FOND BRIGG MEMORIES OF COLTON STREET ON TODAY'S MENU

It's many years since the school canteen on Colton Street, Brigg, served its last meals to hungry pupils. However, many people educated in the town during past decades, and their teachers, will remember the filling school dinners served here, as will members of the catering staff who cooked and served them.
After modern facilities had been built elsewhere, the disused canteen buildings stood empty until the site (by then officially known as the Brigg Central Kitchen) was sold for redevelopment by North Lincolnshire Council. 

 

Attractive and tall town houses were eventually built (pictured here).
Nearby is Lindum Crescent - an earlier cul-de-sac housing development.

Many townsfolk will also remember the former births, marriages & deaths registration office which occupied land near the junction of Colton Street and Grammar School Road (now occupied by Brigg Children's Centre). The district education officer was also based here in the mid-1970s.
Turning the clock back further, Colton Street one boasted its own convenience shop near Ash Grove, owned by Coun George Hewson, which provided a valued service to Newlands estate residents in need of bread, milk and other provisions.
Folk living on Newlands could also stock up at the nearby Bowen's bakery, on Grammar School Road, which stocked groceries as well as making bread and cakes. This is now a residential property.
Hewson's shop later became Simpson's, still being open in the early 1980s. Eventually the premises were re-purposed for domestic use.
George Hewson, who served terms as the Mayor of Glanford and Brigg, had several local business interests over the years.
Cliff Turner, who shared his memories with Brigg Blog of growing up in the town 80-or-so years ago, departed in February 1941 by train to do his bit for King and Country.
"At the station, also waiting for the 8.13am train, was George Hewson who had been recalled to the navy at the beginning of the war as he had gone on the reserve after completing 12 years’ service as a stoker," Cliff explained.
"Mr Hewson came to Brigg on a painting contract, married a Brigg girl and then had a fish and chip shop in Glebe Road. His house at the end of Colton Street bordered on land which, in the mid-1930s, was used to build a large number of houses for people displaced by the slum clearance programme (a reference to Newlands - NF).
"Seizing the opportunity, he turned the front room of his house into a little grocer's shop and he was prospering when war came. I bet he regretted going on to the naval reserve.
"He sold the fish and chip business but his wife kept the grocery business going. After the war they continued to prosper, and he became quite a big fish in local politics."
George was bound for Chatham, Kent, in February 1941 and assured Cliff's father, on Brigg station, that he would ensure son crossed London safely to the Great Western's Paddington terminus.
Cliff, a former pupil of Brigg Grammar School, recalled: "On arrival at King’s Cross, Mr Hewson gave me the right instructions and I found myself in the Underground which I thought was an astounding feat of civil engineering. And so I reached Paddington and caught the train for Plymouth."
Cliff was bound for the Royal Navy Artificers Training Establishment.

PICTURED: Colton Street earlier this week, and archive views of some of the buildings now long gone but not forgotten.

 

The former births, marriages & deaths/education offices near Grammar School Road (premises since demolished).

Kingsway bungalows viewed from Colton Street near its junction with Ash Grove.