Summary
The Ship Tavern is a small brick-built public house located on Custom House Lane in Boston. It stands on part of the site of the old Dominican Friary, but no building is shown in this location on John Hall’s map of 1741.
Reasons for Designation
* Historic interest: The Ship Tavern dated to the early C19, and is known to have been a public house since that time. It stands on one of the narrow lanes leading to Boston's historic waterfront, within part of the site of the town's medieval Dominican Friary.
* Architectural interest: The building retains much external detailing consistent with a late C18 or early C19 date and evidence of its original interior layout prior to more recent amalgamation of its separate ground floor bars.
* Contextual interest: The building forms a component of Boston's historic port area, with river frontage wharfs and adjacent warehousing and other service buildings such as public houses ranged along the network of narrow lanes extending eastwards from the River Witham.
History
Despite some fluctuation in its fortunes Boston remained a prosperous port and market town from the middle ages into the C19, its social, economic and political history reflected in its town plan and buildings. From the C12 to the C15 it was one of the busiest ports in England, its wealth based principally on the trade in wool, cloth and luxury goods. Boston's market was first recorded between 1125 and 1135, and the annual fair was one of the great trade fairs of Europe. The medieval town grew around streets on either side of the River Witham, now the High Street to the west and South Street to the east. The latter opens to a wide market place to the north, from which narrow medieval lanes travel east and north to Church Street, St Botolph's Church and Wormgate.
The medieval period is represented by fragments of the Dominican friary surviving as the Blackfriars Arts Centre (Grade II*) on Spain Lane, the only visible evidence of the four friaries established in the town in the C12 and C13. Evidence of the town's thriving C14 and C15 engagement in the North Sea wool trade survives in the Guildhall (Grade I) of the Guild of St Mary, one of several religious guilds in the town at this period. Following the incorporation of Boston as a borough in 1545 and the dissolution of the religious guilds two years later, the assets of the Guild of St Mary, including the Guildhall, were transferred to the Corporation. Later C18 fen drainage and the construction of the Grand Sluice realised the value of the Corporation's estate; the increase in income funding significant building projects in the town, including the Exchange Buildings of 1770-1772 (formerly the Corporation Buildings) to the west of the Market Place (Grade II*). This renewed prosperity continued into the first half of the C19, when agricultural enclosure generated new wealth from a now highly productive rural hinterland. The corporation invested in further public building, notably the Assembly Rooms, completed in 1822 (Grade II*) to the north of the Exchange Buildings. The Grade II listed buildings that form an irregular terrace, 42-50 Market Place, also date to the first half of the C19, as do eight Grade II listed warehouses. Between the mid-C18 and mid-C19 the town's suburbs grew to the north-west and east of the Market Place, with limited development to the west of the river.
Boston continued to thrive economically until the construction of the railway in 1848; this brought a station and growth to the west of the town, but withdrew outgoing goods from the port. A new dock constructed by the corporation to the south of the town in 1884 renewed seaborne trade and brought development to an area of previously agricultural land. By the late C19 the town had reached almost its present extent. Although there was new building within the town in the C20, notably the construction of the inner ring road, John Adams Way, much historic fabric has been retained; this is reflected in the comprehensive coverage of Boston in the National Heritage List for England.
The Ship Tavern is a small public house located on Custom House Lane. The present List description dates the building to 1815, but it has undergone alteration since that time, with much of the present open-plan interior the result of late-C20 remodelling. The building stands on part of the site of the old Dominican Friary, but no building is shown in this location on John Hall’s map of 1741. The present roof line is set well below the upstanding gable brickwork, suggesting that the building has been re-roofed and its roof structure replaced or modified in recent years. The building was listed in 1974, and the List description refers to a pantile roof covering.
Details
MATERIALS: The building is built of brown brick laid to English bond with red brick dressings and has a slate roof covering.
PLAN: The Ship Tavern is L-shaped on plan, with an open-plan interior accessed from a central entrance on the front elevation.
EXTERIOR: The building is of two storeys and three bays, with a pedimented doorcase and slender rounded pilasters to the entrance, a C20 door and flanking tripartite windows with C20 glazing bar sashes. There are two matching windows to the upper floor and a blocked narrower window opening above the doorway. The windows are set beneath broad red-brick segmental-arched heads. The east gable has an attic window with a three-over-three pane sash frame. The rear wing has two large and one small window openings with undivided sash frames. The front range has ridge chimneys to each gable.
INTERIOR: The public house has been remodelled to create an open-plan interior. There is a central late-C20 bar counter and back bar, and front section of the building retains hearths to both end walls. There is a central entrance lobby and there are rear access passages to the toilets. Access to the cellar is located within the bar area, via a floor hatch and wooden steps. The cellar areas have low, flat ceilings, some areas with C20 wooden joists.
FIXTURES AND FITTINGS: There are C20 fixed upholstered benches to both ends of the front section of the building.
