Nigel Fisher's Brigg Blog: THE CHANGING FACE OF BRIGG

Sunday, June 28, 2020

THE CHANGING FACE OF BRIGG - GLEBE ROAD

Continuing our new series outlining how Brigg streets have changed down the years, today we take a look at Glebe Road.
Glebe is an old English word for field or land - sometimes with ecclesiastical connections, relating to funding local clergy.
Glebe Road occupied former farmland, being developed on the edge of the town, with only Brigg Grammar School and some properties on Grammar School Road for company.
A contemporary report in 1884 noted that cottages were being built near the school - thought to be a reference to Glebe Road.
More residential properties were to be added in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
However, the most significant building work culminated, in 1929, with the opening of Glebe Road School, provided by Lindsey County Council and overseen by its Education Committee. This was explained by an inscription embedded in the brickwork on the side of one of the classrooms.
The 1920s and 1930s saw Brigg Urban District Council embark on a scheme to provide an estate of properties for families to rent - bordered by Wrawby Road, Grammar School Road and Glebe Road. These homes provided many pupils for the new school.
Glebe Road has seen a number of shops in its time, although today just one convenience store remains; Mrs Gray ran it in the 1960s when it served as the school tuck shop as well as meeting the needs of local families for bread, milk and other provisions.
Brigg Blog is sure some long-standing town residents must be the same as me when they drive down Grammar School Road and get to Glebe Road corner; we still expect to see the gold-painted lion (ceramic or metal?) which used to be perched on the brick wall above the postbox.
It was very much a feature of Brigg when the Proctor family had the nearby house, and the shop just round the corner in Glebe Road. This stocked items for cycles into the 1960s; long before that, we think that batteries had been charged for household radios.
For many decades, Glebe Road residents only needed to undertake a short walk to visit a butcher (on their doorstep) and a baker (Bowen's being just around the corner on Grammar School Road). There was no candlestick maker but light fittings could be installed by Bowness & Gray, midway down Glebe Road.
This street had a hairdresser's and even a Co-op outlet for some time.
Evy's chippie became popular in the 1960s and 1970s. And these fast food premises are currently being refurbished.
Glebe Road School closed in 2007, being replaced by a new build on Atherton Way.
This removed considerable early morning and late afternoon congestion along Glebe Road but 'traffic calming measures' were retained, perhaps to deter its use as a cross-town shortcut by those motorists with local knowledge.
A new housing development was created off Glebe Road on part of the former school site.
As many residential properties, including some of the terraced variety, were built in an era before car ownership became common, parking provision eventually became an issue with lock-up garages being provided by a private venture on nearby land and also by the council at the West Square end.Long-serving Glebe Road School teacher, John Holland, wrote a fine book about the original seat of learning, featuring a range of nostalgic pictures from the mid-1960s onwards.
PICTURED: A striking air view of Glebe Road, Brigg, taken by Neil Stapleton. The former Grammar School boarding house is a well-known landmark.
View part one in this series - Queen Street, Brigg, though this link...