The Old Dispensary, 2 Church Walk, Horncastle

Image: © Jo and Steve Turner Taken: 17 Apr 2011

Grade II Listed house and former dental surgery. A tuberculosis dispensary and Infant Welfare Centre, the first in the county, was founded Oct 28th 1789 by a preliminary meeting in the Bull Inn. This took formal shape on Dec. 3rd following, when the governing body was elected, consisting of Sir Joseph Banks, President, with Vice-Presidents the Honble. Lewis Dymoke, King’s Champion, Thomas Coltman, Esq., William Elmhirst, Esq., Treasurer, and Richard Clitherow, Gent., legal adviser; the Honorary Physicians being Edmund Laycock, M.D., and Edward Harrison, M.D., with Mr. John Chislett as Surgeon and Apothecary. The institution was to be open on Tuesdays and Saturdays from 11 a.m. till noon. The building was rented for the sum of five guineas a year, until it was purchased in Feb. 1810, for the institution, jointly by Dr. Harrison and the Rev. John Fretwell for £111 2s. 8d. Improvements were made in this building, at a cost of £13 5s., in 1812, and of £27 15s. 7d. in 1821. What is now the War Memorial Centre at 52 North Street was erected in 1866 as the new dispensary and in 1867 the old house in the churchyard was sold for £142 11s. 4d., and the new premises were occupied in the autumn of that year.

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