Sports Field
Earlier provisions for sport
The earliest record of an inter-school cricket match is of one between Boston Grammar School and The King's School, in 1866, and in the same year school sports were held for the first time. At one time the Lord Nelson field was used for games, but in 1913 a seven and a half acre field on Church Road was provided by the governors.
At the 1913 Speech Day the headmaster, James William Dyson said of the new field:
...the parents could scarecely appreciate the benefits that would accrue. In their present field they had not enough room for all the boys to play, and though they had three-quarters of the school keen to play, there had not been room for all, but now they would have plenty of room for all the boys. He could tell the parents that the games would be organised and the boys would be carefully looked after. There was not merely room for the first eleven, but room for the whole school, and he hoped everybody would play.
The distance from the school of the Church Road field was however an inconvenience.
This field was much later used as part of the playing field of Kitwood Boys School and is now the site of Boston Nursery School.
Acquisition and early years
In the mid-1930s the governors of the school began to give serious thought to possible future needs and, early in 1935, it was decided to open negotiations for the acquisition of land on the Fydell Rowley estate, adjoining and at the rear of the school. This was intended both for the erection of new classrooms, if required, and the provision of a new playing field, to replace that on Church Road. Negotiations dragged on for three years, though by 1936 it was known that the Board's officers were "quite in sympathy" with the proposals. Then, in February 1938, it was reported that the county's higher education sub-committee had approved two extensions at the school to provide for 350 pupils; and that May the Board sanctioned expenditure on acquiring and laying out a new playing field.
In the September, in the heat of the Sudetenland Crisis, the governors approved the country surveyor's scheme for fencing, levelling and laying out the new field, at an estimated cost of £2,500, and pressed for the work to be put in hand immediately. But with the threat of war, virtually the first job undertaken - by government order - was the digging of trenches on the field to provide protection in air raids. By their November meeting - with the war clouds seemingly blowing over - the governors considered a recommendation from the county surveyor that the trenches should be left and completed, "and they would then always be there for the use of the schoolboys at least". They did not agree, but took the view that "the trenches should be filled in, and the levelling and preparation of the ground proceeded with immediately".
The opening month of the war found the governors recommending the county council to have an additional air raid trench constructed at the school for the use of the boys; the public were to be allowed to use it out of school hours.
Then war was barely two months old when the county education committee gave consent for the new playing field to be ploughed up for food production purposes, and it was let out at an annual rent of £6-10s per acre.