The sheep-sitting, chicken custody and cat-caring continued. Our second week in Old Bolingbroke was halfway through and in spite of the sea only being about thirteen and a half miles away as the crow, or the seagull, flies we hadn't seen it. It's not that Mrs Bygone Boozer and I hadn't been to see it, it's just that when we arrived in Skegness the sea happened to be at its most distant point in its twice-daily reciprocating journey. We therefore felt that we ought to give it another go. Chapel St. Leonards was to be the target this time
So it was sun up, then up to the sheep, back down to the chickens before hitting the ups and downs of the wolds...
...and onto the flatter lands nearer the coast. As we rounded a bend on High Road in Sloothby this house, with a post and no sign, came into view.
Not a dead pub, but probably a dead Regent filling station. Regent was the only brand whose sign was a roundel that I can recall from my youth. They were replaced with the elongated hexagon of Texaco after they'd ended up with full ownership of Regent in 1967. Examination of old Ordnance Survey maps on return to Old Bolingbroke found one which did mark a filling station at this point.
Onward we pedalled, through Hogsthorpe, eventually reaching Chapel Point and its North Sea Observatory. After twenty-five miles through the November air we needed a bit of warming up. Surely there'd be a café inside. Mrs BB went off to investigate. I could tell by her expression when returning that a source of caffeine and sustenance had been located...
...and, from inside, we could see beach and the sea whilst waiting for our second breakfasts to arrive.
Bellies full, and with caffeine levels topped up, it was back outside to get a fuller picture of the Great British seaside...
..before heading back inland.
This post is titled Sun, Sea and Sand. We've seen the sand, we've seen the sea, but what about the sun? Well, our return leg of the journey took us through Bratoft where we passed this building...
...with this sign on its wall.
It just had to be. And it was.
For all my digging and delving I haven't been able to find when Mr John Henery Kirkby was in residence, but I have been able to establish that the pub was in operation in 1851 when William Skelton was shown to be there in that year's census.
There seemed to have been little real stability in landlord, for each new publication of a directory and each new census threw up different name, until the 1911 one shows us that Ada Watson was there.
A couple of years earlier, Kelly's 1909 directory had listed a John Watson as being at the Rising Sun. Was he a relative? If he was, I've been unable to establish a link.
The 1939 Register shows that Ada and Walter were still at the Rising Sun and so Ada would've been subject to a change of landlord during her tenancy when the house passed into the ownership of Wainfleet brewers, George Bateman and Sons.
The rising sun wasn't as important to us as the setting sun was. We needed to be back in Old Bolingbroke before the sun disappeared to make sure that Tiffany et al were safely cooped up in their coop before the foxing hour. Our sunset time was about 5pm. Quite when the sun set on the Rising Sun I don't know, but it certainly hasn't risen again.
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