the new Salvation Army Hall in West Terrace, Brigg, by Sir Berkeley Sheffield MP.

1910: Yarborough Mills on New River Ancholme destroyed by fire but subsequently rebuilt.

1911: Brigg Grammar School's boarding house extended.

1912: Building of the old infants' school, Scawby.

1913: Cadney Church reopened after restoration.

1915: Infirmary opened in Brigg by R. W. Godfrey, chairman of the Brigg Board of Guardians. It was later renamed Glanford Hospital. Converted into offices in 1991.



1917: Sergeant Frederick Hobson - "a native of Brigg" - was awarded the Victoria Cross for gallantry.

1918: David Quibell, who gave his name to Quibell Park, Scunthorpe, and later became Lord Quibell, elected to Parliament for the Brigg Division.

1919: Unveiling of Brigg War Memorial by Mrs Stamp, wife of Alderman Harry Stamp.
Girls' High School, Brigg, opened on Bigby Street. It moved in 1936 to a site on Wrawby Road. Brigg Peace Celebrations held, including a meal at the Angel for soldiers who had survived the conflict.

1920: Brigg Hockey Club founded. Work began on constructing council houses on Woodbine Avenue and Central Square.

1923: Long-serving licensee George Jobson took over the licence of the Queens Arms on Wrawby Street.

1924: W. A. Sass, automobile engineer, established a business at Monument Garage, Brigg.  Closure of Sutton and Bean Brewery at the Britannia Brewery  between Wrawby Street and Bigby Street, Brigg. The brewery  had been established in the 19th century by Frank R. Sutton of Scawby - later joined by Hull accountant William Ashby Bean. Brigg Women's Institute formed.

1928: Work started on building Brigg Sugar Factory - beet from local fields being processed.
Opening of the Grand Cinema on  Wrawby Street, Brigg. It closed in 1965.

1929: Glebe Road Junior School opened. Brigg Grammar School's wooden sports pavilion  built by pupils and staff.  Actress Dame Joan Plowright (Lady Olivier) was born in Central Square, Brigg.

1934: Brigg's first Trades Exhibition staged - at the Corn Exchange - attracted 2,000 visitors on the first day.  Glanford Boat Club formed.

1935: Soft drinks firm Lindsey Aerated Water Supply (LAWS) founded. Work started on building the Newlands estate for Brigg Urban District Council to house people living in town centre courtyards. Rent was six shillings a week.

1937: Ernest Taylor established his TV and radio repair/sales business in Brigg.


1938: Joseph J. Magrath - still remembered fondly today as Mr Brigg - appointed Town Clerk.  Decades later he was awarded the OBE. 

1939: First production staged by the Glanford Players.

1940: Kirton airfield opened as fighter base. Pilot Douglas Baader, who lost both his legs, posted there same month. He inspired the film Reach for the Sky. Work started on building of Hibaldstow Airfield.

1941: First plane touched down on Elsham Wolds airfield. The station closed in 1946. 

1944: Prompt action by Brigg signalman Walter Ward helped avert disaster when an ammunition train caught fire.

1945:  Margaret Horton had an unscheduled flight on the wing of a Spitfire at RAF Hibaldstow. 

1946: Corah's stocking factory opened in a former RAF hut.


1948: Sheila's Cottage - owned by a Brigg pub proprietor - wins the world famous Grand National horse race.

1953: Scawby pond filled in and became Coronation Gardens.

1955: Glanford School, Brigg, opened. 

1959: Westmoor School, Brigg, opened. H. B. Williams became headmaster of the Grammar School.

1960: Restoration work started on Wrawby Mill, worked by wind until 1939. The new Ancholme Inn, on Grammar School Road,  Brigg, opened.

1963: Brigg Stockmarket built between Cary Lane and Barnard Avenue.


1964: Brigg Town Band re-formed.

1965: Closure of the Grand Cinema in Brigg and Scawby & Hibaldstow railway station.

1966: St Mary's Roman Catholic Church, on Barnard Avenue, Brigg, dedicated. Demolition of United Methodist Church on Bigby Street, Brigg.

1967: Closure of Sergeant and Co brewery near the River Ancholme, Brigg. It had drawn water from a spring at  Castlethorpe.


1968: The Yarborough Hunt pub closed (years later to be re-opened, selling Tom Wood's ales brewed at Melton Ross).


1969: 300th anniversary of the founding of Brigg Grammar School marked by reopening the original schoolroom door.

1972: First scheduled passenger flights from Kirmington Airfield which became Humberside International Airport .

1973:  Nellie Clark retired after being at Brigg's Brocklesby Ox pub for 58 years - 31 as licensee.  Brigg Urban District Council improved its rented houses, beginning with the Newlands estate, installing central heating. South Kelsey Village Hall opened.

1974: Newly reformed Brigg Town Cricket Club played its first league season. Under local government re-organisation, Barton UDC was amalgamated with Brigg Urban District Council and Glanford Brigg Rural District Council to form Glanford Borough Council. Various Town and Parish Councils including Brigg Town Council were formed in the area. Humberside County Council became the top-tier authority.

1974/75: Coun Ken Pearce became the first Brigg Town Mayor. 

1975: Corah's hosiery factory in Brigg closed.

1976: Sir John Nelthorpe School, Brigg, established with the adoption of comprehensive education by Humberside County Council. It occupied the Brigg Grammar and Brigg Girls’ High School sites. Vale of Ancholme Comprehensive School created with sites on Redcombe Lane and Grammar School Road.

1977: The Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh visited Brigg and watched a pageant at the Recreation Ground.

1978: New Brigg police station opened on Barnard Avenue.  Brigg Town Cricket Club became the only division three team to win the Broughton Evening League Knockout Cup.

1980: Charles Shrosbree took over the Angel Hotel.

1981: Brigg's first sizeable supermarket opened - Grandways.

1985: Closure of the Lincolnshire & South Humberside Times newspaper and its offices at 57 Wrawby Street, Brigg.

1988: Lady Diana - The Princess of Wales - visited Brigg and unveiled a plaque to mark the start of the town's Regeneration Project.


1989: New Brigg Library opened on Old Courts Road. The contents of the closed Angel Hotel were auctioned at the Corn Exchange.

1991: Pending closure of Brigg Sugar Factory announced.

1993: Pedestrianisation of Brigg town centre - made possible by a new inner-relief road to take A18 traffic. Brigg railway line's passenger service reduced to one day a week. Elsham railway station closed, having opened in 1866.

1994: Demolition of Brigg Corn Exchange.

1996: Brigg Town Football Club - managed by 'Raz' Clayton - won the FA Carling Vase, beating Clitheroe 3-0 at Wembley stadium. North Lincolnshire Council created (with some offices in Brigg) and Humberside County Council disbanded.

1998: David Yelland, who was educated at Sir John Nelthorpe School, Brigg, between 1976 and 1981, became editor of top-selling national newspaper The Sun.

1999: Tesco opened its Brigg store.

2000: Brigg Farmers' Market launched. 

2001: Brigg Town FC battled through to the first round proper of the FA Cup for the only time in their long history but lost 4-1 away to Tranmere Rovers.

2003: Brigg Town FC won the FA Vase for a second time.