150 years of Bournes in Rye. Pictures and stories from the archive

As Bournes Moves celebrates 150 years of service in Rye, Kirsty Parsons looks back at the series of properties in and around the town that formed the backbone of the family business. Each site holds a unique place in the company’s history and this week we look at the firm’s humble beginnings in Bridge Place and the moves to Tower Street and Eagle Road where two calamitous fires led to the firm setting up a new base at Rock Channel and the more recent Bournes building of today at Rye Harbour. More on that next week.

Bridge Place (c.1875–1880s) – the origins

Bournes began life in Bridge Place, where founder Thomas Bourne lived with his family. A house with a large garden, it supported the earliest form of the business, carrying homegrown fruit and vegetables to market in Hastings and returning with goods for the Rye community.

Tower Street (1880s–1960s) – from family home to Bournes Stores

Bournes’ presence on Tower Street began in the late 19th century, following the acquisition of a local coal business and adjoining gardens at the foot of Conduit Hill. This move established Tower Street as the company’s base for decades to come.

The family home had now moved to 1 Tower Street which also served as the company’s office. 14 Tower Street was purchased in the early 1900s and became both the company’s registered office and the home of Alice and Tom Bourne junior, with adjoining yard and stables used as the operations depot.

Over time, 1 Tower Street passed into the hands of a third-generation Bourne sister (also Alice), who already owned 2 Tower street and converted both buildings into a small shop and home trading under the name Bournes Stores, selling tobacco, confectionery and groceries.

In 1957, a new two-storey warehouse was constructed across the yard at the bottom of Tower Street – a bold move to support growing storage needs. That building still stands today and is now home to Merchant & Mills. However, its commercial potential was hindered by a planning restriction as Eric Bourne, one of the 4th generation of the family to work at the company explains. “Planning permission included a condition that no vehicles were to be parked or loaded / unloaded in Tower Street. Circumstances often made this difficult to comply with, and, as Tower Street had two-way traffic at the time, obstructing the roadway for too long didn’t win many popularity votes as traffic queues soon developed in both directions.”

Tower Street was also home to one of Bournes’ early competitors: Wright and Pankhurst, who operated out of a Victorian depository built further up the road. Their business declined by the end of the 1950s, and the building was later leased to Deans Rag Book Company before taking on its current identity as Webbe’s at The Fish Café.

Eagle Road (late 1940s–1980s) – growth, fire, and transition

Following the challenges of operating from Tower Street, Bournes expanded in the late 1940s into the former Leney’s Eagle Brewery site in Eagle Road. This marked a significant phase of growth, as the site offered space for vehicles, materials, warehousing, and eventually office operations.

By 1950, planning permission was granted to build a garage extension to house four
lorries and two coaches.

“In this era, it seems very unusual to erect a building to house trucks,” says Eric, “but
at that time, the petrol-powered lorries were often difficult to start on damp mornings
resulting in regular drying of the coil and spark plugs with a blowlamp or towing the
vehicle around the streets until it started. In the late 1950s, in one of these situations
my father was using a starting handle to ‘swing’ an engine over one morning, when it
kicked back violently, hitting his lower arm and breaking his wrist. Not unusual in
those circumstances.”

In 1953, a new 500 sq. ft. office was added to the south side of the building, which
replaced Tower Street as the company’s registered office. This signalled a shift away
from the cramped domestic setting of 14 Tower Street to a more commercial base of
operations.

Throughout the 1950s and into the early 1960s, Eagle Road became a hub of activity, storing everything from furniture and removal goods to more unconventional items as a result of nearby Rye Railway station’s significant freight operation, including shoddy (a woollen mill by-product) and slag (a dusty coal-mining by-product). There was also animal feed and fertiliser, notably through a five-year contract with ICI involving 500 tons of bagged fertiliser annually, stacked to the warehouse apex using an electric elevator.

The depot also supported the coach hire side of the business. For years, the company’s 32-seater and later 41-seater Commer coaches operated from this site, serving everything from school runs to transporting hop pickers from East London.

However, the site also witnessed some of Bournes most challenging moments.

The fires at Eagle Road

The first fire, thought to have been caused by an electrical fault, broke out on the evening of February 1, 1966, an event remembered vividly in Rye, and by Eric: “Just after 7pm… a telephone call to Mill Place, then the family home, notified us that the warehouse in Eagle Road was on fire. We rushed to the scene and found the two Rye fire appliances already on site with flames already shooting through the roof. The building was quickly unlocked to make access easier, the two trucks parked alongside the office and garage building were moved away and essential paperwork was recovered from the office. However, the prompt arrival and action of the retained firemen from Rye stifled the fire and prevented it from spreading to the two floors below or out into the garage area. Although the roof had burnt out, there was limited smoke and water damage but given the circumstances this was a small price to pay.”

A second fire occurred in May 1974 in the early hours of a Sunday morning. “I was woken by my cousin to advise that there were small explosions and flames through the roof of the building. I went straight there and found Rye fire brigade already on site with two pumps. I managed to open the garage and office doors for them… whilst I moved the two lorries parked immediately outside the building. We then set about moving as much as we could out of the office to preserve the paperwork,” said Eric.

Crews from Broad Oak and Hastings joined the response, successfully containing the fire to the old part of the warehouse. Goods stored in the garage area suffered smoke and water damage. The fire originated near a boarded-up window adjacent to G. Burnham and Sons, a neighbouring builder with a joinery department. The cause remained unresolved.

The aftermath took its toll. Around 70 to 80 customers had goods involved. The stress of the event deeply affected Stan Bourne (third generation), as Eric explains: “While the insurance assessors dealt with the majority of claims my father remained the company’s point of contact which affected his health in the long term… After this he gradually withdrew from the mainstream running of the business before making his decision to withdraw from owning and managing the business in 1978.”

Transition to Rock Channel

Although the new Rock Channel depot that was in development was not quite ready at the time of the second fire, it was quickly made secure. The business relocated its office into the new warehouse and shifted goods there in the following weeks – with phone lines added the business moved to Rock Channel in July or August, albeit not in the way they had expected or envisaged.

By the mid-1980s, the Eagle Road site was sold. Its legacy as a place of expansion,
innovation, and hard-learned resilience remains a pivotal chapter in the Bournes
story.

Next week in part two of our history of Bournes we’ll have the story of the firm’s time at Rock Channel and the move to the building we know today at Rye Harbour. Many thanks to Eric Bourne for sharing the stories and to Kirsty Parsons from Bournes for compiling the archive and feature.

What’s your story? At 150 years old, Bournes is probably the oldest firm in Rye so many in the Rye community will have their own memories of these places—whether working at the depots, visiting the auction gallery, or seeing the lorries pass through town. Leave a comment below as we continue to reflect on the town’s shared history.

Image Credits: Bournes .